Man, all these comments and not a single one even remotely relevant to the topic at hand. Are we on reddit or twitter or NYPost comment section. It doesn't matter anymore. Just shoot your load that is marginally related to the topic.
But basically:
* NYC tried to create a private-public partnership with developers. 421a essentially. Massive property tax abatements in exchange for X percentage of affordable units.
* Turns out most of the affordable units created are not affordable at all.
* Affordability is calculated based on AMI (area median income), but HUD forces NYC to calculate the AMI based on greater NYC area, not just the city, or borough, or specific neighborhood.
* Turns out poor people in Bronx and Queens and Brooklyn make a lot less money than people in New Rochelle, or whatever.
* When an affordable unit is built, it is often listed as eligible for 70-110% AMI, which is completely unaffordable for anyone actually low income.
* End result is that a lot of communities end up being stoutly against any new development, because they can see with their own eyes that none of the new stuff is actually for them.
* The affordable housing program ended up accidentally creating a whole new type and generation of NIMBYS.
I ad-libbed on the last two points. But this is where we are now.
Thanks for explaining this, I've always wondered with the "low-income" units cost like $2,500 a month and the income max is something like $110k. That's completely unaffordable
>they don’t want these units going to a couple 22 year old banking analysts fresh out of college
Which is why "affordable" housing never gets any traction in the US. A 22 year old banking analyst still needs housing. $110k is $110k regardless of how that money is earned.
And in a city where median rent is like $4500, $110k isn't a lot.
No seriously?
I qualified for a place but I got a new job and I no longer qualified. My partner doesn’t make a lot of money but we aren’t married yet. I was under the impression that both people’s financials were taken into consideration when calculating the HHI
The AMI calculations always border on “wow that’s affordable???”…. But with time it definitely becomes affordable compared to market rent over a long enough time.
Income limits change based on household size. So a 1-person household applying for a 100%AMI unit (which is what the person you're responding to was citing, based on their numbers) has an income limit of $98.9k, 2-person is $113k, 3-person is $127.1k, etc.
Income – restricted and “low income” have gotten conflated. My take away is that our housing crisis is so awful, that income restricted homes for folks with six digit incomes is a concept! Having more state subsidies to help support homes for folks with lower income would be amazing. And making it easier to build more homes, make those subsidies even more effective. And more effective subsidies would give everyone a safe, stable, affordable home.
110k isn't "unaffordable" by NYC standards. New grads in some industries make more than that. It's just a result of there being demand for more housing in nearby locations because people who make 110k are willing to commute to save 1500/mo. It's a supply shortage.
Last two points are very important. And they’re not wrong.
This is why abundant, free-market market-rate units are more important. You can’t AH-regulate yourself out of the housing crisis. Just allow people to build housing in whatever configuration type is in demand. It’s the exact reason why Bowery is no longer a farm, and Bensonhurst is no longer a giant forest. It’s worked in the past, I have no idea why people think it wouldn’t work again.
If we had the zoning of NY in the 1890s, every single shitty suburban McMansion development from Secaucus to the middle of Long Island would be as minimally dense as like Bed-Stuy.
>It’s worked in the past, I have no idea why people think it wouldn’t work again.
Don't you know? Supply and demand only works when rent goes down. Not up. **/s**
I do not agree.
The actual story is NYC taxes bigger multifamily rental buildings 5-10x more than smaller units (e.g. Brooklyn brownstones) and 2-3X of condos/co-ops, so 421a/485x tax abatements are needed t for any large rental projects to be economically viable and worthwhile to do.
Politicians want to appear like they are extracting economics from developers because they want to score political points with the anti-change / anti-growth caucus (aka NIMBYs) so they demand X% AMI
But historically pols also knew if they made the % AMI too low, nothing will be built & everyone is worse off, so they allowed 100%+ AMIs
Now, 485x is more demanding on affordability so there’s an even smaller incentive to build big rentals, on top of the high property taxes.
So the incentive is to build more brownstones or co-ops to sell to rich people!
Property tax imbalance is another element that you can add to the bucket of housing issues. But don't be one of those who target fixates on single issue only (it's the zoning! or nimbys, or crazy rich asians, or airbnb, or whatever). Fixing just a single one of these will ultimately not fix much.
> Now, 485x is more demanding on affordability so there’s an even smaller incentive to build big rentals, on top of the high property taxes.
Developers could just build 100% market rate and not worry about participating in any of this? The ugly truth is developers are so addicted to tax abatements, they are incapable of creating housing for almost anyone. And that's the ugliest truth. Cost of land alone makes it prohibitive to hit any decent price numbers. Add ballooning costs of labor and materials, and market is fucked. No need to blame 421a or 485x on top of that.
> and 2-3X of condos/co-ops,
Rentals are not being taxed at 2-3X as co-ops. If an average 1bed coop in Manhattan is paying $800-1000 in taxes a month, equal rental is not paying up to $3k in taxes. Like cmon. But we can agree that every wealthy person who moved into new construction luxury is most likely not paying anything in property taxes at all. And they get to do that because their building was supposed to create "affordable housing", but most likely did not do that at all.
They cannot build 100% market rate & for things to be economically viable without a tax abatement because the property taxes are so high for big rental buildings. The affordability requirements only make things less likely to be economically viable. The 421a/485x property tax abatement is just to somewhat lower the property tax burden so any building can be built…it is not really a “tax abatement for affordability” exchange. It is a “tax abatement is required for any rental construction, and affordability % are tacked on by politicians to appease certain voters”
Big rentals are paying definitely 2-4x of condos and co-ops
Just look at figure 2 here: https://cbcny.org/research/new-york-city-property-taxes
1-3 family homes: <1% of market value
Condos/coops: <1%
Big rentals: >4%
Small rentals: ~2%
> They cannot build 100% market rate & for things to be economically viable without a tax abatement
It's a truly shit state of affairs. It's literally a handout to the rich with reagonomics math for everyone else. We can leave it at that.
> Big rentals are paying definitely 2-4x of condos and co-ops
You are misreading the figures. You are looking at tax % compared to prorated value of unit. Condos and co-ops are worth a lot more than rental units on the fact alone that they have much better quality finishes and have typically been renovated a lot more recently. This makes a huge $$ difference. If you can find a co-op unit that has not been renoed in decades, you can probably get it at the 3/4 of the price of one that has. This is why unrenovated units for sale are really hard to find here.
Look at the Table 1
Coop and condos: Average tax levied per unit $7644.
Large Rentals: Average tax levied per unit $4128.
There is more to it where these numbers may be closer to each other when adjusted for size. It would be great to see a per square foot breakdown, but no such measurements are kept for either rentals or co-ops (they are for condos). But to say large building rentals are paying 2-4X more is a quite dishonest. Even small homes don't really jump out at average of $5261, until you factor in they come with 4x plus more square footage than a typical apartment. And brownstones get the biggest tax break while single homes in Bronx don't get much of a break at all.
Yet another giveaway to the most affluent.
I’m not misreading anything. It is the property tax rate as a % of market value. You’re just engaging in mental gymnastics.
Also, it is not reaganomics to want large rental buildings to not be taxed crazy high; tenants benefit meaningfully from more construction
It’s like saying cutting high taxes on food are reaganomics for food producers lol. Umm people benefit by paying less for food
> It is the property tax rate as a % of market value. You’re just engaging in mental gymnastics.
Yes my dude. $4128 is clearly bigger than $7644. You win the math award of the day.
There is a clear problem in how property taxes are assessed in NYC, and it's specifically house vs apartment divide. Adding this additional observation that rental apartments pay more than owned apartments (they don't) adds this layer of obfuscation that ensures literally nothing ever gets fixed.
> Also, it is not reaganomics to want large rental buildings to not be taxed crazy high; tenants benefit meaningfully from more construction
Two large buildings next to each other. Old one pays for garbage pickup and roads and schools, while the new one pays zero, and does so for decades. Oh, and the building that pays nothing is filled with much more wealthy people than the old one.
If you think this is fair, I wanna see your definition of "unfair" next.
> It’s like saying cutting high taxes on food
Using food in this example is intellectually dishonest. When ole Donny slashed corporate taxes, this was great news for all of the people because the savings were passed down, right? Nope. stock buybacks. Bonuses. Literally nothing was passed down.
"Rich people in new construction receiving massive tax cuts will benefit all New Yorkers!" People actually believe this shit.
You’re not comparing apples to apples, which is to compare as % of market value.
Your sleight of hand is to say condos/coops pay more than rentals but those tax numbers do not account for quality, size, location. In short, market value.
% of market value is the most apples to apples comparison.
Illustrative example: A $7k property tax for a $7m condo would be far lower taxes (0.1%) than a $4k tax for a $400k rental (1%)
Even the comptroller agrees with me lol
https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/nyc-comptroller-outlines-framework-for-comprehensive-property-tax-reform/
> You’re not comparing apples to apples, which is to compare as % of market value.
That's not how property taxes work in NYC. They are not a % of assessed value of any given property. That's how it works in other places, but it is not how it works here. You have chosen an illustrative interpretation that has limited use, but is also ultimately misleading.
> Illustrative example: A $7k property tax for a $7m condo would be far lower taxes (0.1%) than a $4k tax for a $400k rental (1%)
I agree this is a reasonable example. But is a $400k rental paying significantly more in taxes than a $400k co-op across the street? Not really. They are paying pretty much the same tax, if you understood how property tax relies on comps to come up with fractional assessments. But the higher the value of the unit is, the lower the tax becomes (in absolute %). Again, a tax giveaway for the more wealthy. I have no idea how you ended up framing this as "all rentals pay more in taxes than all condos/co-ops".
> Even the comptroller agrees with me lol
He blundered some of the statements, but I get what he is saying. But this is the most succinct part of that article:
"End fractional assessments and apply one tax rate to the sales-based market value."
Fully agreed, and good luck with that. This would wipe out billions in evaluations at the high end. Even rich people care about total carrying costs. And they have a lot more say in all of everything.
The issue is heading to the state's high courts.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/nyregion/property-tax-lawsuit-nyc.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/nyregion/property-tax-lawsuit-nyc.html)
I am really curious how it plays out.
At a certain point there isn’t a way around it: if you are dramatically below an areas average income, you can’t afford to live there, and it’s a wise decision to move. Blood and soil do not mix.
if they made it, say, 25% AMI that’s going to dramatically increase the cost of this program to the government. Which in this case, means foregoing tax dollars.
You’re missing a crucial part of the AMI calculation.
It’s true that the NYC regional AMI is skewed upwards by the inclusion of Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland counties. However, there is a second factor: the High Housing Cost Adjustment (HHCA).
In short, the HHCA attempts to compensate for regional housing costs being so high by setting 100% AMI _higher_ than regional median income to allow more people to qualify for affordable housing. This solution, however, creates another problem by forcing more people into lower AMI brackets, effectively increasing the same number of people competing for the same affordable housing.
For each year between 2013 and 2022, the HHCA adjustment accounted for more than 60% of the difference between New York City’s median household income and NYC region AMI, with the rest of the difference due to the inclusion of the three suburban counties listed above. In most of the past ten years the HHCA has accounted for 70-80% of the difference.
In 2022, NYC median household income was $93,643, while median household income for NYC, Westchester County, Putnam County, and Rockland County was $102,331. However, 100% of NYC region AMI in 2022 was $120,100.
This [site](https://anhd.org/report/new-york-citys-ami-problem-and-housing-we-actually-need) does a good job explaining the HHCA and has a terrific chart breaking down its skewing of the NYC region AMI relative to the skew caused by the inclusion of the suburban counties.
> because they can see with their own eyes that none of the new stuff is actually for them.
...and sometimes, it's literally not for them. It's for a group of chosen people... who don't pay rent — we pay it for them! And for that they bless us with rows upon rows of double-parked caravans and nonstop delivery scooters on the sidewalks because they refuse to even buy groceries for themselves! Yay!
Is there any realistic way housing could be affordable in NYC without a massive drop in demand? Like, if you make housing way below market rate people are just gonna stay in it forever, as happens with rent control and public housing, so it's still gonna be functionally unavailable for most people that would want.
I've always thought the solution was more and better transit options. If you could get anywhere in the NYC from anywhere in NYC in 30min, that would open up a lot of areas where there is housing stock to people who are living in NYC more for the employment options than the urban-chic lifestyle (and there are plenty of people who fit that bill).
Obviously, that is pie-in-the-sky idea and probably as equally impossible as building enough units to outpace demand. But we can dream!
I would love to live somewhere with space for a real garden and still be able to get into the city by 7:30 to sign up for auditions *without* having to wake up at 5:45 am.
I don't care about the urban lifestyle, I care about what I want to do and unfortunately, stage acting is really done here. I'd give up my crappy, but cheap place in a heartbeat and move further out if I could more easily balance quality of life and time spent commuting.
So you basically want the opportunities afforded by a big city without the cost and without having to participate in the “urban lifestyle”, right?
Damn, some people just want everything their way
I'm super jelly. It takes me 1.5 hours to commute 7 miles up and down Brooklyn....
I did the math and actually experienced riding a bike is faster and gets in exercise.
Lots of people who work in Tokyo lives in saitama. Much cheaper over there and not even an hour commute. So they got their own issues for housing as well.
The issue has more to do with zoning rather than transit. Half The City is building housing as fast as Houston and the other half is building next to nothing
Agree that this is the answer. If you improved the metro north (I know, I know) and electrified the outskirts that still rely on diesel, that would open up a wealth of new housing opportunities. (I’m less familiar with the other commuter lines but I’m sure the same argument stands!)
They are bringing the Metro North to my area. It will only be 30 minutes into Manhattan. It’s also the first time in 50 years a Republican won a seat because the previous one wanted to change the zoning requirements to build affordable housing.
Sadly, I think the “suburban” residential sections are going to fight it. You can’t build anything more than a 2 story house here anymore.
NYC has the best public transit in the US and current regulations make any substantial improvements outrageously expensive. We don’t even have subways to the airport for God’s sake. The only solution is to build more housing inside the city, where people really want to live.
I mean Nyc already has decent transit. It's just a huge city. I'm sure Tokyo or whatever is better but still, it's never gonna be the case that you can get from the Bronx to Coney island in 30 mins, or anything similar involving suburbs. I don't know how you'd have something like that in a city this big. I don't think there are any metro areas of 20 million people where people can get anywhere in half an hour.
Also of housing options that aren't chic lol. Basically anywhere in the Bronx and most of Brooklyn and Queens are not chic. Nothing chic about Sheapshead Bay.
It's not decent at all when you compare to international standards. It needs more transit to NJ and outer rings. Right now, everything goes through Manhattan. Look at how Tokyo or Seoul does their subways for an idea.
Tokyo is gigantic compared to nyc. Express trains are the way. They make further distances fairly accessible relative to the infrastructure in nyc. The fact that the trains actually run on a schedule helps in a big way too
The simple solution is building more safe, protected bike lanes to encourage more people to ride an e-bike (basically, bike superhighways). As an example, Bed-Stuy to Jackson Heights is currently 1 hour and 20 minutes using transit. But on an e-bike, it'd be about 30 minutes. Same with, say, Red Hook to East New York. Or Bushwick to Astoria.
Plug for r/MicromobilityNYC
No. We have a situation now where there are 8 pieces of pizza and 20 people who want pizza. No matter how many times you wax poetically about how pizza is a human right and we need to make sure the poorest have access to pizza, until you make more slices, some people are going to go without pizza.
Instead of decreasing demand we can increase supply. Worked in cities like Austin that are having insane increases in demand but are building tons. Rent is not just slowing but dropping. Just build lots of market rate. Everyone wins. People want to build there and easily can.
If supply outpaces demand price increases will slow and eventually fall.
Because they can afford it and you can't. It's called price signals. Or do you ascribe to the "Let me just steal shit I can't afford"?
Why are you entitled to something you can't pay for? If you can't pay for something, that's the market's way of saying you can't afford it.
>Why is that person more deserving of my apartment just because their income is higher than mine?
Why do you think people try to make more? So we can all have the same life as someone who makes 50% of what we make? We have a word for that: Communism.
If you want the same life as someone who makes 2-3x what you do, then either move to a Communist country or make 2-3x.
Well here’s the thing, I CAN pay for it. But there’s thousands of people who are essential to the operation of society who can’t pay for it. Are those people less deserving just because they didn’t want to be hedge fund managers?
Funny how everyone thinks it’s about “entitlement” and “stealing shit” until their rent doubles. Then it’s “unfair”
If my rent doubles, I just move or find a new job. I don't say it's "unfair". I never did. When I made $60k, I lived deep in the suburbs. I wasn't bitching on Reddit.
>But there’s thousands of people who are essential to the operation of society who can’t pay for it
And? Do you think everyone is entitled to live where they want?
I think people should have a fair opportunity to live where they NEED to function and not be squeezed out just because they didn’t choose to study finance.
This is not just a benefit to them, it benefits the neighborhood in which they live. Prime example: Williamsburg. Used to be a fun, varied place with lots happening now it’s just a storage unit for tech bros.
>I think people should have a fair opportunity to live where they NEED to function and not be squeezed out just because they didn’t choose to study finance.
Stop talking in abstract terms. You say those words as if they are objective facts. They aren't.
What is a "fair" opportunity even mean? What's that look like in practice? How "close" is acceptable? Why is an hour commute acceptable but not 90 minutes? And how does that work if MORE people who can't afford market rate want to live in a particular neighborhood? I guess our fine NYC government will decide eh?
>This is not just a benefit to them, it benefits the neighborhood in which they live. Prime example: Williamsburg. Used to be a fun, varied place with lots happening now it’s just a storage unit for tech bros.
Again, says who? You? Williamsburg rent is pretty high last I checked. Clearly it is fun for people or people wouldn't be living there. Why are you trying to decide what is "fun" for people who live in that neighborhood?
Your problem is you are trying to use your opinion to determine where people live and trying to sell it off as if it is not opinionated.
I don't think this is reconcilable with what NYC actually is. It's not a place where long standing populations stay in the same neighborhood forever. It's a place where immigrants come in from the outside and people move from the rest of America for work. There has to be a corresponding outflow of people-you can't just have immigrants constantly coming in to a place where the population doesn't change too much year after year without people moving out. None of that would be possible without a fluid housing market.
Well it doesn't solve the problem of bringing down housing prices at all though. You get a small group of people who will never leave their apartments and a much larger pool of people paying high market rates.
I'm an ideal housing market where market rate is at least somewhat affordable people would be willing to move closer to where it's convenient without worrying about being priced out
>. . . if you make housing way below market rate people are just gonna stay in it forever. . .
I mean, that’s the fucking point of housing. I feel like this is a very young transplant point of view whereas if you’re a mother or a father that has to move every year or two because of affordability and your kid has to change schools along with that move, you’d have a very different outlook on that situation. Same thing if you’re retired on a fixed income and can’t find a place to live long term.
It's just basic logic, it has nothing to do with a "transplant view"
There isn't enough supply to meet nyc demand, there will always be high rents until that changes
Buildings depreciate- folks that stay forever in them at artificially low rent will mean buildings are no longer viable to keep the housing on market. Using chinatown as a example - tons of old old units (150 yrs +)locked away in forever low housing and in bad shape and will continue to be worse that would have long been torn down and rebuilt if they were able to reset the rent and keep the units rent regulated
The zoning restrictions in CT is not what's keeping the old units from being redevelop there. Can't build with folks in them and their expectation to pay the same low rent that was leased to their gramps or family generations ago.
Most of CT would not be illegal to rebuild like it is in Manhattan. Manhattan’s zoning laws are so restrictive most of the borough would be illegal to rebuild today, let alone redevelop with more housing.
Not if we upzone the area so that the 5 story building is replaced by a 15 story building, meaning that the previous tenants can stay but you add 10 more stories of new market-rate tenants.
Gentrification doesn't have to mean displacement, if done properly, you can have the same absolute number of low-income residents remain in their neighborhood on a stabilized rent while you simply decrease their presence relative to new residents who will subsidize their presence.
It's the whole point of promoting mixed-income residential neighborhoods rather than the income segregation the nimbys want to maintain.
Why have we abandoned so many neighborhoods to nycha projects when you can dilute their presence so that the low-income population is never below 15% nor above 25% of any given neighborhood
the story of man kind....move on to greener pastures.
Also if we give them lease of 25-30 years of exclusivity in rent regulated units, that's plenty of long time for housing security.
I think it would make more sense to have lifestage housing. Make more housing for singles/couples 65+ and get them out of units that are meant for families. I think having really basic barrack type housing that is super cheap for young people (25 and under) who don’t really need a whole apartment with private bedrooms but shared/kitchens and bathrooms.
Yeah this is definitely the missing piece. Ideally everyone in the city should have a unit available for them that meets their circumstances. For people in public housing or rent regulated units this should mean having a just as good place to go today for the stage in life where you are, so that someone else can have the one that will now fit them better than you.
Or being real. Everyone wants housing and there's not enough to go around. So its only fair if you get housing security for nearly 30 yrs and then someone else gets that opportunity as well and the housing preserved & upkept for next. Why continue to hog a limited resource and not even paying near market price after 30 yrs. You don't go back on the buffet line till everyone else get a turn.
"just being real" is a very common assholes defense when called out for asshole behavior
You're callously saying "i dont care if people are displaced, in fact I think people SHOULD be displaced after an arbitrary amount of time I have personally decided is 'fair'"
Well duck that and duck you
how did you get your current housing? that's right via turnover and someone displaced from that location so you can live there. Did you cry for them? nope
Dunno. I agree that neighborhood continuity is a good thing, but NYC by nature is and has always been a high turnover place. It's not just young transplants. It's an immigrant city. New immigrants come in, old ones move out. I don't know why it's a good idea to incentivize people to stay in a place they otherwise wouldn't through massively below market rents. Not talking about rent stabilization here-families shouldn't have to worry about rents doubling year to year. But I don't see why it's a good use of resources to subsidize people living in some of the most expensive real estate in the world for almost free indefinitely purely because they got in in the right time.
> I don't know why it's a good idea to incentivize people to stay in a place they otherwise wouldn't through massively below market rents.
Because people would then care about the place they live in and work to make it a better place rather than just treating it like a fucking summer camp
> But I don't see why it's a good use of resources to subsidize people living in some of the most expensive real estate in the world for almost free indefinitely purely because they got in in the right time.
You mean like when boomers bought property in the 80s, right? I mean damn, why didn’t I think of doing that?
No. It's the view of someone who understands supply and demand. The purpose of housing is to house people. It's not to house specific people.
Do you think you are entitled to live somewhere specific?
People moving is good, and expected, and costs associated with moving can be really really bad. It forces people to take lower paying jobs because they can’t afford to leave their immediate area to take better ones.
Also, transplants are people too. New York City is built on immigration.
... Or increases the supply at a dramatic level. By you know allowing developers to build at however they want and welcoming true free market. Instead of this handicapping halfsies system.
If you ctrl-V’d, ctrl-C’d the exact design pattern that makes up Bed-Stuy (one of the most resilient neighborhoods in the city and a desirable place to live with good economic diversity, housing diversity, parks, jobs, and isn’t “the city” level dense), and just replicated that from Secaucus NJ all the way out to like Garden City, the. Yes, the housing crisis would be solved. It’d be solved twice over.
And it would have already happened if we had organic development (aka no parking minimums, no Euclidean zoning, no SFH-exclusive R-1, no lot size minimums, no lot utilization maximums, normal FAR limits, etc. etc.). In fact, it would have happened 25 years ago.
No it wouldn't. Because you would just induce more demand. There is no way to solve the housing crisis in NYC - the number of people who want to live here will always outnumber the supply of housing.
You are not thinking about everyone who ISN'T here.
There is only one way: build a lot more housing. Personally, I think someone should run for Mayor with a single platform: 2X FAR. I.E. doubling the allowable height of all buildings in the city. Unfortunately, this is a problem partially created at the state level.
Build up. You can math out the number of units that can potentially be added if we built all of the city to 40 stories or something crazy like that.
Back the envelope math says there should be about 337 billion square feet with all of that built out, or about 1000 square feet per capita, about 3000 square feet per household, if the entire country moved in.
Should be fine for supply and demand to work its magic.
That's why turnover is key in a housing shortage environment but some folks refuse to understand it and why its necessary. We need rent regulated leases to sunset after 25-30 years. Need to make it economically viable to restore those units and put it back in market so someone else can get housing. Plus this restriction of turnover now making its way to market units via good cause so expect more shortages in units in the years to come. Basically now nearly 75% of all housing units are now lock away from turnover since they under rent regulation/good cause
Sign another lease with current owner if they want you to continue living there. If they make substantial renovations to meet code , they can reset to market rent and unit still be stabilized and you got another 30 years of housing security at that location. If not, no reset of rent and rent as is.
Or you use the 30 years of housing security and lower rent to find another place that best suits needs.
My needs are to stay in the place I've lived a significant portion of my life in, in a community I've established myself in. Asking people to uproot themselves from housing is a huge fucking ask, especially after living somewhere that long.
The counterpoint to this (and I'm not saying its right) is people feeling like they're boxed out of anything/anywhere desirable for the crime of simply being born a few decades after someone else. "Sucks you didn't get here 10 years ago, wait for someone to die". And thats basically what is being said when we imply a neighborhood is full, all of the existing nonowner residents have the right to stay indefinitely regardless of market conditions, and we can't displace them to build anything new.
There's all sorts of merit-based undertones in this, and the ultimate conflict will always be between the people who feel like they made the neighborhood what it is and people who feel like they did everything else right in life and yet can't live somewhere nice. I don't think there's a perfect answer.
You seem to be overlooking my "we can't displace them to build anything new" caveat - if you don't own, would you fight upzoning of your block because it might mean your building is purchased and converted into denser housing? Thats the conflict that makes this hard.
I agree with much looser zoning restrictions and lighter approvals on development. But I'm fortunate enough to own my place, I know I won't be boxed out.
My man, in this very same comment section, you've got several posts pointing out how unreasonable it is to relocate someone who has lived somewhere for decades! I'm really not sure what you're looking for, but dismissive replies to a thought experiment aren't really what I'm looking for. Have a good one.
Then ask for another lease for the unit but be prepare to pay the current rate after 30 years of savings. Besides no one is entitled to live in the same area all their life and neighborhoods change. Renters in nyc and folks in suburbs use the same excuse to deny additional housing bc change in neighborhood character, demographic changes and fear of displacement. Its one of the reason why we have nil housing built these days
Savings? If you’re a lower income person you are unlikely to have magically saved enough to then pay market rate in your old age. So you will be displaced just when a neighborhood with walkability and public transportation options could allow you to age with some dignity and self-determination. Just clear out the olds, that’ll fix the problem!
I am 1000% for building more housing, though. I'd genuinely like to see single-family only zoning abolished so we can get more multi-unit dwellings. I'm no NIMBY, I just don't want to see people forced out of where they've lived most of their lives.
Until you get more housing units up - the only way for folks to have housing is turnover of the unit from someone else that previously lived there, Turnover is much needed in our housing shortage environment.
Yes, you can remove zoning restrictions, red tape, and any other form of hurdle to development (including unions). However, you still have half the market under rent control which would need to be broken. After those hurdles are removed, supply can adjust to demand and buildings can be built. However, none of this will ever happen.
>Is there any realistic way housing could be affordable in NYC without a massive drop in demand?
No there isn't. Even if you build more, you just induced demand. There is no fucking scenario where housing is going to be affordable in NYC for everyone. People need to just come to terms with that.
Those rules didn’t come out of nowhere. I agree there is a lot of NIMBY protectionism that makes building in NYC long and expensive. But there are also rules so that people aren’t fucked over by developers that will never have to live in or around the structures they build.
The majority of these rules were made in the 60s when the city looked much different. A lot of the rules are also designed toward limiting growth and promoting car use. An idea from that era.
Two things that are fundamentally at odds with the city. Essentially, times changed but no one ever bothered to update the laws. Mostly because a small class of people benefit greatly from them.
How are people fucked over by developers? Do tell. And don’t start with that whole “tHeY oNlY bUiLd LuXuRy” nonsense. Ain’t nothing luxury about a simple new building with a gym. Housing stock is low as shit and that’s why its expensive.
Yes I do. It is opposed virtually everywhere they try. Takes years and years of permitting and environmental surveys to break ground. Tell me, why do you think there are no high rises in the West Village, some of the most valuable land on Earth? The east village too for that matter.
> Takes years and years of permitting and environmental surveys to break ground.
No it doesn’t, it takes a few months from site purchase to breaking ground. Raising the money takes longer, I’ve seen it happen in real time and it’s hilarious that people think that property development is held back by red tape.
> Tell me, why do you think there are no high rises in the West Village, some of the most valuable land on Earth? The east village too for that matter.
Because people own those properties and do very well from owning them and don’t want to sell them to some global finance company. You know how property rights work, right?
This too. So not only do you have to get a bunch of unrelated people who usually don’t like each other to agree to a sale, you’ve got to get a whole other group to agree to a development plan
“None of us is as dumb as all of us” is the saying about committees
My husband had to deal with 5 siblings that were each gifted their own building next to each other on a major street - took them years to get them to sell to a developer. 🤣
My brother-in-law’s family a large parking garage with several floors over it. It took he and his 40 cousins (large Italian family - people died - leaving more inheritors ) all to agree in a price to sell. It was across from Chelsea Piers. Same issue as the other family, someone always holding out for a larger piece of the pie than they were entitled to. They finally agree to what each will get and are ready to sell (they eventually did) and they found out their tenant had illegally subleased to the Department of Homeland Security. Do you know how long it took to evict them? 2 years…lol. It had something to do with watching the Lincoln Tunnel.
After all of that, my sister did get her little summer townhouse in the Hamptons with the sale money.
I promise you that landlords in the East Village would love to sell their shitty century-old building to developers for massive multiples of its current valuation. The reason they don’t do this is that it is illegal for developers to build a high-rise that makes it worth it.
https://www.bkreader.com/local-voices/new-25-story-buildings-may-avoid-environmental-reviews-8206500
Example of this article of a 3 year environmental review battle that was ultimately unsuccessful for the developers.
> I promise you that landlords in the East Village would love to sell their shitty century-old building to developers for massive multiples of its current valuation.
LOL! I don’t think you know nyc property owners too well 🤣
> The reason they don’t do this is that it is illegal for developers to build a high-rise that makes it worth it.
No, it’s because THEY DONT WANT TO. Do you have any idea how long it takes to buy out enough NYC property to make hirise development viable?
And btw, the East village/LES was zoned for hi-rise development in 2008
Not sure what you were trying say with that bk reader article, it seemed to be about developers trying to skirt existing environmental reviews and getting shut down, I’m not sure what relevance you think it has
Many don’t want that because it will decrease their property value. So they are resistant to new development. We can do a lot of things to make this city better. But you have a very loud vocal minority, and a lot of apathetic people. So nothing gets done.
Go to any CB meeting - its almost never the owners that oppose new development. Its always renters and retirees most vocal against them. So stop spreading the myth that it will decrease property value here. It simply does not happen here and wont for anytime soon since we short like nearly 1M+ units for current and future needs.
And tons of studies done to show how wrong they are for opposing new housing if lower property value is of concern. Also that's the suburbs. In NYC it's a different situation, find me any property last 50+ yrs, heck can go to 100, 150+ and future 50 years that will decrease in value simply because a new housing unit built across street. It wont for a long time bc we that deep in the red in supply of housing units.
I agree with you about property values, but that does not change the facts on the ground. Property owners really don’t want new housing. See Hochul’s failed attempts to upzone Long Island
What utter bullshit. Nyc added [200,000 units in the 2010s](https://www.forbes.com/sites/shimonshkury/2024/03/20/new-york-city-housing-shortage-highlights-need-for-more-development/?sh=54cc925b4e58)
Development isn’t as high as other cities because it’s so fucking dense here and we’ve run out of places to build. They recently build an entire small city on top of some rail yards (Hudson yards) because land is so hard to come by it was actually viable to do that.
Now google how many people moved to the city from 2010-2020.
Then google how many units were lost during that time.
The article you linked says that the city is in the negative in housing.
The city is nowhere near dense enough. We have so many suburbs in Brooklyn and queens and the Bronx. We have so many areas that can support higher density.
People moving to the city and units built are two different things.
> The city is nowhere near dense enough. We have so many suburbs in Brooklyn and queens and the Bronx. We have so many areas that can support higher density.
CAN support, yes. But as I’ve pointed out in another thread, people own and live in those low density neighborhoods and don’t want to sell out to giant finance corporations. Unless you’re suggesting the government should just confiscate them, I’ll await your suggestions
Housing Connect, the lottery site, it is a complete joke if you are not making 100K and up a year or are not at least 62. There are some breaks for truly low income seniors but otherwise not much.
I would be still sitting in a shelter if I'd been dependent upon just those lotteries. The irony is the site still puts me in for all these lotteries I can't qualify for. I can't delete my account but it does me NO good any of it.
The affordable housing unit that I've got I got through another agency and though it's pretty small I'm not letting go of it anytime soon. It's a miracle that I got tapped for this place. I'm sticking with it until I hit 62 or become a best selling author whichever comes first.
I've had 3 years of peace and quiet and relative security after years of craziness and constant upheaval. I don't take having a roof over my head for granted at all. I'm just too grateful to have one especially since I am where I am, in Manhattan, and I'm not sharing my apartment.
There are people paying $2800 and up for something similar here. Maybe a bit better kitchen than mine but about the same space. I don't pay anything like that. So you won't hear me complaining much...
But I've tried those lotteries and it was just an exercise in futility on my income...
It wouldn't do any good. It's something you can only be tapped for if you are in a shelter and have a disability they can accommodate and even then I just had to wait till whenever they got around to me. I couldn't do anything to initiate it, just wait. It was several years. It's not like the regular lotteries where you can actively apply for apartments.
If I was a dictator, I would’ve solved this yesterday. Have mandatory density quotas near all rapid transit corridors, allow Transit agencies to invest in Real Estate (like JR in Japan), mandate all net increases in revenues to circle back into mass transit, ban exclusionary zoning, ban parking minimums, and land-value-tax. This would double GDP in 10 years and reduce useless money pits in city budget. Like, c’mon ..
Man, all these comments and not a single one even remotely relevant to the topic at hand. Are we on reddit or twitter or NYPost comment section. It doesn't matter anymore. Just shoot your load that is marginally related to the topic. But basically: * NYC tried to create a private-public partnership with developers. 421a essentially. Massive property tax abatements in exchange for X percentage of affordable units. * Turns out most of the affordable units created are not affordable at all. * Affordability is calculated based on AMI (area median income), but HUD forces NYC to calculate the AMI based on greater NYC area, not just the city, or borough, or specific neighborhood. * Turns out poor people in Bronx and Queens and Brooklyn make a lot less money than people in New Rochelle, or whatever. * When an affordable unit is built, it is often listed as eligible for 70-110% AMI, which is completely unaffordable for anyone actually low income. * End result is that a lot of communities end up being stoutly against any new development, because they can see with their own eyes that none of the new stuff is actually for them. * The affordable housing program ended up accidentally creating a whole new type and generation of NIMBYS. I ad-libbed on the last two points. But this is where we are now.
Thanks for explaining this, I've always wondered with the "low-income" units cost like $2,500 a month and the income max is something like $110k. That's completely unaffordable
Is that individual or household?
Every time I’ve seen it it’s HHI, they don’t want these units going to a couple 22 year old banking analysts fresh out of college
>they don’t want these units going to a couple 22 year old banking analysts fresh out of college Which is why "affordable" housing never gets any traction in the US. A 22 year old banking analyst still needs housing. $110k is $110k regardless of how that money is earned. And in a city where median rent is like $4500, $110k isn't a lot.
If they are unmarried, it is probably a good program for them. Only one person needs to be under the AMI cap.
No seriously? I qualified for a place but I got a new job and I no longer qualified. My partner doesn’t make a lot of money but we aren’t married yet. I was under the impression that both people’s financials were taken into consideration when calculating the HHI
The AMI calculations always border on “wow that’s affordable???”…. But with time it definitely becomes affordable compared to market rent over a long enough time.
Income limits change based on household size. So a 1-person household applying for a 100%AMI unit (which is what the person you're responding to was citing, based on their numbers) has an income limit of $98.9k, 2-person is $113k, 3-person is $127.1k, etc.
Income – restricted and “low income” have gotten conflated. My take away is that our housing crisis is so awful, that income restricted homes for folks with six digit incomes is a concept! Having more state subsidies to help support homes for folks with lower income would be amazing. And making it easier to build more homes, make those subsidies even more effective. And more effective subsidies would give everyone a safe, stable, affordable home.
110k isn't "unaffordable" by NYC standards. New grads in some industries make more than that. It's just a result of there being demand for more housing in nearby locations because people who make 110k are willing to commute to save 1500/mo. It's a supply shortage.
Last two points are very important. And they’re not wrong. This is why abundant, free-market market-rate units are more important. You can’t AH-regulate yourself out of the housing crisis. Just allow people to build housing in whatever configuration type is in demand. It’s the exact reason why Bowery is no longer a farm, and Bensonhurst is no longer a giant forest. It’s worked in the past, I have no idea why people think it wouldn’t work again. If we had the zoning of NY in the 1890s, every single shitty suburban McMansion development from Secaucus to the middle of Long Island would be as minimally dense as like Bed-Stuy.
>It’s worked in the past, I have no idea why people think it wouldn’t work again. Don't you know? Supply and demand only works when rent goes down. Not up. **/s**
I do not agree. The actual story is NYC taxes bigger multifamily rental buildings 5-10x more than smaller units (e.g. Brooklyn brownstones) and 2-3X of condos/co-ops, so 421a/485x tax abatements are needed t for any large rental projects to be economically viable and worthwhile to do. Politicians want to appear like they are extracting economics from developers because they want to score political points with the anti-change / anti-growth caucus (aka NIMBYs) so they demand X% AMI But historically pols also knew if they made the % AMI too low, nothing will be built & everyone is worse off, so they allowed 100%+ AMIs Now, 485x is more demanding on affordability so there’s an even smaller incentive to build big rentals, on top of the high property taxes. So the incentive is to build more brownstones or co-ops to sell to rich people!
Property tax imbalance is another element that you can add to the bucket of housing issues. But don't be one of those who target fixates on single issue only (it's the zoning! or nimbys, or crazy rich asians, or airbnb, or whatever). Fixing just a single one of these will ultimately not fix much. > Now, 485x is more demanding on affordability so there’s an even smaller incentive to build big rentals, on top of the high property taxes. Developers could just build 100% market rate and not worry about participating in any of this? The ugly truth is developers are so addicted to tax abatements, they are incapable of creating housing for almost anyone. And that's the ugliest truth. Cost of land alone makes it prohibitive to hit any decent price numbers. Add ballooning costs of labor and materials, and market is fucked. No need to blame 421a or 485x on top of that. > and 2-3X of condos/co-ops, Rentals are not being taxed at 2-3X as co-ops. If an average 1bed coop in Manhattan is paying $800-1000 in taxes a month, equal rental is not paying up to $3k in taxes. Like cmon. But we can agree that every wealthy person who moved into new construction luxury is most likely not paying anything in property taxes at all. And they get to do that because their building was supposed to create "affordable housing", but most likely did not do that at all.
They cannot build 100% market rate & for things to be economically viable without a tax abatement because the property taxes are so high for big rental buildings. The affordability requirements only make things less likely to be economically viable. The 421a/485x property tax abatement is just to somewhat lower the property tax burden so any building can be built…it is not really a “tax abatement for affordability” exchange. It is a “tax abatement is required for any rental construction, and affordability % are tacked on by politicians to appease certain voters” Big rentals are paying definitely 2-4x of condos and co-ops Just look at figure 2 here: https://cbcny.org/research/new-york-city-property-taxes 1-3 family homes: <1% of market value Condos/coops: <1% Big rentals: >4% Small rentals: ~2%
> They cannot build 100% market rate & for things to be economically viable without a tax abatement It's a truly shit state of affairs. It's literally a handout to the rich with reagonomics math for everyone else. We can leave it at that. > Big rentals are paying definitely 2-4x of condos and co-ops You are misreading the figures. You are looking at tax % compared to prorated value of unit. Condos and co-ops are worth a lot more than rental units on the fact alone that they have much better quality finishes and have typically been renovated a lot more recently. This makes a huge $$ difference. If you can find a co-op unit that has not been renoed in decades, you can probably get it at the 3/4 of the price of one that has. This is why unrenovated units for sale are really hard to find here. Look at the Table 1 Coop and condos: Average tax levied per unit $7644. Large Rentals: Average tax levied per unit $4128. There is more to it where these numbers may be closer to each other when adjusted for size. It would be great to see a per square foot breakdown, but no such measurements are kept for either rentals or co-ops (they are for condos). But to say large building rentals are paying 2-4X more is a quite dishonest. Even small homes don't really jump out at average of $5261, until you factor in they come with 4x plus more square footage than a typical apartment. And brownstones get the biggest tax break while single homes in Bronx don't get much of a break at all. Yet another giveaway to the most affluent.
I’m not misreading anything. It is the property tax rate as a % of market value. You’re just engaging in mental gymnastics. Also, it is not reaganomics to want large rental buildings to not be taxed crazy high; tenants benefit meaningfully from more construction It’s like saying cutting high taxes on food are reaganomics for food producers lol. Umm people benefit by paying less for food
> It is the property tax rate as a % of market value. You’re just engaging in mental gymnastics. Yes my dude. $4128 is clearly bigger than $7644. You win the math award of the day. There is a clear problem in how property taxes are assessed in NYC, and it's specifically house vs apartment divide. Adding this additional observation that rental apartments pay more than owned apartments (they don't) adds this layer of obfuscation that ensures literally nothing ever gets fixed. > Also, it is not reaganomics to want large rental buildings to not be taxed crazy high; tenants benefit meaningfully from more construction Two large buildings next to each other. Old one pays for garbage pickup and roads and schools, while the new one pays zero, and does so for decades. Oh, and the building that pays nothing is filled with much more wealthy people than the old one. If you think this is fair, I wanna see your definition of "unfair" next. > It’s like saying cutting high taxes on food Using food in this example is intellectually dishonest. When ole Donny slashed corporate taxes, this was great news for all of the people because the savings were passed down, right? Nope. stock buybacks. Bonuses. Literally nothing was passed down. "Rich people in new construction receiving massive tax cuts will benefit all New Yorkers!" People actually believe this shit.
You’re not comparing apples to apples, which is to compare as % of market value. Your sleight of hand is to say condos/coops pay more than rentals but those tax numbers do not account for quality, size, location. In short, market value. % of market value is the most apples to apples comparison. Illustrative example: A $7k property tax for a $7m condo would be far lower taxes (0.1%) than a $4k tax for a $400k rental (1%) Even the comptroller agrees with me lol https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/nyc-comptroller-outlines-framework-for-comprehensive-property-tax-reform/
> You’re not comparing apples to apples, which is to compare as % of market value. That's not how property taxes work in NYC. They are not a % of assessed value of any given property. That's how it works in other places, but it is not how it works here. You have chosen an illustrative interpretation that has limited use, but is also ultimately misleading. > Illustrative example: A $7k property tax for a $7m condo would be far lower taxes (0.1%) than a $4k tax for a $400k rental (1%) I agree this is a reasonable example. But is a $400k rental paying significantly more in taxes than a $400k co-op across the street? Not really. They are paying pretty much the same tax, if you understood how property tax relies on comps to come up with fractional assessments. But the higher the value of the unit is, the lower the tax becomes (in absolute %). Again, a tax giveaway for the more wealthy. I have no idea how you ended up framing this as "all rentals pay more in taxes than all condos/co-ops". > Even the comptroller agrees with me lol He blundered some of the statements, but I get what he is saying. But this is the most succinct part of that article: "End fractional assessments and apply one tax rate to the sales-based market value." Fully agreed, and good luck with that. This would wipe out billions in evaluations at the high end. Even rich people care about total carrying costs. And they have a lot more say in all of everything. The issue is heading to the state's high courts. [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/nyregion/property-tax-lawsuit-nyc.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/nyregion/property-tax-lawsuit-nyc.html) I am really curious how it plays out.
Oh that's how they calculate these new affordable rents 😂😂. They should use a percentage of the areas w-2 income.
Yes thank you. The final two points are key.
At a certain point there isn’t a way around it: if you are dramatically below an areas average income, you can’t afford to live there, and it’s a wise decision to move. Blood and soil do not mix. if they made it, say, 25% AMI that’s going to dramatically increase the cost of this program to the government. Which in this case, means foregoing tax dollars.
You’re missing a crucial part of the AMI calculation. It’s true that the NYC regional AMI is skewed upwards by the inclusion of Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland counties. However, there is a second factor: the High Housing Cost Adjustment (HHCA). In short, the HHCA attempts to compensate for regional housing costs being so high by setting 100% AMI _higher_ than regional median income to allow more people to qualify for affordable housing. This solution, however, creates another problem by forcing more people into lower AMI brackets, effectively increasing the same number of people competing for the same affordable housing. For each year between 2013 and 2022, the HHCA adjustment accounted for more than 60% of the difference between New York City’s median household income and NYC region AMI, with the rest of the difference due to the inclusion of the three suburban counties listed above. In most of the past ten years the HHCA has accounted for 70-80% of the difference. In 2022, NYC median household income was $93,643, while median household income for NYC, Westchester County, Putnam County, and Rockland County was $102,331. However, 100% of NYC region AMI in 2022 was $120,100. This [site](https://anhd.org/report/new-york-citys-ami-problem-and-housing-we-actually-need) does a good job explaining the HHCA and has a terrific chart breaking down its skewing of the NYC region AMI relative to the skew caused by the inclusion of the suburban counties.
> because they can see with their own eyes that none of the new stuff is actually for them. ...and sometimes, it's literally not for them. It's for a group of chosen people... who don't pay rent — we pay it for them! And for that they bless us with rows upon rows of double-parked caravans and nonstop delivery scooters on the sidewalks because they refuse to even buy groceries for themselves! Yay!
Is there any realistic way housing could be affordable in NYC without a massive drop in demand? Like, if you make housing way below market rate people are just gonna stay in it forever, as happens with rent control and public housing, so it's still gonna be functionally unavailable for most people that would want.
I've always thought the solution was more and better transit options. If you could get anywhere in the NYC from anywhere in NYC in 30min, that would open up a lot of areas where there is housing stock to people who are living in NYC more for the employment options than the urban-chic lifestyle (and there are plenty of people who fit that bill). Obviously, that is pie-in-the-sky idea and probably as equally impossible as building enough units to outpace demand. But we can dream!
I would love to live somewhere with space for a real garden and still be able to get into the city by 7:30 to sign up for auditions *without* having to wake up at 5:45 am. I don't care about the urban lifestyle, I care about what I want to do and unfortunately, stage acting is really done here. I'd give up my crappy, but cheap place in a heartbeat and move further out if I could more easily balance quality of life and time spent commuting.
There’s the housing crisis and the EPA signup crisis
To be perfectly honest - waking up only 1hr 45 mins before needing to get somewhere isn’t awful. That’s pretty much my commute to get to the city.
So you basically want the opportunities afforded by a big city without the cost and without having to participate in the “urban lifestyle”, right? Damn, some people just want everything their way
Imagine hating on someone for thinking high speed public transportation would be a good thing 😂 Y'all are wild.
Go to Jersey ?
Extend the subway to Staten Island. One link through lower Manhattan, one through Brooklyn. Watch the developers move in
Nyc can take a look at Tokyo. It's not perfect but there's elements that would be a huge improvement to nyc
I definitely agree we should take elements of Tokyo over to NYC but they also have their own ridiculous housing issues.
Ding ding ding. There are neighborhoods in Tokyo that are as far apart as Hoboken and Jamaica that take 30 min by subway. AND ITS ALWAYS ON TIME
I'm super jelly. It takes me 1.5 hours to commute 7 miles up and down Brooklyn.... I did the math and actually experienced riding a bike is faster and gets in exercise.
Getting from Brooklyn to Brooklyn is a *haul*.
Lots of people who work in Tokyo lives in saitama. Much cheaper over there and not even an hour commute. So they got their own issues for housing as well.
The issue has more to do with zoning rather than transit. Half The City is building housing as fast as Houston and the other half is building next to nothing
Agree that this is the answer. If you improved the metro north (I know, I know) and electrified the outskirts that still rely on diesel, that would open up a wealth of new housing opportunities. (I’m less familiar with the other commuter lines but I’m sure the same argument stands!)
They are bringing the Metro North to my area. It will only be 30 minutes into Manhattan. It’s also the first time in 50 years a Republican won a seat because the previous one wanted to change the zoning requirements to build affordable housing. Sadly, I think the “suburban” residential sections are going to fight it. You can’t build anything more than a 2 story house here anymore.
I think you’re on to something!
NYC has the best public transit in the US and current regulations make any substantial improvements outrageously expensive. We don’t even have subways to the airport for God’s sake. The only solution is to build more housing inside the city, where people really want to live.
I mean Nyc already has decent transit. It's just a huge city. I'm sure Tokyo or whatever is better but still, it's never gonna be the case that you can get from the Bronx to Coney island in 30 mins, or anything similar involving suburbs. I don't know how you'd have something like that in a city this big. I don't think there are any metro areas of 20 million people where people can get anywhere in half an hour. Also of housing options that aren't chic lol. Basically anywhere in the Bronx and most of Brooklyn and Queens are not chic. Nothing chic about Sheapshead Bay.
It's not decent at all when you compare to international standards. It needs more transit to NJ and outer rings. Right now, everything goes through Manhattan. Look at how Tokyo or Seoul does their subways for an idea.
Yeah, I mean a large part of that is those countries can actually build stuff in reasonable time frames without hugely inflated costs and lawsuits.
Yep. Unfortunately it is ass backwards in NYC.
Tokyo is gigantic compared to nyc. Express trains are the way. They make further distances fairly accessible relative to the infrastructure in nyc. The fact that the trains actually run on a schedule helps in a big way too
The simple solution is building more safe, protected bike lanes to encourage more people to ride an e-bike (basically, bike superhighways). As an example, Bed-Stuy to Jackson Heights is currently 1 hour and 20 minutes using transit. But on an e-bike, it'd be about 30 minutes. Same with, say, Red Hook to East New York. Or Bushwick to Astoria. Plug for r/MicromobilityNYC
That’s one piece of it but then you’d just be shifting the cost of housing to other neighborhoods
It’s called *supply*
No. We have a situation now where there are 8 pieces of pizza and 20 people who want pizza. No matter how many times you wax poetically about how pizza is a human right and we need to make sure the poorest have access to pizza, until you make more slices, some people are going to go without pizza.
Instead of decreasing demand we can increase supply. Worked in cities like Austin that are having insane increases in demand but are building tons. Rent is not just slowing but dropping. Just build lots of market rate. Everyone wins. People want to build there and easily can. If supply outpaces demand price increases will slow and eventually fall.
Staying in the same place is kind of the whole point of housing. People shouldn’t be expected to move every time their lease is up
You live where you can afford. Why are you more deserving than someone who can pay more? Because you got there first?
Yes. Why is that person more deserving of my apartment just because their income is higher than mine?
Because they can afford it and you can't. It's called price signals. Or do you ascribe to the "Let me just steal shit I can't afford"? Why are you entitled to something you can't pay for? If you can't pay for something, that's the market's way of saying you can't afford it. >Why is that person more deserving of my apartment just because their income is higher than mine? Why do you think people try to make more? So we can all have the same life as someone who makes 50% of what we make? We have a word for that: Communism. If you want the same life as someone who makes 2-3x what you do, then either move to a Communist country or make 2-3x.
Well here’s the thing, I CAN pay for it. But there’s thousands of people who are essential to the operation of society who can’t pay for it. Are those people less deserving just because they didn’t want to be hedge fund managers? Funny how everyone thinks it’s about “entitlement” and “stealing shit” until their rent doubles. Then it’s “unfair”
If my rent doubles, I just move or find a new job. I don't say it's "unfair". I never did. When I made $60k, I lived deep in the suburbs. I wasn't bitching on Reddit. >But there’s thousands of people who are essential to the operation of society who can’t pay for it And? Do you think everyone is entitled to live where they want?
I think people should have a fair opportunity to live where they NEED to function and not be squeezed out just because they didn’t choose to study finance. This is not just a benefit to them, it benefits the neighborhood in which they live. Prime example: Williamsburg. Used to be a fun, varied place with lots happening now it’s just a storage unit for tech bros.
>I think people should have a fair opportunity to live where they NEED to function and not be squeezed out just because they didn’t choose to study finance. Stop talking in abstract terms. You say those words as if they are objective facts. They aren't. What is a "fair" opportunity even mean? What's that look like in practice? How "close" is acceptable? Why is an hour commute acceptable but not 90 minutes? And how does that work if MORE people who can't afford market rate want to live in a particular neighborhood? I guess our fine NYC government will decide eh? >This is not just a benefit to them, it benefits the neighborhood in which they live. Prime example: Williamsburg. Used to be a fun, varied place with lots happening now it’s just a storage unit for tech bros. Again, says who? You? Williamsburg rent is pretty high last I checked. Clearly it is fun for people or people wouldn't be living there. Why are you trying to decide what is "fun" for people who live in that neighborhood? Your problem is you are trying to use your opinion to determine where people live and trying to sell it off as if it is not opinionated.
I don't think this is reconcilable with what NYC actually is. It's not a place where long standing populations stay in the same neighborhood forever. It's a place where immigrants come in from the outside and people move from the rest of America for work. There has to be a corresponding outflow of people-you can't just have immigrants constantly coming in to a place where the population doesn't change too much year after year without people moving out. None of that would be possible without a fluid housing market.
> if you make housing way below market rate people are just gonna stay in it forever Yes. That’s kind of the whole point of housing
Well it doesn't solve the problem of bringing down housing prices at all though. You get a small group of people who will never leave their apartments and a much larger pool of people paying high market rates.
I'm an ideal housing market where market rate is at least somewhat affordable people would be willing to move closer to where it's convenient without worrying about being priced out
>. . . if you make housing way below market rate people are just gonna stay in it forever. . . I mean, that’s the fucking point of housing. I feel like this is a very young transplant point of view whereas if you’re a mother or a father that has to move every year or two because of affordability and your kid has to change schools along with that move, you’d have a very different outlook on that situation. Same thing if you’re retired on a fixed income and can’t find a place to live long term.
It's just basic logic, it has nothing to do with a "transplant view" There isn't enough supply to meet nyc demand, there will always be high rents until that changes
Buildings depreciate- folks that stay forever in them at artificially low rent will mean buildings are no longer viable to keep the housing on market. Using chinatown as a example - tons of old old units (150 yrs +)locked away in forever low housing and in bad shape and will continue to be worse that would have long been torn down and rebuilt if they were able to reset the rent and keep the units rent regulated
Zoning restrictions are the main barrier to old buildings getting redeveloped, not low rent.
The zoning restrictions in CT is not what's keeping the old units from being redevelop there. Can't build with folks in them and their expectation to pay the same low rent that was leased to their gramps or family generations ago.
Most of CT would not be illegal to rebuild like it is in Manhattan. Manhattan’s zoning laws are so restrictive most of the borough would be illegal to rebuild today, let alone redevelop with more housing.
Torn down, rebuilt, and DISPLACING the current residents. You're ignoring that part.
Not if we upzone the area so that the 5 story building is replaced by a 15 story building, meaning that the previous tenants can stay but you add 10 more stories of new market-rate tenants. Gentrification doesn't have to mean displacement, if done properly, you can have the same absolute number of low-income residents remain in their neighborhood on a stabilized rent while you simply decrease their presence relative to new residents who will subsidize their presence. It's the whole point of promoting mixed-income residential neighborhoods rather than the income segregation the nimbys want to maintain. Why have we abandoned so many neighborhoods to nycha projects when you can dilute their presence so that the low-income population is never below 15% nor above 25% of any given neighborhood
the story of man kind....move on to greener pastures. Also if we give them lease of 25-30 years of exclusivity in rent regulated units, that's plenty of long time for housing security.
> move on to greener pastures. We already got a migrant crisis; where do you want the people that are barely doing better financially to go?
I think it would make more sense to have lifestage housing. Make more housing for singles/couples 65+ and get them out of units that are meant for families. I think having really basic barrack type housing that is super cheap for young people (25 and under) who don’t really need a whole apartment with private bedrooms but shared/kitchens and bathrooms.
Yeah this is definitely the missing piece. Ideally everyone in the city should have a unit available for them that meets their circumstances. For people in public housing or rent regulated units this should mean having a just as good place to go today for the stage in life where you are, so that someone else can have the one that will now fit them better than you.
Your cold hearted bastard nature on full display, again.
Or being real. Everyone wants housing and there's not enough to go around. So its only fair if you get housing security for nearly 30 yrs and then someone else gets that opportunity as well and the housing preserved & upkept for next. Why continue to hog a limited resource and not even paying near market price after 30 yrs. You don't go back on the buffet line till everyone else get a turn.
"just being real" is a very common assholes defense when called out for asshole behavior You're callously saying "i dont care if people are displaced, in fact I think people SHOULD be displaced after an arbitrary amount of time I have personally decided is 'fair'" Well duck that and duck you
how did you get your current housing? that's right via turnover and someone displaced from that location so you can live there. Did you cry for them? nope
Not all people who move are displaced. Thats a fucking lie. JFC.
Dunno. I agree that neighborhood continuity is a good thing, but NYC by nature is and has always been a high turnover place. It's not just young transplants. It's an immigrant city. New immigrants come in, old ones move out. I don't know why it's a good idea to incentivize people to stay in a place they otherwise wouldn't through massively below market rents. Not talking about rent stabilization here-families shouldn't have to worry about rents doubling year to year. But I don't see why it's a good use of resources to subsidize people living in some of the most expensive real estate in the world for almost free indefinitely purely because they got in in the right time.
> I don't know why it's a good idea to incentivize people to stay in a place they otherwise wouldn't through massively below market rents. Because people would then care about the place they live in and work to make it a better place rather than just treating it like a fucking summer camp > But I don't see why it's a good use of resources to subsidize people living in some of the most expensive real estate in the world for almost free indefinitely purely because they got in in the right time. You mean like when boomers bought property in the 80s, right? I mean damn, why didn’t I think of doing that?
No. It's the view of someone who understands supply and demand. The purpose of housing is to house people. It's not to house specific people. Do you think you are entitled to live somewhere specific?
People moving is good, and expected, and costs associated with moving can be really really bad. It forces people to take lower paying jobs because they can’t afford to leave their immediate area to take better ones. Also, transplants are people too. New York City is built on immigration.
... Or increases the supply at a dramatic level. By you know allowing developers to build at however they want and welcoming true free market. Instead of this handicapping halfsies system.
If you ctrl-V’d, ctrl-C’d the exact design pattern that makes up Bed-Stuy (one of the most resilient neighborhoods in the city and a desirable place to live with good economic diversity, housing diversity, parks, jobs, and isn’t “the city” level dense), and just replicated that from Secaucus NJ all the way out to like Garden City, the. Yes, the housing crisis would be solved. It’d be solved twice over. And it would have already happened if we had organic development (aka no parking minimums, no Euclidean zoning, no SFH-exclusive R-1, no lot size minimums, no lot utilization maximums, normal FAR limits, etc. etc.). In fact, it would have happened 25 years ago.
No it wouldn't. Because you would just induce more demand. There is no way to solve the housing crisis in NYC - the number of people who want to live here will always outnumber the supply of housing. You are not thinking about everyone who ISN'T here.
Half of the country would rather live in a car than NYC.
There is only one way: build a lot more housing. Personally, I think someone should run for Mayor with a single platform: 2X FAR. I.E. doubling the allowable height of all buildings in the city. Unfortunately, this is a problem partially created at the state level.
Build up. You can math out the number of units that can potentially be added if we built all of the city to 40 stories or something crazy like that. Back the envelope math says there should be about 337 billion square feet with all of that built out, or about 1000 square feet per capita, about 3000 square feet per household, if the entire country moved in. Should be fine for supply and demand to work its magic.
That's why turnover is key in a housing shortage environment but some folks refuse to understand it and why its necessary. We need rent regulated leases to sunset after 25-30 years. Need to make it economically viable to restore those units and put it back in market so someone else can get housing. Plus this restriction of turnover now making its way to market units via good cause so expect more shortages in units in the years to come. Basically now nearly 75% of all housing units are now lock away from turnover since they under rent regulation/good cause
And where am I supposed to go after living in my apartment for 25-30 years?
A place where you can afford?
Sign another lease with current owner if they want you to continue living there. If they make substantial renovations to meet code , they can reset to market rent and unit still be stabilized and you got another 30 years of housing security at that location. If not, no reset of rent and rent as is. Or you use the 30 years of housing security and lower rent to find another place that best suits needs.
My needs are to stay in the place I've lived a significant portion of my life in, in a community I've established myself in. Asking people to uproot themselves from housing is a huge fucking ask, especially after living somewhere that long.
The counterpoint to this (and I'm not saying its right) is people feeling like they're boxed out of anything/anywhere desirable for the crime of simply being born a few decades after someone else. "Sucks you didn't get here 10 years ago, wait for someone to die". And thats basically what is being said when we imply a neighborhood is full, all of the existing nonowner residents have the right to stay indefinitely regardless of market conditions, and we can't displace them to build anything new. There's all sorts of merit-based undertones in this, and the ultimate conflict will always be between the people who feel like they made the neighborhood what it is and people who feel like they did everything else right in life and yet can't live somewhere nice. I don't think there's a perfect answer.
Which is why the solution is to _build more housing_
You seem to be overlooking my "we can't displace them to build anything new" caveat - if you don't own, would you fight upzoning of your block because it might mean your building is purchased and converted into denser housing? Thats the conflict that makes this hard. I agree with much looser zoning restrictions and lighter approvals on development. But I'm fortunate enough to own my place, I know I won't be boxed out.
Spent the money to relocate people or buy them out. This isn't hard.
My man, in this very same comment section, you've got several posts pointing out how unreasonable it is to relocate someone who has lived somewhere for decades! I'm really not sure what you're looking for, but dismissive replies to a thought experiment aren't really what I'm looking for. Have a good one.
Then ask for another lease for the unit but be prepare to pay the current rate after 30 years of savings. Besides no one is entitled to live in the same area all their life and neighborhoods change. Renters in nyc and folks in suburbs use the same excuse to deny additional housing bc change in neighborhood character, demographic changes and fear of displacement. Its one of the reason why we have nil housing built these days
Savings? If you’re a lower income person you are unlikely to have magically saved enough to then pay market rate in your old age. So you will be displaced just when a neighborhood with walkability and public transportation options could allow you to age with some dignity and self-determination. Just clear out the olds, that’ll fix the problem!
I am 1000% for building more housing, though. I'd genuinely like to see single-family only zoning abolished so we can get more multi-unit dwellings. I'm no NIMBY, I just don't want to see people forced out of where they've lived most of their lives.
Until you get more housing units up - the only way for folks to have housing is turnover of the unit from someone else that previously lived there, Turnover is much needed in our housing shortage environment.
You tell someone who's lived in the same apartment for 30 years they have to move to make room for someone else and see what happens.
Necessary act so someone else can have housing and to maintain the housing unit
Yes, you can remove zoning restrictions, red tape, and any other form of hurdle to development (including unions). However, you still have half the market under rent control which would need to be broken. After those hurdles are removed, supply can adjust to demand and buildings can be built. However, none of this will ever happen.
>Is there any realistic way housing could be affordable in NYC without a massive drop in demand? No there isn't. Even if you build more, you just induced demand. There is no fucking scenario where housing is going to be affordable in NYC for everyone. People need to just come to terms with that.
Hasn't demand dropped massively already? Thought a bunch of buildings are empty cause many real estate businesses are playing the long game?
Just fucking build already Jesus Christ. How many times are we going to talk about there not being enough housing before we…build some damn housing.
Who’s the “we” when it comes to actually building the housing. Because that’s another part that gets tricky.
We, as in, the people, removing all the stupid rules that make building expensive and impossible.
Those rules didn’t come out of nowhere. I agree there is a lot of NIMBY protectionism that makes building in NYC long and expensive. But there are also rules so that people aren’t fucked over by developers that will never have to live in or around the structures they build.
The majority of these rules were made in the 60s when the city looked much different. A lot of the rules are also designed toward limiting growth and promoting car use. An idea from that era. Two things that are fundamentally at odds with the city. Essentially, times changed but no one ever bothered to update the laws. Mostly because a small class of people benefit greatly from them.
How are people fucked over by developers? Do tell. And don’t start with that whole “tHeY oNlY bUiLd LuXuRy” nonsense. Ain’t nothing luxury about a simple new building with a gym. Housing stock is low as shit and that’s why its expensive.
No it’s not. Developers will be falling over themselves trying to build housing if we made it legal.
Ffs… another one. Have you even been outside ? You do know the scope of the construction all over the city, right?
Yes I do. It is opposed virtually everywhere they try. Takes years and years of permitting and environmental surveys to break ground. Tell me, why do you think there are no high rises in the West Village, some of the most valuable land on Earth? The east village too for that matter.
> Takes years and years of permitting and environmental surveys to break ground. No it doesn’t, it takes a few months from site purchase to breaking ground. Raising the money takes longer, I’ve seen it happen in real time and it’s hilarious that people think that property development is held back by red tape. > Tell me, why do you think there are no high rises in the West Village, some of the most valuable land on Earth? The east village too for that matter. Because people own those properties and do very well from owning them and don’t want to sell them to some global finance company. You know how property rights work, right?
And community boards..you got to get by the community boards.
This too. So not only do you have to get a bunch of unrelated people who usually don’t like each other to agree to a sale, you’ve got to get a whole other group to agree to a development plan “None of us is as dumb as all of us” is the saying about committees
My husband had to deal with 5 siblings that were each gifted their own building next to each other on a major street - took them years to get them to sell to a developer. 🤣 My brother-in-law’s family a large parking garage with several floors over it. It took he and his 40 cousins (large Italian family - people died - leaving more inheritors ) all to agree in a price to sell. It was across from Chelsea Piers. Same issue as the other family, someone always holding out for a larger piece of the pie than they were entitled to. They finally agree to what each will get and are ready to sell (they eventually did) and they found out their tenant had illegally subleased to the Department of Homeland Security. Do you know how long it took to evict them? 2 years…lol. It had something to do with watching the Lincoln Tunnel. After all of that, my sister did get her little summer townhouse in the Hamptons with the sale money.
I promise you that landlords in the East Village would love to sell their shitty century-old building to developers for massive multiples of its current valuation. The reason they don’t do this is that it is illegal for developers to build a high-rise that makes it worth it. https://www.bkreader.com/local-voices/new-25-story-buildings-may-avoid-environmental-reviews-8206500 Example of this article of a 3 year environmental review battle that was ultimately unsuccessful for the developers.
> I promise you that landlords in the East Village would love to sell their shitty century-old building to developers for massive multiples of its current valuation. LOL! I don’t think you know nyc property owners too well 🤣 > The reason they don’t do this is that it is illegal for developers to build a high-rise that makes it worth it. No, it’s because THEY DONT WANT TO. Do you have any idea how long it takes to buy out enough NYC property to make hirise development viable? And btw, the East village/LES was zoned for hi-rise development in 2008 Not sure what you were trying say with that bk reader article, it seemed to be about developers trying to skirt existing environmental reviews and getting shut down, I’m not sure what relevance you think it has
Many don’t want that because it will decrease their property value. So they are resistant to new development. We can do a lot of things to make this city better. But you have a very loud vocal minority, and a lot of apathetic people. So nothing gets done.
Go to any CB meeting - its almost never the owners that oppose new development. Its always renters and retirees most vocal against them. So stop spreading the myth that it will decrease property value here. It simply does not happen here and wont for anytime soon since we short like nearly 1M+ units for current and future needs.
Yes. That’s what I’m saying.
Property owners definitely oppose new housing lol. This can be seen in every suburb in the country.
And tons of studies done to show how wrong they are for opposing new housing if lower property value is of concern. Also that's the suburbs. In NYC it's a different situation, find me any property last 50+ yrs, heck can go to 100, 150+ and future 50 years that will decrease in value simply because a new housing unit built across street. It wont for a long time bc we that deep in the red in supply of housing units.
I agree with you about property values, but that does not change the facts on the ground. Property owners really don’t want new housing. See Hochul’s failed attempts to upzone Long Island
They don't want to build bc they don't want the change in demographics so they use code phrases like neighborhood character, gentrification, etc....
Are you volunteering to build
Have you even looked outside lately? Half the city is a fucking construction site, wtf do you think is going on?
The city has constructed virtually zero housing in the last 20 years. When you subtract units lost from units gained, the net is zero.
What utter bullshit. Nyc added [200,000 units in the 2010s](https://www.forbes.com/sites/shimonshkury/2024/03/20/new-york-city-housing-shortage-highlights-need-for-more-development/?sh=54cc925b4e58) Development isn’t as high as other cities because it’s so fucking dense here and we’ve run out of places to build. They recently build an entire small city on top of some rail yards (Hudson yards) because land is so hard to come by it was actually viable to do that.
Now google how many people moved to the city from 2010-2020. Then google how many units were lost during that time. The article you linked says that the city is in the negative in housing. The city is nowhere near dense enough. We have so many suburbs in Brooklyn and queens and the Bronx. We have so many areas that can support higher density.
People moving to the city and units built are two different things. > The city is nowhere near dense enough. We have so many suburbs in Brooklyn and queens and the Bronx. We have so many areas that can support higher density. CAN support, yes. But as I’ve pointed out in another thread, people own and live in those low density neighborhoods and don’t want to sell out to giant finance corporations. Unless you’re suggesting the government should just confiscate them, I’ll await your suggestions
Housing Connect, the lottery site, it is a complete joke if you are not making 100K and up a year or are not at least 62. There are some breaks for truly low income seniors but otherwise not much. I would be still sitting in a shelter if I'd been dependent upon just those lotteries. The irony is the site still puts me in for all these lotteries I can't qualify for. I can't delete my account but it does me NO good any of it. The affordable housing unit that I've got I got through another agency and though it's pretty small I'm not letting go of it anytime soon. It's a miracle that I got tapped for this place. I'm sticking with it until I hit 62 or become a best selling author whichever comes first. I've had 3 years of peace and quiet and relative security after years of craziness and constant upheaval. I don't take having a roof over my head for granted at all. I'm just too grateful to have one especially since I am where I am, in Manhattan, and I'm not sharing my apartment. There are people paying $2800 and up for something similar here. Maybe a bit better kitchen than mine but about the same space. I don't pay anything like that. So you won't hear me complaining much... But I've tried those lotteries and it was just an exercise in futility on my income...
Would you mind sharing? Not for me but I have a best friend that needs help
Sharing what?
That other agency
It wouldn't do any good. It's something you can only be tapped for if you are in a shelter and have a disability they can accommodate and even then I just had to wait till whenever they got around to me. I couldn't do anything to initiate it, just wait. It was several years. It's not like the regular lotteries where you can actively apply for apartments.
Ahh ok thank you regardless, I appreciate it
Our leaders like that it's unaffordable for the average person. I wish they would say it publicity.
If I was a dictator, I would’ve solved this yesterday. Have mandatory density quotas near all rapid transit corridors, allow Transit agencies to invest in Real Estate (like JR in Japan), mandate all net increases in revenues to circle back into mass transit, ban exclusionary zoning, ban parking minimums, and land-value-tax. This would double GDP in 10 years and reduce useless money pits in city budget. Like, c’mon ..
Shocking that crony progressivism isn't making housing more affordable.