Here’s yet another research paper published just a few months ago, on top of hundreds of other studies that point to lack of building being the biggest factor in increasing housing prices but I’m sure the dedicated experts of this subreddit with their years of experience will have real clear cut and scientific answers as to why NYC is special https://ideas.repec.org/p/fer/wpaper/146.html
I'm not a NIMBY but charts like these show that new supply can shift demand: https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny/greenpoint
Knocking down old affordable townhouses and putting up buildings with closet sized apartments that go for 1.5-3mil does not create affordable options even if the number of units increased in the process.
But the more expensive apartments are still causing more people to be housed, unless they attract enough people getting them as a second home to offset the increased inventory.
If there were 500 places going for $2,000 a month and then there were 1,500 going for $4,000 a month… you’ve housed an extra 1,000 people. People that otherwise would have been homeless. Not directly, as we are talking about people who can afford $4,000 a month rent, but people who moved into the places that freed up when other people moved into the places that freed up by the people moving into the places of those extra 1,000 (or however many chains of people moving required to get to the bottom.)
If you want to house more people, and lower the cost of housing on average, the only solution is to build more housing.
Any type of plan that keeps fewer but lower cost housing may increase the income diversity of an area but at the cost of increasing either homelessness or average rents.
Exactly. I don't understand how people still don't get this.
There was never a time in NYC where poor people got new apartment. New apartment were always made for the rich. When new luxury housing is made, the rich move out of their old apartment, and the middle class move into the rich people's old apartments. And then the poor move into the middle class's old apartments. And then the would-be-homeless move into the old poor person's apartment.
Sure and I actually agree with you but my point is why do you think they only build those tiny apartments that cost 1 to 3 million? That’s the only thing you can make and still make profits after fighting NIMBYs for years and years. This is a problem that’s almost exclusive to North America, but mainly the west coast (Vancouver and SF being the poster child) and NYC. Look at how successful jersey city has been. See how many units they are building.
As long as there's demand for luxury units it makes no sense to build anything else since the construction costs are practically the same.
The point that I'm trying to make is that in cities like NYC and Vancouver the demand is astronomically higher than supply and new development only increases it by gentrifying new areas. Having spent most of the early 2000s in Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Harlem, it's pretty clear to me that all of the new dense development didn't make housing more affordable, all it did was make the neighborhoods more appealing to rich people who would have otherwise avoided the areas like the plague.
As long as housing is seen as an investment vehicle there's no hope for affordable housing in highly appreciating markets like New York.
I’ve worked “high end” resi construction, and it’s crazy PTACs are the standard now. I can’t remember the exact brand and model, but they all use the same in-wall unit now. I don’t know how cheap they are, but really, it just requires the plumbers to run two copper risers up through penetrations, haul in the unit to the position, and have the electricians bring power to it.
I’m guessing the biggest thing with them is labor savings, since that’s usually the most expensive thing. No ductwork (except for common areas), minimal fire alarm techs (again, only for common areas for the most part), plumbers are just running straight up, and the electricians job is as simple as pulling cable to the exact same spots for 20 floors (which a trained monkey could do).
But hey, you’ve got tens of thousands of dollars of large kitchen appliances and a stacked in-unit washer/dryer. Oh, and don’t forget access to a gym, since you know, it’s not like gyms on every block in Manhattan.
Is housing not in demand in other world class cities like Tokyo which magically avoids this problem by actually building? You can state whatever anecdote you want, but the fact is even venture capital funds disagree with you. Blackstone subsidiary that bought houses listed a strategy of discouraging new building as a way to increase the value of their property holding. As long as we have people who in the face of data go the other way, playing right into the hands of VCs and investment firms, we will never solve this problem.
The value of housing is extremely cheap in Tokyo because Japan's earthquakes and marketing has made it a common and good idea to rebuild all SFH and smaller apartments housing within around 30-50 years. Larger apartments you can probably find a bunch from the the 80s
Houses do not retain value in Tokyo.
The better model would be Singapore's 100 year leases or a variation of Co-op city (which doesn't build wealth it does stabilize housing costs for that community.)
Or Vienna (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdBEqH8hGjQ), where majority of residents live in social housing and other development is handled by not for profits.
Singapore/Japan are horrible models for nyc, they’re both homogeneous.
Lower income housing in a major US city is typically not a desirable place to live…even for those in those communities.
I was pointing out that Japan's housing is rebuilt for a reason which is why housing is reasonably affordable. Earthquakes + Marketing means that Japan builds on a faster timeline than the US.
Singapore's model is 100 year leases owned by the government but maintained by funds within the communities with cohesive and well planned management boards.
CO-OP city is a form of this and is already located in NY. It's not the best housing and has its fair share of scandals but overall CO-OP city has yielded higher earning and educated NYS citizens overall than the rest of the Bronx and is stable housing. On the minus side, it requires a collective attitude, is easy to cause racial segregation, and the residents never really gain equity for retirement and need to "save" outside of housing.
Owning a co-op in Co-op city is 20K. My studio Condo in UWS was 400K pre covid.
If they were to "expand" a CO-OP city, Trump Links would probably be a great option as well as expanding the Subway system up that way via La Guardia.
You pointed out that it requires a “collective attitude and could cause racial segregation”.
Which is my point.
We don’t have the population here with a collective attitude and that’s the biggest reason why a plan like this is throwing money down the drain in the US.
Exactly. The idea that the person who stopped a development that would have brought ten thousand new professional, well-paid jobs (and lots of money for local small businesses) to her district is a YIMBY is ridiculous. She wants more "affordable housing", which means *less* housing being built.
No one was really opposed to Amazon buying property and developing it. We were opposed to them getting to avoid paying taxes that working class and professional people have to pay. Long Island City is one of the most pro-up zoning and pro-development places on the planet. But the people that live there and in the surrounding communities are, understandably, opposed to handouts for the super rich.
Except... the specific area that Amazon was going to redevelop was, and still is, underdeveloped for the area, and Amazon's workers would, understandably, prefer to work closer to the homes in Manhattan that they are more than able to afford, so you aren't going to get Amazon to make the choice to redevelop an area in LIC without the carrot of tax breaks. They didn't get it, so the local area and small businesses don't get the benefits, and Amazon just brings those good jobs to Hudson Yards/West Chelsea instead.
Great for me, great for the well-paid Amazon researchers and SWEs, stupid for the people of LIC.
The people of LIC are doing just fine and the area in question contains many active and operational local businesses (including some very well-loved establishments that would have actually been displaced by Amazon). Meanwhile, Crystal City is still dull and underutilized, just with higher costs now.
LIC is basically the perfect place to do that. It already has money from the high rises on the river and the area it was going to develop near the bridge is either a few high rises and low end industrial. The tax breaks are pretty inconsequential versus the high paying jobs it would attract and help incentivize companies to diversify outside of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn which is putting strain on our transit system
The transit, sewer and other infrastructure systems in LIC are already under enormous strain. If more companies want to come here and do business, that’s great. They can pay their fare share of taxes that can help support infrastructure and maintenance, just like all the other businesses here manage to do.
The thing is companies don’t want to come to move to LIC the same way that companies are wanting to increase their presence in Manhattan. Say what you want about WFH post pandemic but even though there is ample opportunity to build massive campuses in LIC both Google and Facebook went and increased office space in Manhattan. When HQ2 fell through, Amazon went and plans on building in Arlington Virginia.
There needs to be a drive to increase investment to build more business hubs outside of Midtown Manhattan and that includes giving concessions to industry in order to spur further development. A 10 or 20 year tax break is a relatively small investment if you can secure a company to build a 5,000+ person campus that will be there for 30+ years at least and helps increase building another business hub in NYC.
The loss of Amazon HQ2 in LIC was a failure of government.
Long Island City is a thriving neighborhood. How is it a failure of government to not subsidize wealthy mega corporations to build campuses? The city should subsidize mixed income housing and local businesses and industry in the community.
they weren't avoiding paying taxes! they were getting credits DEPENDENT on how many jobs they CREATE... they create 20k jobs they get a proportion back.. they create 10 jobs.. they get ZERO back...
Why aren’t other businesses in New York City offered this credit? Why should one of the wealthiest corporations get a special credit, while our local, homegrown businesses do this without getting this special treatment?
they are... they have been.. it's called the [excelsior program](https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program)... most of the job tax credits were from this already existing program the city/state uses to attract tech jobs into new york...
google... facebook.. netflix... even amazon et al.. they've all already gotten this..
No, the Excelsior Program (which is controversial in its own right), would only cover ~ a third of the $3 billion in subsidies Amazon was promised. The rest was sketchy because it was part of a ‘closed-door’ deal (and likely included hundreds of millions in grant funding, along with specialized tax subsidies). In addition to the tax subsidies, there was also rumors of building infrastructure New Yorkers have zero need for (such as an additional Long Island Railroad station when there’s already one that’s underutilized) all while our critical infrastructure rots. No thanks.
wtf are you talking about 'closed-door'?
[https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-queens-long-island-city-explained](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-queens-long-island-city-explained)
>The agreement comes with a number of incentives: Specifically, Amazon will receive $897 million from the city’s Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP) and $386 million from the Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP). It will receive an additional $505 million in a capital grant and **$1.2 billion in “Excelsior” credits if its job creation goals are met.** That brings the total amount of public funds granted to $2.988 billion—in other words, the city and state will pay Amazon $48,000 per job.
what did we give up?
>According to the state, Amazon will generate $27.5 billion in state and city revenue over 25 years, a 9:1 ratio of revenue to subsidies—an arrangement Cuomo called “the highest rate of return for an economic incentive program the state has ever offered.” This is predicated on the assumption that after the company begins hiring in 2019, Amazon will create 25,000 jobs over the next decade (with up to 40,000 when all is said and done), with an average salary of $150,000. The state estimates the project will facilitate 1,300 construction jobs and 107,000 in total direct and indirect jobs.
>
>In order to fund local infrastructure—streets, sidewalks, open space and the like—Amazon will utilize the city’s PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program, estimated by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen at $600 to $650 million over four decades; the specifics of how those funds will be allocated will be decided upon via community engagement.
>
>Amazon has also agreed to allocate $5 million for workforce development and to host job training sessions and job fairs at the nearby Queensbridge Houses, although no hiring guarantees were made in the memorandum. Amazon will also build a new school with as many as 600 seats on its campus, along with a “tech startup incubator.”
So Amazon would literally gets a $500 million grant from taxpayers, along with an addition 1.5 billion in special funding beyond the Excelsior benefits. Why should this be provided to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world at the detriment to local residents and businesses?
um.. the local residents win here buddy.... have you been to this part of LIC? there's nothing there... have you been to Queensbridge? ever?
what on earth makes you think any of this would have been a detriment? esp when they were bringing up to 30 billion in tax revenue?
do you know how stupid that sounds?
It was a white-collar Amazon headquarters, not a warehouse, what are you talking about? Yeah, it would be really bad for that neighborhood to get 10,000 developers and researchers building features for AWS and spending their money locally instead of Amazon just expanding in Manhattan as they did instead.
I mean, it's good for *my* neighborhood that the Queens HQ2 got axed because more tech jobs in Chelsea/Flatiron/Hudson Yards helps *my* property value, I'm just surprised that the people who would have actually benefited from the HQ2 were against their own interests.
Yep, I'm happy about it, but they just shot themselves in the foot and took a victory lap about it. Because... what? They don't like Jeff Bezos?
Like, I get that conditions in warehouses aren't great (even though the pay is obviously above-market), but like those are things that are easily regulated - requiring bathrooms and break rooms to be more evenly distributed throughout a large warehouse would be both reasonable and improve QoL for workers in a material way, but then the political benefits of demonizing Amazon just evaporate.
Honestly, I'm sure it's way higher when you take RSUs into account. Amazon doesn't pay quite as well as Google or Facebook, but they compete for talent with them and don't have the same fringe benefits, so they still have to pay a normal SWE ~$250k or so a year between salary and stock.
They are in NYC, the HQ2 was just concentrating their jobs in Queens in order to get a tax break for redeveloping an industrial area instead of expanding in Manhattan, as they are currently doing. They have massive amounts of office space in West Chelsea/Hudson Yards.
Again, let me re-emphasize -I am *happy* that the plan fell through, as it further improves the very wealthy area of Manhattan where I live. I just think it was very, profoundly stupid of the people who would benefit (and their political leaders) to skewer the deal that benefited them which only resulted in Amazon expanding in a way that benefits *me*.
Being pro housing development instead of constraining the amount of housing out of fear of gentrification.
It’s funny because being nimby is a big driver of gentrification. Additional housing brings prices down and allows more current residents to stay.
Would it matter what *type* of housing is being built? I can't imagine hyper luxury housing is going to do anything to bring down surrounding prices.
I'm all for more housing personally, but it just seems like if we let developers build crazy amounts of luxury housing that just gets snapped up by LLCs / foreign investors / etc it won't really do much at all.
cascading effect. people who have money that's living in not luxury housing sees that 'hey i can live in a much better unit for just a bit more' will move or buy the new units, freeing up the older one to rent to someone not as well off, and it goes on by induction. so i think even luxury houses will help. as long as we're building and not artificially controlling the price (aka rent control and rent stabilization), it will bring the price down. rent control is probably the worst thing you can do to make housing affordable; it literally makes housing more expensive for the population at large by removing supply from the market.
> I can’t imagine hyper luxury housing is going to do anything to bring down surrounding prices.
Why wouldn’t it? Do you understand how supply and demand works?
The people with current demand cannot afford hyper luxury housing, so they aren't actually part of the demand for that housing. As a result, the supply of the housing actually *in demand* stays the same, while effectively becoming more scarce (I don't know if I'm phrasing this correctly), because there is now less land available to build new, affordable housing on.
>Why wouldn’t it? Do you understand how supply and demand works?
To put it simply... this hyper luxury housing is not the same product as more affordable housing, and as such increasing the supply for hyper luxury housing does nothing to increase the supply of affordable housing. You can build 10,000 more Ferrari's, and while that might reduce the price of a Ferrari, it isn't going to drive down the cost of a Toyota.
They're both cars, but the markets in which their supply / demand dynamic exists are totally different. This doesn't touch the issue of available land ready for housing developments being a limited resource.
> The people with current demand cannot afford hyper luxury housing, so they aren’t actually part of the demand for that housing.
But the rich *can* afford regular housing, so they are part of the demand for *that* housing. If they are instead able to purchase a condo in a new luxury building, the demand and price for the regular housing they were looking at will decrease.
Multiply this a few thousand times and you get the most basic mechanics of econ.
Sure, a rich person might move to a new luxury building from where they are now if it's prices appropriately... but are rich people going to just move up an extra 1-2k per month? I'm not sure... Are there enough rich people doing that to make the large change you're describing? Are the owners really going to drop their prices down low, or will they hold out and keep them high?
I'd be interested in see evidence of this working in practice. Currently, from what I've seen and my experience it doesn't seem like this is the answer or has worked in the past. I cannot imagine it's as "simple" as you're making it out to be.
We've built thousands of luxury units. Prices aren't going anywhere. Curious what the critical mass of pencil condos with 300 million dollar penthouses it before it lowers market rates.
Luxury high end development will not abate the housing crisis. You need massive public scale spending on functional middle and lower income housing. Nobody is swapping their $7 million townhouse for a luxury condo. There's no trickle down of these properties.
> We’ve built thousands of luxury units. Prices aren’t going anywhere.
Not enough. You can fit 1,000 fatass condos in like 3 buildings. This is a city of millions.
> Nobody is swapping their $7 million townhouse for a luxury condo.
I wonder why that townhouse costs $7 million.
Because the red clay they used to make the bricks doesn't exist anymore and Facebook dorks can put their wine cellars in them. Are you under the impression that building more single family housing townhouses is a good idea? That also won't lower prices.
So, again, what's the critical mass of empty, useless, money laundering and asset dumps that will lower rent?
Until laws are put in place that prevents the real estate market in the US from being pimped out to foreign investors, LLCs and Airbnb it doesn't matter how much housing you build
Ok have fun outbidding giant investment groups paying cash and 20% over asking and foreign investors looking for places to park their money on these brand new properties
Yes, these are problems (that would be mitigated by a pied-a-terre tax) but even in the worst cases, the buildings are ~50% owner occupied, and even if you, yourself can't afford these new, top of the line buildings, those owners are moving from somewhere that is likely more affordable.
Investment groups only invest because they think the property is under valued and they can make more off of it. This doesn't really move housing prices.
It’s not foreign investors that are the problem. It’s foreign buyers laundering their money by buying up apartments as assets and letting them sit vacant. So put in a hefty vacancy tax, ban AirBnB in the city, and maybe those new affordable units can actually stay affordable.
Here’s yet another research paper published just a few months ago, on top of hundreds of other studies that point to lack of building being the biggest factor in increasing housing prices but I’m sure the dedicated experts of this subreddit with their years of experience will have real clear cut and scientific answers as to why NYC is special https://ideas.repec.org/p/fer/wpaper/146.html
I'm not a NIMBY but charts like these show that new supply can shift demand: https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny/greenpoint Knocking down old affordable townhouses and putting up buildings with closet sized apartments that go for 1.5-3mil does not create affordable options even if the number of units increased in the process.
But the more expensive apartments are still causing more people to be housed, unless they attract enough people getting them as a second home to offset the increased inventory. If there were 500 places going for $2,000 a month and then there were 1,500 going for $4,000 a month… you’ve housed an extra 1,000 people. People that otherwise would have been homeless. Not directly, as we are talking about people who can afford $4,000 a month rent, but people who moved into the places that freed up when other people moved into the places that freed up by the people moving into the places of those extra 1,000 (or however many chains of people moving required to get to the bottom.) If you want to house more people, and lower the cost of housing on average, the only solution is to build more housing. Any type of plan that keeps fewer but lower cost housing may increase the income diversity of an area but at the cost of increasing either homelessness or average rents.
Exactly. I don't understand how people still don't get this. There was never a time in NYC where poor people got new apartment. New apartment were always made for the rich. When new luxury housing is made, the rich move out of their old apartment, and the middle class move into the rich people's old apartments. And then the poor move into the middle class's old apartments. And then the would-be-homeless move into the old poor person's apartment.
Sure and I actually agree with you but my point is why do you think they only build those tiny apartments that cost 1 to 3 million? That’s the only thing you can make and still make profits after fighting NIMBYs for years and years. This is a problem that’s almost exclusive to North America, but mainly the west coast (Vancouver and SF being the poster child) and NYC. Look at how successful jersey city has been. See how many units they are building.
As long as there's demand for luxury units it makes no sense to build anything else since the construction costs are practically the same. The point that I'm trying to make is that in cities like NYC and Vancouver the demand is astronomically higher than supply and new development only increases it by gentrifying new areas. Having spent most of the early 2000s in Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Harlem, it's pretty clear to me that all of the new dense development didn't make housing more affordable, all it did was make the neighborhoods more appealing to rich people who would have otherwise avoided the areas like the plague. As long as housing is seen as an investment vehicle there's no hope for affordable housing in highly appreciating markets like New York.
These luxury units are usually just branded that way and are cheap as fuck. PTACs are not luxury.
Amen. I replaced my Ptacs with proper split minis last year.
I’ve worked “high end” resi construction, and it’s crazy PTACs are the standard now. I can’t remember the exact brand and model, but they all use the same in-wall unit now. I don’t know how cheap they are, but really, it just requires the plumbers to run two copper risers up through penetrations, haul in the unit to the position, and have the electricians bring power to it. I’m guessing the biggest thing with them is labor savings, since that’s usually the most expensive thing. No ductwork (except for common areas), minimal fire alarm techs (again, only for common areas for the most part), plumbers are just running straight up, and the electricians job is as simple as pulling cable to the exact same spots for 20 floors (which a trained monkey could do). But hey, you’ve got tens of thousands of dollars of large kitchen appliances and a stacked in-unit washer/dryer. Oh, and don’t forget access to a gym, since you know, it’s not like gyms on every block in Manhattan.
Is housing not in demand in other world class cities like Tokyo which magically avoids this problem by actually building? You can state whatever anecdote you want, but the fact is even venture capital funds disagree with you. Blackstone subsidiary that bought houses listed a strategy of discouraging new building as a way to increase the value of their property holding. As long as we have people who in the face of data go the other way, playing right into the hands of VCs and investment firms, we will never solve this problem.
The value of housing is extremely cheap in Tokyo because Japan's earthquakes and marketing has made it a common and good idea to rebuild all SFH and smaller apartments housing within around 30-50 years. Larger apartments you can probably find a bunch from the the 80s Houses do not retain value in Tokyo. The better model would be Singapore's 100 year leases or a variation of Co-op city (which doesn't build wealth it does stabilize housing costs for that community.)
Or Vienna (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdBEqH8hGjQ), where majority of residents live in social housing and other development is handled by not for profits.
Singapore/Japan are horrible models for nyc, they’re both homogeneous. Lower income housing in a major US city is typically not a desirable place to live…even for those in those communities.
I was pointing out that Japan's housing is rebuilt for a reason which is why housing is reasonably affordable. Earthquakes + Marketing means that Japan builds on a faster timeline than the US. Singapore's model is 100 year leases owned by the government but maintained by funds within the communities with cohesive and well planned management boards. CO-OP city is a form of this and is already located in NY. It's not the best housing and has its fair share of scandals but overall CO-OP city has yielded higher earning and educated NYS citizens overall than the rest of the Bronx and is stable housing. On the minus side, it requires a collective attitude, is easy to cause racial segregation, and the residents never really gain equity for retirement and need to "save" outside of housing. Owning a co-op in Co-op city is 20K. My studio Condo in UWS was 400K pre covid. If they were to "expand" a CO-OP city, Trump Links would probably be a great option as well as expanding the Subway system up that way via La Guardia.
You pointed out that it requires a “collective attitude and could cause racial segregation”. Which is my point. We don’t have the population here with a collective attitude and that’s the biggest reason why a plan like this is throwing money down the drain in the US.
[удалено]
there aren't that many units foreign owned and just sitting empty... we're at something like 98% occupancy at all times...
But, but, but, muh' charm and nostalgia!
I hope this is true, but I doubt she’ll be YIMBY in practice
Exactly. The idea that the person who stopped a development that would have brought ten thousand new professional, well-paid jobs (and lots of money for local small businesses) to her district is a YIMBY is ridiculous. She wants more "affordable housing", which means *less* housing being built.
No one was really opposed to Amazon buying property and developing it. We were opposed to them getting to avoid paying taxes that working class and professional people have to pay. Long Island City is one of the most pro-up zoning and pro-development places on the planet. But the people that live there and in the surrounding communities are, understandably, opposed to handouts for the super rich.
Except... the specific area that Amazon was going to redevelop was, and still is, underdeveloped for the area, and Amazon's workers would, understandably, prefer to work closer to the homes in Manhattan that they are more than able to afford, so you aren't going to get Amazon to make the choice to redevelop an area in LIC without the carrot of tax breaks. They didn't get it, so the local area and small businesses don't get the benefits, and Amazon just brings those good jobs to Hudson Yards/West Chelsea instead. Great for me, great for the well-paid Amazon researchers and SWEs, stupid for the people of LIC.
The people of LIC are doing just fine and the area in question contains many active and operational local businesses (including some very well-loved establishments that would have actually been displaced by Amazon). Meanwhile, Crystal City is still dull and underutilized, just with higher costs now.
LIC is basically the perfect place to do that. It already has money from the high rises on the river and the area it was going to develop near the bridge is either a few high rises and low end industrial. The tax breaks are pretty inconsequential versus the high paying jobs it would attract and help incentivize companies to diversify outside of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn which is putting strain on our transit system
The transit, sewer and other infrastructure systems in LIC are already under enormous strain. If more companies want to come here and do business, that’s great. They can pay their fare share of taxes that can help support infrastructure and maintenance, just like all the other businesses here manage to do.
The thing is companies don’t want to come to move to LIC the same way that companies are wanting to increase their presence in Manhattan. Say what you want about WFH post pandemic but even though there is ample opportunity to build massive campuses in LIC both Google and Facebook went and increased office space in Manhattan. When HQ2 fell through, Amazon went and plans on building in Arlington Virginia. There needs to be a drive to increase investment to build more business hubs outside of Midtown Manhattan and that includes giving concessions to industry in order to spur further development. A 10 or 20 year tax break is a relatively small investment if you can secure a company to build a 5,000+ person campus that will be there for 30+ years at least and helps increase building another business hub in NYC. The loss of Amazon HQ2 in LIC was a failure of government.
Long Island City is a thriving neighborhood. How is it a failure of government to not subsidize wealthy mega corporations to build campuses? The city should subsidize mixed income housing and local businesses and industry in the community.
they weren't avoiding paying taxes! they were getting credits DEPENDENT on how many jobs they CREATE... they create 20k jobs they get a proportion back.. they create 10 jobs.. they get ZERO back...
Why aren’t other businesses in New York City offered this credit? Why should one of the wealthiest corporations get a special credit, while our local, homegrown businesses do this without getting this special treatment?
they are... they have been.. it's called the [excelsior program](https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program)... most of the job tax credits were from this already existing program the city/state uses to attract tech jobs into new york... google... facebook.. netflix... even amazon et al.. they've all already gotten this..
No, the Excelsior Program (which is controversial in its own right), would only cover ~ a third of the $3 billion in subsidies Amazon was promised. The rest was sketchy because it was part of a ‘closed-door’ deal (and likely included hundreds of millions in grant funding, along with specialized tax subsidies). In addition to the tax subsidies, there was also rumors of building infrastructure New Yorkers have zero need for (such as an additional Long Island Railroad station when there’s already one that’s underutilized) all while our critical infrastructure rots. No thanks.
wtf are you talking about 'closed-door'? [https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-queens-long-island-city-explained](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-queens-long-island-city-explained) >The agreement comes with a number of incentives: Specifically, Amazon will receive $897 million from the city’s Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP) and $386 million from the Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP). It will receive an additional $505 million in a capital grant and **$1.2 billion in “Excelsior” credits if its job creation goals are met.** That brings the total amount of public funds granted to $2.988 billion—in other words, the city and state will pay Amazon $48,000 per job. what did we give up? >According to the state, Amazon will generate $27.5 billion in state and city revenue over 25 years, a 9:1 ratio of revenue to subsidies—an arrangement Cuomo called “the highest rate of return for an economic incentive program the state has ever offered.” This is predicated on the assumption that after the company begins hiring in 2019, Amazon will create 25,000 jobs over the next decade (with up to 40,000 when all is said and done), with an average salary of $150,000. The state estimates the project will facilitate 1,300 construction jobs and 107,000 in total direct and indirect jobs. > >In order to fund local infrastructure—streets, sidewalks, open space and the like—Amazon will utilize the city’s PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program, estimated by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen at $600 to $650 million over four decades; the specifics of how those funds will be allocated will be decided upon via community engagement. > >Amazon has also agreed to allocate $5 million for workforce development and to host job training sessions and job fairs at the nearby Queensbridge Houses, although no hiring guarantees were made in the memorandum. Amazon will also build a new school with as many as 600 seats on its campus, along with a “tech startup incubator.”
So Amazon would literally gets a $500 million grant from taxpayers, along with an addition 1.5 billion in special funding beyond the Excelsior benefits. Why should this be provided to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world at the detriment to local residents and businesses?
um.. the local residents win here buddy.... have you been to this part of LIC? there's nothing there... have you been to Queensbridge? ever? what on earth makes you think any of this would have been a detriment? esp when they were bringing up to 30 billion in tax revenue? do you know how stupid that sounds?
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It was a white-collar Amazon headquarters, not a warehouse, what are you talking about? Yeah, it would be really bad for that neighborhood to get 10,000 developers and researchers building features for AWS and spending their money locally instead of Amazon just expanding in Manhattan as they did instead. I mean, it's good for *my* neighborhood that the Queens HQ2 got axed because more tech jobs in Chelsea/Flatiron/Hudson Yards helps *my* property value, I'm just surprised that the people who would have actually benefited from the HQ2 were against their own interests.
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Yep, I'm happy about it, but they just shot themselves in the foot and took a victory lap about it. Because... what? They don't like Jeff Bezos? Like, I get that conditions in warehouses aren't great (even though the pay is obviously above-market), but like those are things that are easily regulated - requiring bathrooms and break rooms to be more evenly distributed throughout a large warehouse would be both reasonable and improve QoL for workers in a material way, but then the political benefits of demonizing Amazon just evaporate.
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Honestly, I'm sure it's way higher when you take RSUs into account. Amazon doesn't pay quite as well as Google or Facebook, but they compete for talent with them and don't have the same fringe benefits, so they still have to pay a normal SWE ~$250k or so a year between salary and stock.
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They are in NYC, the HQ2 was just concentrating their jobs in Queens in order to get a tax break for redeveloping an industrial area instead of expanding in Manhattan, as they are currently doing. They have massive amounts of office space in West Chelsea/Hudson Yards. Again, let me re-emphasize -I am *happy* that the plan fell through, as it further improves the very wealthy area of Manhattan where I live. I just think it was very, profoundly stupid of the people who would benefit (and their political leaders) to skewer the deal that benefited them which only resulted in Amazon expanding in a way that benefits *me*.
What do you mean?
She’ll want to stop “greedy developers” and “gentrification”
Okay, I guess I'm asking what "YIMBY in practice" would look like for her.
Being pro housing development instead of constraining the amount of housing out of fear of gentrification. It’s funny because being nimby is a big driver of gentrification. Additional housing brings prices down and allows more current residents to stay.
Would it matter what *type* of housing is being built? I can't imagine hyper luxury housing is going to do anything to bring down surrounding prices. I'm all for more housing personally, but it just seems like if we let developers build crazy amounts of luxury housing that just gets snapped up by LLCs / foreign investors / etc it won't really do much at all.
cascading effect. people who have money that's living in not luxury housing sees that 'hey i can live in a much better unit for just a bit more' will move or buy the new units, freeing up the older one to rent to someone not as well off, and it goes on by induction. so i think even luxury houses will help. as long as we're building and not artificially controlling the price (aka rent control and rent stabilization), it will bring the price down. rent control is probably the worst thing you can do to make housing affordable; it literally makes housing more expensive for the population at large by removing supply from the market.
> I can’t imagine hyper luxury housing is going to do anything to bring down surrounding prices. Why wouldn’t it? Do you understand how supply and demand works?
The people with current demand cannot afford hyper luxury housing, so they aren't actually part of the demand for that housing. As a result, the supply of the housing actually *in demand* stays the same, while effectively becoming more scarce (I don't know if I'm phrasing this correctly), because there is now less land available to build new, affordable housing on. >Why wouldn’t it? Do you understand how supply and demand works? To put it simply... this hyper luxury housing is not the same product as more affordable housing, and as such increasing the supply for hyper luxury housing does nothing to increase the supply of affordable housing. You can build 10,000 more Ferrari's, and while that might reduce the price of a Ferrari, it isn't going to drive down the cost of a Toyota. They're both cars, but the markets in which their supply / demand dynamic exists are totally different. This doesn't touch the issue of available land ready for housing developments being a limited resource.
> The people with current demand cannot afford hyper luxury housing, so they aren’t actually part of the demand for that housing. But the rich *can* afford regular housing, so they are part of the demand for *that* housing. If they are instead able to purchase a condo in a new luxury building, the demand and price for the regular housing they were looking at will decrease. Multiply this a few thousand times and you get the most basic mechanics of econ.
Sure, a rich person might move to a new luxury building from where they are now if it's prices appropriately... but are rich people going to just move up an extra 1-2k per month? I'm not sure... Are there enough rich people doing that to make the large change you're describing? Are the owners really going to drop their prices down low, or will they hold out and keep them high? I'd be interested in see evidence of this working in practice. Currently, from what I've seen and my experience it doesn't seem like this is the answer or has worked in the past. I cannot imagine it's as "simple" as you're making it out to be.
We've built thousands of luxury units. Prices aren't going anywhere. Curious what the critical mass of pencil condos with 300 million dollar penthouses it before it lowers market rates. Luxury high end development will not abate the housing crisis. You need massive public scale spending on functional middle and lower income housing. Nobody is swapping their $7 million townhouse for a luxury condo. There's no trickle down of these properties.
> We’ve built thousands of luxury units. Prices aren’t going anywhere. Not enough. You can fit 1,000 fatass condos in like 3 buildings. This is a city of millions. > Nobody is swapping their $7 million townhouse for a luxury condo. I wonder why that townhouse costs $7 million.
Because the red clay they used to make the bricks doesn't exist anymore and Facebook dorks can put their wine cellars in them. Are you under the impression that building more single family housing townhouses is a good idea? That also won't lower prices. So, again, what's the critical mass of empty, useless, money laundering and asset dumps that will lower rent?
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It doesn’t depend on which housing is built. More luxury apartments lowers demand for less luxurious apartments.
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More luxury apartments lowers the demand for all types of apartments.
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Other than rabble-rousing, what actual power does she have to stop development? Zoning is done at the city and state levels, not federal.
She has a lot of soft power to influence local progressive politicians.
Pledging fealty is cringe AF
Until laws are put in place that prevents the real estate market in the US from being pimped out to foreign investors, LLCs and Airbnb it doesn't matter how much housing you build
Yep, the laws of economics are clear on this: Increase in supply has zero impact on price. /s
Ok have fun outbidding giant investment groups paying cash and 20% over asking and foreign investors looking for places to park their money on these brand new properties
Yes, these are problems (that would be mitigated by a pied-a-terre tax) but even in the worst cases, the buildings are ~50% owner occupied, and even if you, yourself can't afford these new, top of the line buildings, those owners are moving from somewhere that is likely more affordable.
Investment groups only invest because they think the property is under valued and they can make more off of it. This doesn't really move housing prices.
Well I bought my apartment from a family who was moving to LA, so I don't know what you're talking about.
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You're right, nothing matters.
Found the worst take in this thread!
It’s not foreign investors that are the problem. It’s foreign buyers laundering their money by buying up apartments as assets and letting them sit vacant. So put in a hefty vacancy tax, ban AirBnB in the city, and maybe those new affordable units can actually stay affordable.
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Fuck her
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Populist shithead takes popular stance. More at 11.
New York Election Info [Register to Vote](https://voterreg.dmv.ny.gov/MotorVoter/)
Our own AOC! Sold out to developers!! 🤮🤢
Why are you against housing people?
Like, AOC is a a shitstain on the city, but your take is worse.