Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing

  • It’s Time for Airbnb to Share Its New York Listings

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    (photo: Sofie Hecht / Gotham Gazette)


    Teaching children to share is difficult. Teaching Airbnb to share is impossible. Airbnb’s version of the “sharing economy” means more profits for the company and less affordable housing for the rest of us. 

    Airbnb repeatedly allows and provides cover for commercial operators to break the law, turn our homes into hotels, and parachute into our communities to make a profit, pilfering

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  • To Make New York City More Affordable, End the Cap on Density

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    (Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    New York’s severe housing crisis can be traced to a simple fact—our city doesn’t have enough homes for the people who want to live here. The shortage has led to ever-increasing rents, the steady displacement of long-standing communities, and levels of homelessness not seen since the Great Depression. To put it bluntly, we need to build more homes. Lots of them. Affordable and market rate. Yesterday.

    One senseless obstacle to new housing is a statewide cap on the density of new

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  • To Maximize Affordable Housing, Increase Collaboration Between Public and Private Sectors

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    (photo: @NYCHousing)


    The millions of New Yorkers struggling to deal with impacts of an urgent housing crisis deserve to see more collaboration between government officials and industry leaders who have the power to provide more affordable homes for low- and middle-income families.

    Fortunately, the recently-passed state budget provides a reminder of what can be achieved when public officials advance smart, pro-housing policies with appropriate input and feedback from local leaders and those who build and preserve affordable

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 4, with Sally Goldenberg

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 39 -- 4, with Sally Goldenberg [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    wtpd md bm sally goldenbergSally

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  • The Mayor's Mistaken Attempt to Supersize Buildings

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    (Credit: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Nearly every day it seems, a new record is broken for a tallest new residential structure in our city. Whether it is Downtown Brooklyn’s first 1,000+ foot tall tower, Queens’ tallest tower in Long Island City,

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  • City Seeks Developers to Protect Affordability Through Housing Purchases

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    Mayor de Blasio (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


    In October, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that his ambitious affordable housing plan was two years ahead of schedule, prompting him to expand his target of creating and preserving 200,000 affordable units by 2024 to 300,000 units by 2026. At the same time, the mayor said his administration would undertake efforts to increase the involvement of non-profit developers in keeping housing affordable, likely a response to critics who said the administration was relying too heavily on

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  • De Blasio Planning Appointee Becomes Ardent Foe

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    Mayor de Blasio unveils his housing plan (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Michelle de la Uz was first appointed to the powerful City Planning Commission in 2012, by then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, then re-appointed in 2017 by the current Public Advocate, Letitia James. Over the course of time, and with de Blasio now in his fifth year as mayor, de la Uz has become the most consistent and often lone dissenter on the 13-member commission, voting against a variety of de Blasio’s land use plans.

    During a recent appearance on the ...

  • Expert Points to Disconnect Between De Blasio Housing and Homelessness Plans

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    Mayor de Basio (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


    The city’s homelessness crisis has been a major challenge for Mayor Bill de Blasio since he took office in 2014. While the crisis was growing over the course of decades, key decisions were made just a few years before de Blasio became mayor that appear to have accelerated the trend, namely the elimination of city and state rental subsidy programs.

    When de Blasio became mayor, he set out to reinstitute rental subsidy programming, among other pieces of his homelessness and housing agendas, which

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: City Planning Commissioner Michelle de la Uz

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    Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


    March 19, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Michelle de la Uz

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    Michelle de la Uz is a commissioner on the City Planning Commission, where she was originally appointed by then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, and Executive Director of Fifth Avenue Committee, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that manages

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  • Want to Fix High Rent? Look to Hotels, Not Hardworking Home-Sharers

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    (photo: Andrew Russeth via Flickr)


    If you’ve lived in New York City anytime in the last half-century, one thing is as certain as the sun will rise: the rent is just too damn high.

    Now, in recent weeks, defenders of the hotel industry would have you believe that this is some new phenomena to be entirely blamed on hardworking home-sharers. How dare they!

    I don’t buy it, and neither should you. This is all just part of the hotel industry lobby’s smear

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  • Making the City’s Vacant Land Work for the Public

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    (photo: Sofie Hecht/Gotham Gazette)


    Last month, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) announced that it selected developers to build affordable housing on 87 city-owned vacant lots, which could produce almost 500 affordable homes. This came the day after Comptroller Scott Stringer released...

  • Questions Arise as De Blasio Rezones Series of Low-Income Neighborhoods

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    City Planning map of East New York rezoning area


    Later this year, the Department of City Planning is slated to release a “draft planning framework” as part of a process to rezone Gowanus, an initiative spearheaded by Brooklyn City Council Member Brad Lander aimed at increasing affordable housing and making a variety of other neighborhood improvements. Rezoning Gowanus, a middle-to-upper income, majority-white neighborhood, would be a departure from the city’s prevailing approach to reimagining a number of neighborhoods across the

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  • Comptroller Again Calls Out City on Vacant Land; City Again Punches Back

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    Comptroller Stringer press conference at a vacant lot (photo: Sam Raskin)


    Comptroller Scott Stringer held a press conference Monday morning in front of a vacant lot on West 115th Street to criticize the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) for “dragging its feet” on creating affordable housing on empty city-owned land.

    Stringer released an update to his 2016 audit on vacant lots, which initiated a reshashing of a yearslong dispute between the comptroller and the de Blasio administration over

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  • Bronx Rezoning Moves to City Council as Negotiations Enter Final Stages

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    Jerome Ave corridor rezoning, via City Planning


    The City Planning Commission voted January 17 to approve a comprehensive rezoning plan for the Jerome Avenue corridor in the Bronx, putting the proposal before the City Council for scrutiny in the final stretch of the lengthy land use review process. The rezoning would follow four others ushered through by the de Blasio administration as it somewhat controversially seeks to add housing density, including thousands of new affordable units, and make other investments in mostly low-income communities across the five

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  • Renewed Push to Pass State Homelessness Subsidy in 2018

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    Assemblymember Hevesi and activists (photo: @mkink)


    Legislation to create a statewide rental supplement to curtail the growth of homelessness in New York, while generating savings for local social service agencies, is the focus of a renewed campaign ahead of the 2018 budget and legislative session.

    Despite support from the Democratic Assembly majority, as well minority state Senate Democrats, and the Independent Democratic Conference, which forms a ruling coalition with Senate Republicans, Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi’s Home Stability

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  • City Council to Pass Bills Mandating Assessment of Vacant Lots

    vacant bldg via hpd

    (photo via @NYCHousing)


    Two years ago, Public Advocate Letitia James and City Council Members Jumaane Williams and Ydanis Rodriguez each introduced a bill under a set called the Housing Not Warehousing Act, a package aimed at reducing homelessness and increasing the city’s affordable housing stock. The bills seek to mandate an annual tally of the number of vacant lots and buildings in the city, determining which of those under city jurisdiction could be developed for affordable housing, while also requiring landlords with vacant properties to

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  • Federal Tax Reform Could Turn City’s Housing Crisis into a Humanitarian Disaster

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    protesting unused vacant property (via @pthny)


    In New York City, the demand for affordable housing far exceeds supply. Seventy percent of the city’s homeless shelter residents are families. Families who should be in homes.

    Now, as the United States House of Representatives and Senate look to

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  • Brooklyn Armory Deal, and Larger De Blasio Development Debate, Move Toward Term Two

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    (Armory rendering via BFC) (photos within piece by Rachel Holliday Smith)


    Following years of ferocious debate, negotiation, protests and anguish, City Council Member Laurie Cumbo was finally ready to vote “yes” on the redevelopment of the publicly-owned, vacant Bedford-Union Armory.

    At very nearly the last minute, she and the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio worked out a deal for the Crown Heights building with the city’s chosen developer, BFC Partners, the night before a crucial City Council land use

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  • High Stakes for Affordable Housing in City Council Speaker Race

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    Robert Cornegy (far right) at a City Council Speaker forum (photo: @RobertCornegyJr)


    Eight members of the New York City Council are asking their colleagues to elect them as the new Speaker after the new legislative body is seated January 1.

    Seven of the candidates oppose allowing Airbnb and other on-line platforms to continue their assault on our scarce affordable rental housing. But one of them, Robert Cornegy, Jr. of Brooklyn, does not.

    In ...

  • Where the Mayor Opposes Affordable Housing and Neighborhood Character

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    Union Square tech hub image rendering via EDC


    Mayor de Blasio claims that creating and preserving affordable housing in our city is a top priority for his administration. But in Greenwich Village and the East Village, he has consistently blocked rezoning plans that would help create and preserve affordable housing where little exists, and opposed eliminating loopholes that aid developers, including his campaign fundraisers, in getting around existing affordable housing provisions.

    For over three years, we have

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  • Dissecting Mayor De Blasio's Record As He Seeks Reelection

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    Mayor Bill de Blasio & First Lady Chirlane McCray (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    As Mayor Bill de Blasio, a first-term Democrat, seeks reelection this fall, a close examination of his record is essential. De Blasio came into power promising to address inequlality in a variety of forms, including income, educational, policing, racial, and opportunity inequities he identified during his 2013 campaign. In this year's election de Blasio is running in part on his record, which is headlined by the

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  • Following Up with Comptroller Stringer on Several Debate Moments

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    Faulkner, left, and Stringer, at the Comptroller debate (photo via @NYCVotes)


    It appears that a relatively small number of people watched the lone debate in the election for New York City Comptroller, which occurred on Tuesday, October 17 between incumbent Democrat Scott Stringer and his Republican challenger, Michel Faulkner. It is one of three citywide races, along with those for Mayor and

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  • In New Books on Bloomberg and de Blasio, Unreliable Atlantic Yards History

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    (photo: Spencer T Tucker via the Mayor's Office)


    "Atlantic Yards down the memory hole" is a phrase I coined to describe how the facts and history of the controversial real estate project -- which was renamed Pacific Park Brooklyn in 2014 -- regularly get mangled by journalists, public officials, and commentators, often buffing away the controversy so that people may eventually wonder why anyone ever cared.

    Part of that surely relates to the project's complex, twisting path, with at least 11 more towers yet unbuilt, joining the Barclays

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  • Don’t Forget: Cumbo Won with Promise of 100% Affordability at Armory

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    Bedford Union Armory rendering


    For months, thousands of Crown Heights residents have petitioned, testified, marched, and protested against a proposed redevelopment at the Bedford Union Armory, where the plan backed by the de Blasio administration would take a massive parcel of public land and give it to a private developer to build high-end housing and a recreation facility.

    The local City Council member, Laurie Cumbo, recently won her Democratic primary for reelection after opposing the deal, promising that she would insist on no luxury condominiums, while her backers

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  • Key to Affordable Housing Development, Vacant Lots Remain Source of Controversy

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    On 43rd Street in Far Rockaway, Queens, sit five adjacent, vacant lots. Cordoned off by a chained-link, gray metal fence, the lots—owned by the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation (HPD)—are covered in weeds and garbage. They are “eyesores for the community,” said Alexis Smallwood, a local community organizer, in an interview with Gotham Gazette. “Vacant lots should be used for community spaces or real affordable housing.”

    These five lots are examples of the hundreds the Department of Housing and Preservation (HPD) could utilize for affordable housing. Since issuing an audit and fuller report in early

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