An Equitable NYC

NYC Mayor's Office
Nov 6 · 3 min read

by Deputy Mayor Vicki Been

For more than a decade, the steady growth of New York City’s population has outstripped the supply of housing. While more housing is being built, there are far too many families still struggling to find an affordable place to call home. That is why, through Housing New York, Mayor de Blasio set out to ensure that we are creating more affordable housing, and that a greater share of that housing serves the New Yorkers most in need of secure, stable housing.

The Administration has made an unprecedented investment in creating and preserving affordable housing — with more than 135,000 affordable homes financed to date, over 80 percent of which are affordable to low-income households. In the last fiscal year, the City produced record amounts of housing aimed at the formerly homeless, those needing supportive housing, and seniors — our most vulnerable New Yorkers. But the plan went further — introducing policies such as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing that don’t just incentivize but require developers to create permanently affordable housing wherever the city rezones for growth. We pushed to overhaul 421a to require more affordable housing in every area of the city, while also demanding that developers build inclusive and welcoming affordable housing, rather than stigmatizing the low-income residents in those buildings.

A recent City Limits opinion piece points to 229 Cherry Street as an example of a “poor building,” because it is a 100% affordable housing building neighboring a market-rate building — One Manhattan Square. The development received 421-a tax benefits under the old program as of right, and also participated in the City’s Voluntary Inclusionary Housing program; those incentives resulted in more than 200 permanently affordable housing opportunities for low-income households — those incentives resulted in more than 200 permanently affordable housing opportunities on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for low-income individuals and households — those earning 60% AMI (at the time of marketing, $52K for a family of three, or approximately $34K per year for a single person).

The market-rate condominium building next door is cross-subsidizing the affordable rentals to ensure that those rentals are affordable. Given the number of units and the differences between the legal structures for condominiums and rental buildings, the affordable rentals reasonably warranted their own building on a shared platform. 229 Cherry Street is a high-quality development that offers a range of free amenities for tenants — including a lobby lounge, a rooftop terrace and resident lounge facing the East River, a fitness center and yoga room, bike storage, and laundry room. To call such a permanently affordable building, a “poor building,” ignores the reality of the challenges of providing affordable housing in dense, highly desirable neighborhoods where the market is oriented towards homeownership, and serves only to stigmatize the families who now call this building home.

This Administration was quick to crack down on “poor doors” being built with tax or zoning incentives, and secured reforms in the 421-a program so that it no longer provides tax benefits to condominiums. We are committed to preventing any efforts to create discriminatory conditions for the residents in the affordable units we are financing. Through all of our affordable housing policies and programs, we are looking to level the playing field and remove barriers to integration and diversity that are so critical to our efforts to create a fair and equitable city.

New development must foster the diversity of our city and our neighborhoods, both because we owe all our residents equal treatment and a fair opportunity to thrive, but also because diversity is critical to making New York City the center of innovation, art, culture, fashion, food, technology, problem-solving, and so much else that we value.

Our diversity is what makes New York unique, and every sector has a role in helping to ensure that New Yorkers of all incomes can live in thriving neighborhoods. For our part, we are proud that our housing policies are working to strengthen neighborhoods, provide quality housing to families and individuals with a range of incomes, and enabling greater access to a range of opportunities.

NYC Mayor's Office
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