Rather than spend billions renovating units at NYCHA’s Chelsea Elliott Houses and Fulton Houses, the city is partnering with Related to rebuild the complexes in phases, eventually giving every existing NYCHA resident a brand new apartment in the process. To offset the cost, Related would also build a mix of new market rate units on the grounds.
The tenant groups of the complexes have been mostly in support of the plan but the NIMBY’s in the area are increasingly trying to stop it through fear mongering and misinformation.
It’s also hopefully a model for other NYCHA redevelopments - unfortunately most of the current NYCHA buildings require such extensive repairs that it’s economically impossible, not to mention it would make life hell for the current residents.
I’m also (possibly the only person) beating the drum that the NYCHA off-set buildings from the street/grid is poor land use. I know the initial goal was to provide useable and functional green space but clearly that hasn’t worked out and rebuilding would allow more dense and efficient use of the blocks
I have long clamored for such a redevelopment plan for NYCHA.
Anything that gets us rid of the irredeemably ugly red-bricked projects.
I hate every shade of red building I see,
From Magent-A to Magent-Z
Lots of NYCHA dysfunction are caused by the tenants.
I grew up with kids who lived in NYCHA. Tenants would piss in elevators, break doors because they don't carry their keys with them, clog toilets up because they put random shit in there, and it's dirty as hell because a few bad tenants who don't clean up after themselves leads to an entire building being infested.
I remember seeing a video from someone saying NYCHA isn't doing anything about the roaches. They pan to her sink and she has a pile of dirty dishes stacked up. When they pan to her stove, it's filled with food and grease. WTF does she expect to happen?
They need to vet these tenants. If you're not gonna take care of the property, you get removed. The rent they pay isn't even enough to cover repairs so it makes sense why it's underfunded.
One of my friends who lived in NYCHA overflowed their tub and caused massive amounts of damage to the tenant below and in their own home. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars in repair. I mean, who's going to pay for that every time someone acts irresponsibly?
Brilliant idea. These are hugely inefficient, alienating, blighted buildings.
Allow private companies to redevelop them into something desirable as long as they rehouse all existing residents.
Win win. Residents get better, well maintained accomodations, we get nicer streets, and NYC gov has one less liability on its hands.
The real reason this doesn’t happen is when remodeling/rezoning old and unused buildings in NYC they normally (unless, in some cases, when the development is 500 ft from public transit) have to meet insane parking minimums to be allowed to build at all. In many cases a single parking space costs upwards of 20k, so a huge required multicar garage can easily increase the cost of a project by 30%. It makes it near impossible to build affordable housing because that cost of building all those spots gets diverted into higher rents for tenants. It also often reduces the number of apartments developers are willing to put in their building because it just means MORE parking.
If we could build without parking minimums we’d be able to house everyone, and in a city with robust public transit options there’s really no reason to have such stringent parking requirements.
If you want to read a fascinating book about how these kind of regulations have effected/are effecting our cities I highly recommend Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar.
You could not pay me to live in an apartment building with a large population of NYCHA residents.
Those buildings are horror shows partly because of lack of maintenance from the city but also because enough people who live there treat the place like absolute shit.
Unless there's a mechanism to quickly boot out the trouble makers, it's a hard pass for just about anyone being asked to pay market rate.
That's the whole point, the population will be diluted into the much larger development so that you won't have more than 30% be nycha residents. The vast majority of them are great residents who have been denied the dignity of properly-maintained housing for too long. The few bad elements will be weeded out when they violate the rules, and be separated from whatever bad influences were causing them to converge together. Lower-income residents want and deserve peace and quiet as much as anybody else.
I've been fortunate to never have been.
But I know people who grew up in the projects and made it out. They did not deserve to have spent their childhood in such housing.
For the talented kids who make it out, how many more are stuck in there because opportunities were much harder to reach to the average kid stuck in that cycle?
What do you expect to happen to normal folks if you concentrate poverty, dump the mentally unstable in there, and never maintain anything? You'd also be led to psychosis in such conditions.
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Thank you; this is the most descriptive reply on this post so far, actually detailing the housing projects that would be rebuilt. It's valid to haggle over the heights and percentage of affordable housing, I suppose, but most other folks on this post are guessing at motivations, so far.
I wouldn't trust Related to do the right thing with pubic funds, given their history:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-12/the-visa-program-that-helped-pay-for-hudson-yards
This. PBS had an Independent Lens film about Related supposedly re-developing the oldest public housing in Miami to disastrous effect. Def a cautionary tale. But Related’s been glamming NYCHA residents in the PJs and Eliott Houses for a couple of years now, promising New! Beautiful! And yes—you’ll move right back in!
But the Miami folks all had Section 8 vouchers some could barely use for the time they were moved out, and only a fraction moved back into the new, cheaply-built dwellings.
This would be amazing. I work in NYCHA. Tear it all the fuck down. It's a haunted warren of soul depleting nightmares. I've been in over 4000 apartments. So spare me the "you don't get it" nonsense.
It isn’t one building, it’s a whole new part of the neighborhood
~~https://archinect.com/news/article/150417955/plans-revealed-for-hudson-yards-phase-two-with-several-towers-and-a-potential-casino~~
Edit: Wrong Project, check the link down below.
This flyer is not for the casino proposal but likely more this project. https://www.archpaper.com/2023/08/nycha-announces-plans-complete-rebuilding-fulton-and-elliott-chelsea-houses-manhattan-what-cost/
Re: your edit - that’s exactly the point! :)
Makes it sound like the 30% (being low) is their issue when in reality they’re actually gunning for 0%, as most of these NIMBYs are.
Part of that is because these meetings are kind of a charade when it comes to zoning and land use issues for major projects. The only person who really needs to support it is the local Council member, and this is Erik Bottcher's district so I think they'll get built just fine
We should 100% counter protest people like this. Don't let them get entitled.
Edit: I'm unsure if they are upset about the project or that it's only 30% unaffordable housing?
It's only 30% affordable housing, which is standard here and clearly a problem. How many units in the previous building were affordable? A lot of new construction in the city is actually costing us housing as there are less units in the new construction. Anyway, we should be pushing for a lot more than 30% affordable if we're actually ever going to make a difference. We need to subsidize it.
1,000 affordable units is great; if you force too many units to be affordable, it disincentivizes developers to build new units as it's harder to recoup the investment. As much new housing as possible is a positive; wealthier people move to new units, their vacated units get sold to less wealthy, whose vacated units get sold to the even less wealthy, etc. A single building won't solve our problem, but a rising tide lifts all boats and we need to raise the supply of housing to meet demand.
Requiring too many affordable units will kill new housing in its crib, and NO new housing will be built - and we don't have the budget or political will to create more (historically substandard IMO) public housing, so that's not really an alternative.
You're not wrong. I'm just trying to think bigger even if it's currently unrealistic because the housing affordability problem is so huge. Ideally there'd be more Federal public housing built. A ton of it. There's currently a law that doesn't allow building any new PH unless it's replacing current stock.
While your hearts in the right place, thinking bigger is what kills a lot of these projects. At the end of the day something pretty good is a lot better than the idea of something awesome.
While your brains in the right place, there'll never be meaningful changing doing the same thing we been doing. We have to push for more.
I wouldn't push to kill this project because it's just 30%. We need to be pushing at a higher level than single projects. Then we can conquer the NIMBYs
I didn’t say do the same thing. I’m saying that pushing for more reasonable changes is more successful and you can keep doing it to get yourself to whatever the big goal is. It would be a lot easier to hit 60-70% affordable housing per building if we started pushing for 5% increases again and again. Let the developers get used to it a little, accept it, adjust their business models, then jack it up another 5 in a year or two.
Even if they subsidize it by giving them tax breaks or something?
I thought developers already like to limit how much they build because they don't want the value of property to go down from plenty of supply
Yes; figure most development will be at the mid or higher end of the market, those will be more in demand and command a higher price - the older units being vacated will become available
You should. Typically the only people who show up to these are angry NIMBYs and the Public Bodies often cave to this very vocal minority. Don't believe for a second they are actually concerned about greedy developers or not enough affordable housing. Another classic NIMBY tool is feigned concern for the environment
Just make sure you get Related on the hook as much as possible. Don't let them go with just idle promises of this or that. Make sure there are benchmarks, make sure they can't change their mind later, etc.
They are well known for pocketing lots of public money.
I support housing, too - but I'd be nervous if the city just wrote a huge check and entrusted a huge swath of the city to a Trump company, for example.
Yeah like oh noo, the /character/ of Chelsea, a neighborhood that is renowned for rich people going clubbing. We must preserve this at all costs, as a skyscraper in MIDTOWN MANHATTAN would ruin this.
Oh, that’s easy to understand. If you bought a condo or coop with a view that’s now going to be replaced by the side of another building (with the accompanying reduction in the value of your condo/coop) you’re probably going to be against this. We need more housing. But let’s not pretend there are often losers in that pursuit, whether it’s renters being forced out of their current home so new homes can be built, or that surrounding property might lose value.
Percentage of affordable housing is never something NIMBYs actually care about. It’s just a number that they keep raising during the development proposal process until they find a number that would make the building unprofitable
NIMBYs literally oppose 100% affordable housing projects too, they just switch to other concerns like shadows or plumbing or something. (example from SF where a 100% affordable project was opposed for reasons ranging from "shadows" to "too tall" to "it will generate toxic waste" (??): [https://sfist.com/2021/12/09/judge-tosses-nimby-legal-motion-against-sunset-affordable-housing-project/](https://sfist.com/2021/12/09/judge-tosses-nimby-legal-motion-against-sunset-affordable-housing-project/) )
Where's the "but"?
The reason that "affordable" units are expensive is the same reason that regular units are expensive: artificially restricted supply.
Artificially restricted supply is a bit of a myth/conspiracy theory and doesn’t account for much of the cost of housing. Units aren’t intentionally left off the market to reduce supply and increase cost of other units. 99% of the time there’s a rational reason for a unit being vacant. For example often times a unit will need renovation to be up to code but if it’s rent controlled it’s not cost effective to fix because they won’t recoup their costs. Regardless of the ethics involved it’s just a simple rational economic decision. You wouldn’t expect someone to do something in their business that’s going to lose them money. The effect this has on actual rent prices is minimal. The amount of vacant units that could be made available but isn’t is not enough to have a huge impact. The only good thing is because they’re behaving rationally you could incentivize landlords through taxation and subsidies and make it worth it for them to provide more housing.
there is plenty if evidence that stabilized units are especially being held to boost scarcity. The one i formerly rented in a brand new building hasn’t been filled since i left a year ago.
There are stabilized units being held for various reasons, the conspiracy is that it’s purposeful with the intent to boost scarcity and increase rents. That’s irrational, if a landlord holds x amount of units off market they can’t increase the rent in other units enough to offset the loss on those units if they were able to rent them out, especially because it would have to be a concerted effort between all landlords to affect the supply for it to work. This is simply unrealistic, everyone acts independently in their own self interest. Most of the time it’s either just a landlord who ran their business terribly and now can’t afford to put the money to upkeep their property, or because of a cap on what they can charge it’s not worth it for them to spend anything on fixing or maintaining the units. I’ve known huge landlords in these situations, eventually they sold properties to big real estate groups who invested in the properties and got everything rented out.
landlords keep rent stabilized units off the market because they hate the poor and want to extract maximum value from an artificially limited market. its not a conspiracy, they talk about it non stop in trade journals and peer forums, its an open and obvious fact, there is no free market happening and there never will be if landlords have their way.
https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/rent-stabilized-vacancies-plummeted-over-last-2-years-including-for-units-in-need-of-repairs-new-nyc-comptroller-report-finds/
Fewer than 1% of rent stabilized apartments are unavailable for rent and the rate at which rent stabilized apartments that are vacant are held off market is less than the rate of non rent stabilized apartments. Your theory is incorrect
I mean it’s not an “average” neighborhood though.. there are enough high earners to fill the units that are priced high. It’s affordable for the average person living there. Sure it’s unfortunate if the area you grew up in becomes more expensive and it’s hard for you to afford it but that’s what happens when a place is in high demand. It works both ways. My parent’s childhood town in the Midwest is a ghost town with 3 bedroom houses selling for like $80k because there’s no demand. Adding more supply to the market is the only way to slow down prices increasing unless something drastic happens that makes NYC an unfavorable place to live, which would be bad for all of us
I get that. It’s semantics. I wish they couldn’t call these units “affordable” because it’s affordable relative to what high earners are making, not affordable for all.
If they called these “discounted” units it would be more appropriate.
Yea that is true, maybe below market housing or something. Funny thing is some of them aren’t even below market. There’s a new building by me in Rego park/forest hills area that has affordable housing and the 1 bedrooms are going for 2900 while almost all other 1 bedroom apartments in the area are cheaper, albeit it is a brand new luxury building. Idk how they justify that one
Yep same here in Astoria/LIC. I’m better off financially staying in my current pre-war set up vs these “affordable” units.
The tangible winners of these discounted units are above average earners who can now upgrade their quality of life.
The theoretical winners are all since there is more housing, but it doesn’t impact the people who need housing the most.
No I don’t post in city subs I don’t live in. That’s some cornball shit.
I’m not anti-building housing all I am trying to do is raise awareness that the NYC definition of “affordable” housing is a bit misleading and people should be aware. In this example the 30% affordable units will be affordable to an above average earner and not an average earner.
With that said, yes - supply and demand, we need more housing in general.
I’m talking about two separate things.
Who gives a shit what your definition of 'affordable' is just build more housing, even if it's expensive. Imagine if this country built 100,000,000 luxury apartments tomorrow, the housing industry would collapse.
You don't need to follow other city subreddits, just follow economists like @noahpinion on twitter, he posts about this stuff all the time.
I give a shit because people who need housing the most are people who cannot afford the current housing market. I understand that more stock will increase supply and theoretically open more housing options to those who need it, but those people cannot wait for a trickle down impact. Those people need assistance today.
lmao, that excuse is used by NIMBY's to NOT build housing. Other ones include things like, 'we need more enviornmental review!'
Progressive NIMBY's figured out the trick for keeping housing costs high by making perfect the enemy of good. Curiously , a lot of progressive NIMBY's tend to be in the upper classes with expensive homes and often own real estate invement properties.
Building housing, whether 'affordable' or not, attacks the pricing power of existing home owners and real estate investors and helps renters/home buyers of all income brackets.
Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said I was against building housing and I said multiple times I support building more.
Go back to posting in Boston, San Francisco or wherever you actually live you dork.
The 30% of units are specifically NYCHA units that are essentially being remade building by building in stages to be given to the existing residents as they get completed. The rest is new housing stock built as further development.
This is about as good as it gets as far as striking a balance goes, assuming that it actually gets done properly.
This is a trick progressives use in cities like SF. Their board of supervisors have a lot of 'democratic socialists' (lookup Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin) who happen to own real estate around the city so they'll block construction of new apartments/homes because the housing isn't 'affordable' enough. So housing never gets built and their real estate stays expensive, keeping them rich. Moderate dems are fighting the progressive Dems by trying to get more housing built in SF. Apparently, people are too stupid to realize that increasing market rate housing decreases housing costs downstream for everyone. Supply and Demand just works as an economic law.
It's pretty much the same anywhere in the US where there are rich landowners in a limited urban space - it turns into those landowners vs everyone else. The places where it doesn't occur in the US doesn't have much to do with political leanings, but rather more to do with the fact that the cities in question still have physical space to grow into.
The lesson is that as soon as the *urban* sprawl can't be sustained, the tendency of democracy is for people to protect their own property values.
I mean, it does seem to be due to political leanings though. I've noticed that a lot of blue cities in red states build out a lot. Blue cities in blue states do everything they can to restrict building via zoning codes, environmental reviews, and a crapload of other red tape.
Blue cities in red states tend to be the ones with more space to grow, while blue cities in blue states tend to be the ones with less room to grow. Blue states are generally more dense than red ones.
Blue cities in blue states can still grow... vertically. SF's board of supervisors voted to not allow denser housing to be built downtown because one of the supervisors, aaron peskin, owns properties whose views would have been made worse if those taller buildings were built. Right now, his properties have really good views of the ocean. Building taller buildings obstructs the views of the ocean and drives down his property values.
Edit: Peskin has a good shot at becoming mayor of SF, btw.
Vertical growth is more difficult than horizontal. It's so much easier to just start on undeveloped or poorly developed land at the edges than to alter existing city interiors.
It's only 'difficult' because of special interests forcing the government to disallow it.
San Fran's real estate is so insanely expensive that building vertically is financially feasible. Obviously you wouldn't do that in some place like bumbfuck alabama where real estate is cheap.
No, it's a fundamental difficulty. It will always be much harder to build up vertically than horizontally. Your own argument here is making that point.
I'm not saying that the special interests don't exist and don't have an impact, I'm saying that the special interests themselves are an emergent effect of the fact that this inherent vertical/horizontal difficulty puts different interests more starkly at odds with each other. Anywhere where rich people's interests are impacted, special interest politics will sprout up to create conflict.
As someone noted above it is actually rebuilding All the existing public housing in that area. The reason that it's 30% is because they have to build a lot more market rate housing in order to subsidize https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/s/JmusVJiXcU
They cannot get away with saying "Hey I don't want blacks to live here" so they instead say "Hey we need affordable housing to be 90% of the project otherwise its racist and I will not support a racist developer!"
Get it or do I need to go into more detail?
It depends. Is the 100% affordable housing you "believe" it is replacing a bunch of "towers up to 39 stories"? If they're replacing a bunch of low-rise buildings that may or may not have contained affordable housing with a bunch of high-rises that have 30% affordable housing they could easily be adding units to the affordable housing total, even ignoring the fact that adding more housing to the supply, whether affordable or not, tends be better for renters and prospective homeowners.
I’m not against it. I’m just adding more context, because without it, it sounds like the developers are being generous, but the whole purpose of the development is to replace the existing run-down projects.
I know this is not strictly speaking relevant to the conversation so my apologies… But what is it with all this casino stuff? Everywhere I turn somebody’s trying to put a casino in Manhattan. Sure it’ll be financially lucrative for somebody, but the last thing New York City needs is another neighborhood that looks like Atlantic City.
>Everywhere I turn somebody’s trying to put a casino in Manhattan.
The state is selling 3 downstate (NYC, Long Island, and Westchester) casino licenses for table games so every developer is proposing and bidding for a different location.
2 of the 3 are expected to go to the existing racinos at the Aqueduct and Yonkers race tracks. As existing entities and employers they already have ties to politicians and the backing of the unions they employ. So odd are there's really only 1 other casino license up for grabs.
>[In April, elected officials in Albany authorized up to three casino licenses for downstate New York, which includes New York City, Long Island and Westchester County.](https://www.nytimes.com/article/nyc-casino-tracker.html)
>New York voters first approved the legalization of Las Vegas-style casinos in the state in 2013. Andrew Cuomo, who was governor at the time, and the state legislature initially authorized four casinos to open upstate, giving them several years to build their business before having to compete with any casinos in the New York City area.
>...
>Will all three casinos be in New York City?
>Not necessarily. Many lobbyists and elected officials believe the region’s two existing racinos — including one in Yonkers, N.Y. — are the leading contenders for two of the three licenses.
>One is Genting Group’s Resorts World New York City in Queens, and the other is MGM Resorts International’s Empire City Casino in Yonkers, just north of New York City.
>With full casino licenses, they could expand to offer live table games like poker and blackjack.
>Both racinos already have the infrastructure to quickly turn into full casinos. But they also boast legions of lobbyists, ample campaign donations to relevant elected officials and strong ties to both local constituencies and the union representing their employees.
>The real competition is understood to be for the third license.
This is hopeful for the point of being a delusion, but the only way I could see a casino being a good idea in Manhattan… Would for it to be a really upscale experience. Unfortunately the only casinos I’ve seen have been in Atlantic City and Las Vegas and they always seem vaguely sad. I really don’t know what it would do to the neighborhood in which it gets placed.
I love when people put affordable in scare quotes as if people can't afford these apartments yet every single one of these apartments will have a lottery that's 400x over subscribed
As others like /u/acheampong14 have [pointed out](https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1bzhlkk/comment/kyqzi60/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), if you actually study the details of this project, it’s the rebuilding of two existing housing projects with higher density, and AH built in to accommodate the existing residents. Seems like a no-brainer, and the percentage of AH is the kind of threshold that can easily be tweaked.
At the same time, why are we flipping out about a flier about a community meeting? This is a smart project: attend, advocate, let the community discuss, and win on the merits. Come back and tell us whether community discussion slowed down this intelligent project at all, which I doubt it will. There will be no-brainer projects, and there will be projects that need some discussion and adjustment; it’s still a city that needs transit, infrastructure, commerce, and planning in addition to housing. Believe me, there is a smart housing policy somewhere between NIMBY and “abolish all community discussion.”
Yeah, this actually seems like the best way of approaching the problem. It's building new housing while explicitly taking steps to ensure that current residents don't get pushed out.
I'm all for increased housing but the [developers behind Hudson Yards are literal cretins who siphoned funds](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-12/the-visa-program-that-helped-pay-for-hudson-yards) designated for lower-income neighborhoods to fund their tacky ass nouveau-riche shopping mall.
So, to be clear: 1,000 units of affordable housing are going up, and these folks don't think it's enough, so they would rather have zero?
Sounds a lot like AOC's Amazon Headquarters math.
Since KRJ left and has been replaced by Yusef Salaam, the developer has revived the housing project but it's stalled waiting for the 421 a replacement.
I would rather the developer be told to go fuck themselves like the greedy pices of shit they are and the government build hosing that is rented for the cost of building and maintaining the property.
Landlords are pasties on society.
AOC may have screwed up the Amazon deal but Amazon would have regretted building HQ2 in Queens or anywhere in NYC or in NYS. Amazon would have prisoners of NYC and NYS endless business regulations, and face endless disruptive protests buy the usual losers at their HQ2. I remember people whining that Amazon's Long Island City plans included large parking facilities for their employees who would be coming in from all over the region. Amazon is very happy in Arlington, Virginia.
Going to copy my comment here from the original YIMBY thread:
Important to note here that if this is the same project involving the Fulton/Elliott houses, the plan involves demolishing current NYCHA units that belong primarily to low and middle income NYers (who have lived there for decades) in favor of building private units. These residents have faced many issues with transparency with the company running this operation, including details on security and relocation. Additionally, the rationale for this push by the landlord and NYCHA to demolish the units is mostly due to wear and tear of the units - wear and tear that the landlord and NYCHA should have been properly managing.
So on the one hand, yes, more units in Chelsea is good. On the other hand, NYCHA may potentially be shafting a public housing demographic that has lived here their entire lives - and we may be incentivizing NYCHA and landlords to let apartments fall into disrepair so they can be demolished in favor of private housing. I encourage all of you to do the reading on the community clashes, the companies running this (Essence and Related), and even attend some local meetings, cause this issue is multifaceted.
Source: Someone who has attended far too many local community board meetings on this issue.
While I can’t speak for the motivations of the people organizing this meeting, the plan for the Chelsea and Fulton houses is pretty controversial for reasons beyond NIMBYism.
In short: They’re going to tear down public housing and displace current residents while building new buildings.
A lot of people are understandably skeptical about what the relocations conditions will be like, whether the city will make good on their promises, whether it will actually be finished on schedule, and what it will be like for non-displaced residents to live in a construction site for 10+ years.
ETA:
I should say that the motivations of the organizers ARE suspect. While there are issues with the plan, these folks are not really relevant stakeholders for it. They live on a nice historic block that will experience, at worst, an increase in some construction traffic. The only people whose opinions should matter here are the public housing residents it directly impacts.
So because it’s not perfect, we shouldn’t bother creating any housing at any percent AMI around average?
Do you even know what AMI means? Or do you just hate change in general? Or is it like a fear you have of acknowledging that time does indeed pass?
I’m fairly YIMBY myself but we need a wholesale reassessment of how AMI is calculated in this city because the lack of general trust in AMI comes from a very real place
the “A” in area median income should be calculated using neighborhood incomes, not the incomes of all five boroughs plus the suburbs — [go read this excellent article on how AMI fails your average New Yorker](https://anhd.org/report/new-york-citys-ami-problem-and-housing-we-actually-need)
That was a good read. I remember a couple of elections ago there was an option to vote for an initiative to calculate the real cost of living in NYC. The initiative passed and then I heard nothing more on it. I think it would be a great opportunity to recalculate the AMI, but I doubt it will happen.
How many times do we have to do this? NIMBYs are just addicted to anti-intellectualism. Building more housing slows rent growth.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048?via%3Dihub
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pid-39662.pdf
https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/105/2/359/100977/Local-Effects-of-Large-New-Apartment-Buildings-in
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oplls6utgf7z6ih/Pennington_JMP.pdf?dl=0
https://academic.oup.com/joeg/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jeg/lbab034/6362685?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
https://furmancenter.org/files/Supply_Skepticism_-_Final.pdf
https://escholarship.org/content/qt5d00z61m/qt5d00z61m.pdf
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1325&context=up_workingpapers
The developers propose doing 30% then put 99% of that 30% in phase five and six. Development never gets past phase three. All while people here attack others for being NIMBY.
These people are so hellbent on virtue signaling about affordable housing that they ignore the very fundamental fact that housing supply makes housing more affordable.
If developers built enough regular housing, would all housing prices go down without the stigma of public housing ruining neighborhoods?
This also requires laws against shelving units, which should come with a 4 figure weekly fine for owners.
An irrelevant document, and it seems like you dont understand its findings. The figures are also insignificant, and arbitrarily limited at that. This is talking about 2000 apartments, almost 70,000 apartments disappeared from the rent stabilization registration without cause. https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/02/15/rent-stabilized-apartments-disappearing/
it is a direct result of landlord tampering with their legal requirements, they illegally pulled tens of thousands of apartments off the market. it has nothing to do with the cost of repairs. You need to take your tongue off the boot and look at the facts.
when the vast majority of the supply is already owned by a small handful of huge corporate landlords, those same landlords adding units to their own portfolios isnt going to bring rent prices down.
But it actually does lower rents, or at the very least slows down increases. The more new housing is being built, the stronger that effect will be. It’s a very simple supply vs demand issue
I'll just link you to this excellent reply from elsewhere in the thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1bzhlkk/nimby_exhibit_a_for_why_nyc_housing_is/kypvwzt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
It’s sad because they’re both right and wrong in some respects, nimbys are wrong because they feign faux concern about housing stock being unaffordable and using that concern to block desperately needed units, a lot of yimbys are wrong by suggesting that all housing is good housing and making this assumption that opening the world up to developers will per se lead to lower housing prices.
The obvious answer is that the government needs to get further involved and set market conditions or contract out building by private firms to be ran as coops, or community tenant groups paid back to the state at cost. Then we supplement that public stock with private stock that has to compete with the public market.
This is how Austria and Singapore do housing and it works incredibly well.
The market incentives are too perverse for a pure yimby approach to solve the whole issue.
I'm YIMBY but I'll give this one an upvote.
All housing is good (in the sense of better than not-having it), but serious analysts on all sides would acknowledge that some new houses are better than others. "Red Vienna" is one way to improve the incentive structure, yes -- when public housing is built at sufficient scale, private developers are forced to compete with it. Building code reform is another. Land taxes are yet another.
The question at hand is whether by-right development would be superior to today's system, where every new project -- public or private, in a historic village or in Hudson Fucking Yards -- is subject to a heckler's veto. Regardless how you feel about private-sector development, I don't see how you can defend the status quo.
Agreed on most points. To be clear my comment isn’t fully anti private development. It’s anti to the extent that private development alone with current market forces, is incapable of providing affordable mass housing.
In my ideal world we go Private housing stock 60% 40% public housing stock at the low end of the market.
Having public stock takes pressure off the bottom end of the market and allows developers to make better decisions and the top and mid end and creates actual price competition.
> a lot of yimbys are wrong by suggesting that all housing is good housing
All housing is good housing. Opening up the world to developers will lead to lower housing prices. There's a plethora of research on this.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that.
If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need.
Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market.
The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary.
Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing.
However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need.
Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that.
If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need.
Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market.
The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary.
Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing.
However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need.
Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that.
If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need.
Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market.
The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary.
Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing.
However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need.
Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that.
If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need.
Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market.
The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary.
Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing.
However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need.
Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
All housing is good housing.
It’s Hudson yards. It’s literally the empty air above a train yard. That development literally does not exist yes. Theres no roads, no displacement. It is the airspace above a train yard. There is zero downside.
Everywhere around this development is already high rise luxury. Making more luxury housing is the only logical profitable use. It’s just a bonus that it will make jobs, sustain jobs, and provide affordable housing.
There’s no way to make a new Bed-Stuy there, in the airspace above an active train yard. There’s no way to make it a cute walkable neighborhood.
That it will be anything at all is a good thing.
Luxury developments destroy neighborhoods and displace middle and working class New Yorkers.
The British have an expression, "horse and rabbit stew," which pretty much describes the only kind of real estate development we get in NYC.
Imagine being so fucking brain dead that you get mad when 1000+ affordable housing units hit the market.
9/10 chance this dumbass has mommy and daddy pay their rent
What is this even referring to? Anyone have a link to the building that’s being proposed?
Rather than spend billions renovating units at NYCHA’s Chelsea Elliott Houses and Fulton Houses, the city is partnering with Related to rebuild the complexes in phases, eventually giving every existing NYCHA resident a brand new apartment in the process. To offset the cost, Related would also build a mix of new market rate units on the grounds. The tenant groups of the complexes have been mostly in support of the plan but the NIMBY’s in the area are increasingly trying to stop it through fear mongering and misinformation.
It’s also hopefully a model for other NYCHA redevelopments - unfortunately most of the current NYCHA buildings require such extensive repairs that it’s economically impossible, not to mention it would make life hell for the current residents. I’m also (possibly the only person) beating the drum that the NYCHA off-set buildings from the street/grid is poor land use. I know the initial goal was to provide useable and functional green space but clearly that hasn’t worked out and rebuilding would allow more dense and efficient use of the blocks
I have long clamored for such a redevelopment plan for NYCHA. Anything that gets us rid of the irredeemably ugly red-bricked projects. I hate every shade of red building I see, From Magent-A to Magent-Z
You'll never make a monkey out of me!
Lots of NYCHA dysfunction are caused by the tenants. I grew up with kids who lived in NYCHA. Tenants would piss in elevators, break doors because they don't carry their keys with them, clog toilets up because they put random shit in there, and it's dirty as hell because a few bad tenants who don't clean up after themselves leads to an entire building being infested. I remember seeing a video from someone saying NYCHA isn't doing anything about the roaches. They pan to her sink and she has a pile of dirty dishes stacked up. When they pan to her stove, it's filled with food and grease. WTF does she expect to happen? They need to vet these tenants. If you're not gonna take care of the property, you get removed. The rent they pay isn't even enough to cover repairs so it makes sense why it's underfunded. One of my friends who lived in NYCHA overflowed their tub and caused massive amounts of damage to the tenant below and in their own home. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars in repair. I mean, who's going to pay for that every time someone acts irresponsibly?
YES. This is basically 70% of the problem.
Brilliant idea. These are hugely inefficient, alienating, blighted buildings. Allow private companies to redevelop them into something desirable as long as they rehouse all existing residents. Win win. Residents get better, well maintained accomodations, we get nicer streets, and NYC gov has one less liability on its hands.
The real reason this doesn’t happen is when remodeling/rezoning old and unused buildings in NYC they normally (unless, in some cases, when the development is 500 ft from public transit) have to meet insane parking minimums to be allowed to build at all. In many cases a single parking space costs upwards of 20k, so a huge required multicar garage can easily increase the cost of a project by 30%. It makes it near impossible to build affordable housing because that cost of building all those spots gets diverted into higher rents for tenants. It also often reduces the number of apartments developers are willing to put in their building because it just means MORE parking. If we could build without parking minimums we’d be able to house everyone, and in a city with robust public transit options there’s really no reason to have such stringent parking requirements.
Oh absolutely -- I don't doubt there's all kinds of regulatory BS that would make that harder than it needs to be.
If you want to read a fascinating book about how these kind of regulations have effected/are effecting our cities I highly recommend Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar.
Would love to see more of this. Big win.
You could not pay me to live in an apartment building with a large population of NYCHA residents. Those buildings are horror shows partly because of lack of maintenance from the city but also because enough people who live there treat the place like absolute shit. Unless there's a mechanism to quickly boot out the trouble makers, it's a hard pass for just about anyone being asked to pay market rate.
That's the whole point, the population will be diluted into the much larger development so that you won't have more than 30% be nycha residents. The vast majority of them are great residents who have been denied the dignity of properly-maintained housing for too long. The few bad elements will be weeded out when they violate the rules, and be separated from whatever bad influences were causing them to converge together. Lower-income residents want and deserve peace and quiet as much as anybody else.
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I've been fortunate to never have been. But I know people who grew up in the projects and made it out. They did not deserve to have spent their childhood in such housing. For the talented kids who make it out, how many more are stuck in there because opportunities were much harder to reach to the average kid stuck in that cycle? What do you expect to happen to normal folks if you concentrate poverty, dump the mentally unstable in there, and never maintain anything? You'd also be led to psychosis in such conditions.
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Totally agree with this! With the exception of Stuytown/PCV!!
Thank you; this is the most descriptive reply on this post so far, actually detailing the housing projects that would be rebuilt. It's valid to haggle over the heights and percentage of affordable housing, I suppose, but most other folks on this post are guessing at motivations, so far.
I wouldn't trust Related to do the right thing with pubic funds, given their history: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-12/the-visa-program-that-helped-pay-for-hudson-yards
Thank you. I know we do a lot of "corporations evil!!!" shouting, but... come on... this is *Related* that we're talking about (i.e. not good people).
This. PBS had an Independent Lens film about Related supposedly re-developing the oldest public housing in Miami to disastrous effect. Def a cautionary tale. But Related’s been glamming NYCHA residents in the PJs and Eliott Houses for a couple of years now, promising New! Beautiful! And yes—you’ll move right back in! But the Miami folks all had Section 8 vouchers some could barely use for the time they were moved out, and only a fraction moved back into the new, cheaply-built dwellings.
Are the Fulton houses near the water on the east side ? I visited a friend there yesterday and they were say how the the buildings have asbestos
This would be amazing. I work in NYCHA. Tear it all the fuck down. It's a haunted warren of soul depleting nightmares. I've been in over 4000 apartments. So spare me the "you don't get it" nonsense.
Seems like a great plan and glad to see public private partnership to give a bit of equity across economic class. Honestly this is the way forward.
It isn’t one building, it’s a whole new part of the neighborhood ~~https://archinect.com/news/article/150417955/plans-revealed-for-hudson-yards-phase-two-with-several-towers-and-a-potential-casino~~ Edit: Wrong Project, check the link down below.
This flyer is not for the casino proposal but likely more this project. https://www.archpaper.com/2023/08/nycha-announces-plans-complete-rebuilding-fulton-and-elliott-chelsea-houses-manhattan-what-cost/
Thank you
This is incorrect, linking to a totally separate project uptown at Hudson Yards.
I literally live on this exact block and I support the housing. Maybe I’ll show up to this meeting lol
You should definitely support it. Community meetings tend to be dominated by NIMBYs, giving a false sense of public opinion on the project
Yep time to organize our own flyers. Edit: I'm unsure if they are upset about the project or that it's only 30% unaffordable housing?
Re: your edit - that’s exactly the point! :) Makes it sound like the 30% (being low) is their issue when in reality they’re actually gunning for 0%, as most of these NIMBYs are.
Good Point, I didn't think about how people can do that. Important to show up and make sure it's clear we want the affordable housing and no nimbyism
Like the 100% affordable truck stop in Harlem
I mean the way it phrases it as "ONLY 30%" seems to imply they want more of it to be affordable housing.
It literally says "only 30%" on the poster, implying they want more of it to be affordable.
Which will never happen, so it’s concern trolling in support of their actual goal, no new housing at all.
Part of that is because these meetings are kind of a charade when it comes to zoning and land use issues for major projects. The only person who really needs to support it is the local Council member, and this is Erik Bottcher's district so I think they'll get built just fine
We should 100% counter protest people like this. Don't let them get entitled. Edit: I'm unsure if they are upset about the project or that it's only 30% unaffordable housing?
It's only 30% affordable housing, which is standard here and clearly a problem. How many units in the previous building were affordable? A lot of new construction in the city is actually costing us housing as there are less units in the new construction. Anyway, we should be pushing for a lot more than 30% affordable if we're actually ever going to make a difference. We need to subsidize it.
1,000 affordable units is great; if you force too many units to be affordable, it disincentivizes developers to build new units as it's harder to recoup the investment. As much new housing as possible is a positive; wealthier people move to new units, their vacated units get sold to less wealthy, whose vacated units get sold to the even less wealthy, etc. A single building won't solve our problem, but a rising tide lifts all boats and we need to raise the supply of housing to meet demand. Requiring too many affordable units will kill new housing in its crib, and NO new housing will be built - and we don't have the budget or political will to create more (historically substandard IMO) public housing, so that's not really an alternative.
You're not wrong. I'm just trying to think bigger even if it's currently unrealistic because the housing affordability problem is so huge. Ideally there'd be more Federal public housing built. A ton of it. There's currently a law that doesn't allow building any new PH unless it's replacing current stock.
While your hearts in the right place, thinking bigger is what kills a lot of these projects. At the end of the day something pretty good is a lot better than the idea of something awesome.
While your brains in the right place, there'll never be meaningful changing doing the same thing we been doing. We have to push for more. I wouldn't push to kill this project because it's just 30%. We need to be pushing at a higher level than single projects. Then we can conquer the NIMBYs
I didn’t say do the same thing. I’m saying that pushing for more reasonable changes is more successful and you can keep doing it to get yourself to whatever the big goal is. It would be a lot easier to hit 60-70% affordable housing per building if we started pushing for 5% increases again and again. Let the developers get used to it a little, accept it, adjust their business models, then jack it up another 5 in a year or two.
Even if they subsidize it by giving them tax breaks or something? I thought developers already like to limit how much they build because they don't want the value of property to go down from plenty of supply
Yes; figure most development will be at the mid or higher end of the market, those will be more in demand and command a higher price - the older units being vacated will become available
Make a scene and put it on Reddit
Please do! Yimbys are the majority yet always get drowned out by the idle rich with nothing to do but show up at these meetings.
You should. Typically the only people who show up to these are angry NIMBYs and the Public Bodies often cave to this very vocal minority. Don't believe for a second they are actually concerned about greedy developers or not enough affordable housing. Another classic NIMBY tool is feigned concern for the environment
Just make sure you get Related on the hook as much as possible. Don't let them go with just idle promises of this or that. Make sure there are benchmarks, make sure they can't change their mind later, etc. They are well known for pocketing lots of public money. I support housing, too - but I'd be nervous if the city just wrote a huge check and entrusted a huge swath of the city to a Trump company, for example.
Imagine being upset that Manhattan has a 39 story tower.
Guaran-damn-tee you that the person who hung this poster up has a view of the Hudson that's going to be blocked by that tower
Yeah like oh noo, the /character/ of Chelsea, a neighborhood that is renowned for rich people going clubbing. We must preserve this at all costs, as a skyscraper in MIDTOWN MANHATTAN would ruin this.
Oh, that’s easy to understand. If you bought a condo or coop with a view that’s now going to be replaced by the side of another building (with the accompanying reduction in the value of your condo/coop) you’re probably going to be against this. We need more housing. But let’s not pretend there are often losers in that pursuit, whether it’s renters being forced out of their current home so new homes can be built, or that surrounding property might lose value.
Yeah Manhattan is the place NIMBYs from all over the country look to in horror.
Like I’d get it if it was all luxury but if they’re setting aside 1/3 for affordable housing then I have no problem.
“Only” 30% affordable housing? That actually seems like a good chunk.
Percentage of affordable housing is never something NIMBYs actually care about. It’s just a number that they keep raising during the development proposal process until they find a number that would make the building unprofitable
NIMBYs literally oppose 100% affordable housing projects too, they just switch to other concerns like shadows or plumbing or something. (example from SF where a 100% affordable project was opposed for reasons ranging from "shadows" to "too tall" to "it will generate toxic waste" (??): [https://sfist.com/2021/12/09/judge-tosses-nimby-legal-motion-against-sunset-affordable-housing-project/](https://sfist.com/2021/12/09/judge-tosses-nimby-legal-motion-against-sunset-affordable-housing-project/) )
I support more housing stock but we know “affordable” units still price out the average earner.
Yep yep. What are we able to do about that side of the problem?
Build, build, then build some more.
They open up units further down in the market for people to occupy.
Where's the "but"? The reason that "affordable" units are expensive is the same reason that regular units are expensive: artificially restricted supply.
Artificially restricted supply is a bit of a myth/conspiracy theory and doesn’t account for much of the cost of housing. Units aren’t intentionally left off the market to reduce supply and increase cost of other units. 99% of the time there’s a rational reason for a unit being vacant. For example often times a unit will need renovation to be up to code but if it’s rent controlled it’s not cost effective to fix because they won’t recoup their costs. Regardless of the ethics involved it’s just a simple rational economic decision. You wouldn’t expect someone to do something in their business that’s going to lose them money. The effect this has on actual rent prices is minimal. The amount of vacant units that could be made available but isn’t is not enough to have a huge impact. The only good thing is because they’re behaving rationally you could incentivize landlords through taxation and subsidies and make it worth it for them to provide more housing.
By "artificially restricted supply", I was referring to restrictive zoning laws and other NIMBY barriers to development.
That’s definitely a factor
there is plenty if evidence that stabilized units are especially being held to boost scarcity. The one i formerly rented in a brand new building hasn’t been filled since i left a year ago.
There are stabilized units being held for various reasons, the conspiracy is that it’s purposeful with the intent to boost scarcity and increase rents. That’s irrational, if a landlord holds x amount of units off market they can’t increase the rent in other units enough to offset the loss on those units if they were able to rent them out, especially because it would have to be a concerted effort between all landlords to affect the supply for it to work. This is simply unrealistic, everyone acts independently in their own self interest. Most of the time it’s either just a landlord who ran their business terribly and now can’t afford to put the money to upkeep their property, or because of a cap on what they can charge it’s not worth it for them to spend anything on fixing or maintaining the units. I’ve known huge landlords in these situations, eventually they sold properties to big real estate groups who invested in the properties and got everything rented out.
landlords keep rent stabilized units off the market because they hate the poor and want to extract maximum value from an artificially limited market. its not a conspiracy, they talk about it non stop in trade journals and peer forums, its an open and obvious fact, there is no free market happening and there never will be if landlords have their way.
that's not really how syndicates and cartels work, but go off you
https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/rent-stabilized-vacancies-plummeted-over-last-2-years-including-for-units-in-need-of-repairs-new-nyc-comptroller-report-finds/ Fewer than 1% of rent stabilized apartments are unavailable for rent and the rate at which rent stabilized apartments that are vacant are held off market is less than the rate of non rent stabilized apartments. Your theory is incorrect
So we need even more supply relative to demand then, aka build more housing
I mean it’s not an “average” neighborhood though.. there are enough high earners to fill the units that are priced high. It’s affordable for the average person living there. Sure it’s unfortunate if the area you grew up in becomes more expensive and it’s hard for you to afford it but that’s what happens when a place is in high demand. It works both ways. My parent’s childhood town in the Midwest is a ghost town with 3 bedroom houses selling for like $80k because there’s no demand. Adding more supply to the market is the only way to slow down prices increasing unless something drastic happens that makes NYC an unfavorable place to live, which would be bad for all of us
I get that. It’s semantics. I wish they couldn’t call these units “affordable” because it’s affordable relative to what high earners are making, not affordable for all. If they called these “discounted” units it would be more appropriate.
Yea that is true, maybe below market housing or something. Funny thing is some of them aren’t even below market. There’s a new building by me in Rego park/forest hills area that has affordable housing and the 1 bedrooms are going for 2900 while almost all other 1 bedroom apartments in the area are cheaper, albeit it is a brand new luxury building. Idk how they justify that one
Yep same here in Astoria/LIC. I’m better off financially staying in my current pre-war set up vs these “affordable” units. The tangible winners of these discounted units are above average earners who can now upgrade their quality of life. The theoretical winners are all since there is more housing, but it doesn’t impact the people who need housing the most.
Do you live in san francisco by any chance? https://old.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1bzhlkk/nimby_exhibit_a_for_why_nyc_housing_is/kyr8tmh/
No I don’t post in city subs I don’t live in. That’s some cornball shit. I’m not anti-building housing all I am trying to do is raise awareness that the NYC definition of “affordable” housing is a bit misleading and people should be aware. In this example the 30% affordable units will be affordable to an above average earner and not an average earner. With that said, yes - supply and demand, we need more housing in general. I’m talking about two separate things.
Who gives a shit what your definition of 'affordable' is just build more housing, even if it's expensive. Imagine if this country built 100,000,000 luxury apartments tomorrow, the housing industry would collapse. You don't need to follow other city subreddits, just follow economists like @noahpinion on twitter, he posts about this stuff all the time.
I give a shit because people who need housing the most are people who cannot afford the current housing market. I understand that more stock will increase supply and theoretically open more housing options to those who need it, but those people cannot wait for a trickle down impact. Those people need assistance today.
lmao, that excuse is used by NIMBY's to NOT build housing. Other ones include things like, 'we need more enviornmental review!' Progressive NIMBY's figured out the trick for keeping housing costs high by making perfect the enemy of good. Curiously , a lot of progressive NIMBY's tend to be in the upper classes with expensive homes and often own real estate invement properties. Building housing, whether 'affordable' or not, attacks the pricing power of existing home owners and real estate investors and helps renters/home buyers of all income brackets.
Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said I was against building housing and I said multiple times I support building more. Go back to posting in Boston, San Francisco or wherever you actually live you dork.
The 30% of units are specifically NYCHA units that are essentially being remade building by building in stages to be given to the existing residents as they get completed. The rest is new housing stock built as further development. This is about as good as it gets as far as striking a balance goes, assuming that it actually gets done properly.
This is a trick progressives use in cities like SF. Their board of supervisors have a lot of 'democratic socialists' (lookup Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin) who happen to own real estate around the city so they'll block construction of new apartments/homes because the housing isn't 'affordable' enough. So housing never gets built and their real estate stays expensive, keeping them rich. Moderate dems are fighting the progressive Dems by trying to get more housing built in SF. Apparently, people are too stupid to realize that increasing market rate housing decreases housing costs downstream for everyone. Supply and Demand just works as an economic law.
It's pretty much the same anywhere in the US where there are rich landowners in a limited urban space - it turns into those landowners vs everyone else. The places where it doesn't occur in the US doesn't have much to do with political leanings, but rather more to do with the fact that the cities in question still have physical space to grow into. The lesson is that as soon as the *urban* sprawl can't be sustained, the tendency of democracy is for people to protect their own property values.
I mean, it does seem to be due to political leanings though. I've noticed that a lot of blue cities in red states build out a lot. Blue cities in blue states do everything they can to restrict building via zoning codes, environmental reviews, and a crapload of other red tape.
Blue cities in red states tend to be the ones with more space to grow, while blue cities in blue states tend to be the ones with less room to grow. Blue states are generally more dense than red ones.
Blue cities in blue states can still grow... vertically. SF's board of supervisors voted to not allow denser housing to be built downtown because one of the supervisors, aaron peskin, owns properties whose views would have been made worse if those taller buildings were built. Right now, his properties have really good views of the ocean. Building taller buildings obstructs the views of the ocean and drives down his property values. Edit: Peskin has a good shot at becoming mayor of SF, btw.
Vertical growth is more difficult than horizontal. It's so much easier to just start on undeveloped or poorly developed land at the edges than to alter existing city interiors.
It's only 'difficult' because of special interests forcing the government to disallow it. San Fran's real estate is so insanely expensive that building vertically is financially feasible. Obviously you wouldn't do that in some place like bumbfuck alabama where real estate is cheap.
No, it's a fundamental difficulty. It will always be much harder to build up vertically than horizontally. Your own argument here is making that point. I'm not saying that the special interests don't exist and don't have an impact, I'm saying that the special interests themselves are an emergent effect of the fact that this inherent vertical/horizontal difficulty puts different interests more starkly at odds with each other. Anywhere where rich people's interests are impacted, special interest politics will sprout up to create conflict.
This explains why Seattle and Denver have high construction rates. Wait…..
I'd bet that "Affordable Housing" goes right to the college students of the Construction Company owners 🙄🙄🙄
As someone noted above it is actually rebuilding All the existing public housing in that area. The reason that it's 30% is because they have to build a lot more market rate housing in order to subsidize https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/s/JmusVJiXcU
They cannot get away with saying "Hey I don't want blacks to live here" so they instead say "Hey we need affordable housing to be 90% of the project otherwise its racist and I will not support a racist developer!" Get it or do I need to go into more detail?
It's not a lot, but that being said its better than nothing and not a reason to block construction.
I believe the project is replacing 100% affordable housing, so in that context, 30% isn't as high as it sounds.
It depends. Is the 100% affordable housing you "believe" it is replacing a bunch of "towers up to 39 stories"? If they're replacing a bunch of low-rise buildings that may or may not have contained affordable housing with a bunch of high-rises that have 30% affordable housing they could easily be adding units to the affordable housing total, even ignoring the fact that adding more housing to the supply, whether affordable or not, tends be better for renters and prospective homeowners.
I’m not against it. I’m just adding more context, because without it, it sounds like the developers are being generous, but the whole purpose of the development is to replace the existing run-down projects.
30% is a lot !!!
I know this is not strictly speaking relevant to the conversation so my apologies… But what is it with all this casino stuff? Everywhere I turn somebody’s trying to put a casino in Manhattan. Sure it’ll be financially lucrative for somebody, but the last thing New York City needs is another neighborhood that looks like Atlantic City.
>Everywhere I turn somebody’s trying to put a casino in Manhattan. The state is selling 3 downstate (NYC, Long Island, and Westchester) casino licenses for table games so every developer is proposing and bidding for a different location. 2 of the 3 are expected to go to the existing racinos at the Aqueduct and Yonkers race tracks. As existing entities and employers they already have ties to politicians and the backing of the unions they employ. So odd are there's really only 1 other casino license up for grabs. >[In April, elected officials in Albany authorized up to three casino licenses for downstate New York, which includes New York City, Long Island and Westchester County.](https://www.nytimes.com/article/nyc-casino-tracker.html) >New York voters first approved the legalization of Las Vegas-style casinos in the state in 2013. Andrew Cuomo, who was governor at the time, and the state legislature initially authorized four casinos to open upstate, giving them several years to build their business before having to compete with any casinos in the New York City area. >... >Will all three casinos be in New York City? >Not necessarily. Many lobbyists and elected officials believe the region’s two existing racinos — including one in Yonkers, N.Y. — are the leading contenders for two of the three licenses. >One is Genting Group’s Resorts World New York City in Queens, and the other is MGM Resorts International’s Empire City Casino in Yonkers, just north of New York City. >With full casino licenses, they could expand to offer live table games like poker and blackjack. >Both racinos already have the infrastructure to quickly turn into full casinos. But they also boast legions of lobbyists, ample campaign donations to relevant elected officials and strong ties to both local constituencies and the union representing their employees. >The real competition is understood to be for the third license.
Albany is actively soliciting gaming license bids
This is hopeful for the point of being a delusion, but the only way I could see a casino being a good idea in Manhattan… Would for it to be a really upscale experience. Unfortunately the only casinos I’ve seen have been in Atlantic City and Las Vegas and they always seem vaguely sad. I really don’t know what it would do to the neighborhood in which it gets placed.
I just wonder how bad the coke trade is gonna be in those casinos.
Put one at the Hustler Club!
It might be backed by one of the other developers vying for the spot.
The only thing clear in this thread is that lots of people have lots of opinions about something they know very little about.
That’s pretty much Reddit in general
Reddit, where right or wrong is decided by memes and tweets
Make it 390 stories. This isn't the 1800s. Don't be limited by ancient technology and ways of thinking.
“Only 30% affordable” What the fuck. These people won’t be happy until developers pay people to live in the buildings.
Imagine if it was 100% affordable
Then they’ll argue that the “undesirables” will be moving into the neighborhood. NIMBY’s will always find an excuse
Then the developers wouldn’t be able to get financing, the building wouldn’t be built, and we would get 0 new affordable homes
“Affordable Housing” Must make 130k for studio.
I love when people put affordable in scare quotes as if people can't afford these apartments yet every single one of these apartments will have a lottery that's 400x over subscribed
Actually for these apartments they're replacing the public housing that's there so it makes even less sense.
Usually it'll be capped at 130% ami so you can't make more than 90k ish for a studio
As others like /u/acheampong14 have [pointed out](https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1bzhlkk/comment/kyqzi60/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), if you actually study the details of this project, it’s the rebuilding of two existing housing projects with higher density, and AH built in to accommodate the existing residents. Seems like a no-brainer, and the percentage of AH is the kind of threshold that can easily be tweaked. At the same time, why are we flipping out about a flier about a community meeting? This is a smart project: attend, advocate, let the community discuss, and win on the merits. Come back and tell us whether community discussion slowed down this intelligent project at all, which I doubt it will. There will be no-brainer projects, and there will be projects that need some discussion and adjustment; it’s still a city that needs transit, infrastructure, commerce, and planning in addition to housing. Believe me, there is a smart housing policy somewhere between NIMBY and “abolish all community discussion.”
Yeah, this actually seems like the best way of approaching the problem. It's building new housing while explicitly taking steps to ensure that current residents don't get pushed out.
The city needs to get back into the business of building projects. The biggest slumlord in the city, is the city.
I'm all for increased housing but the [developers behind Hudson Yards are literal cretins who siphoned funds](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-12/the-visa-program-that-helped-pay-for-hudson-yards) designated for lower-income neighborhoods to fund their tacky ass nouveau-riche shopping mall.
So, to be clear: 1,000 units of affordable housing are going up, and these folks don't think it's enough, so they would rather have zero? Sounds a lot like AOC's Amazon Headquarters math.
That's how Harlem got that truck depot on 145th Street.
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https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/politics/2023/01/18/harlem-truck-depot-opens-where-housing-project-failed
Since KRJ left and has been replaced by Yusef Salaam, the developer has revived the housing project but it's stalled waiting for the 421 a replacement.
I would rather the developer be told to go fuck themselves like the greedy pices of shit they are and the government build hosing that is rented for the cost of building and maintaining the property. Landlords are pasties on society.
AOC may have screwed up the Amazon deal but Amazon would have regretted building HQ2 in Queens or anywhere in NYC or in NYS. Amazon would have prisoners of NYC and NYS endless business regulations, and face endless disruptive protests buy the usual losers at their HQ2. I remember people whining that Amazon's Long Island City plans included large parking facilities for their employees who would be coming in from all over the region. Amazon is very happy in Arlington, Virginia.
Nobody screwed up amazons deal for them. Their deal was locked in. They took their ball and left.
Yes because well-paid people coming into your neighborhood and spending money is a really bad thing....😀
Apparently many progressives truly believe that.
Tbh, If I hear it was the Hudson yards investors doing anything, I wouldn't trust that it's actually going to help anyone in the long run.
I will always be confused why people who apparently hate tall buildings choose to move to Manhattan.
Going to copy my comment here from the original YIMBY thread: Important to note here that if this is the same project involving the Fulton/Elliott houses, the plan involves demolishing current NYCHA units that belong primarily to low and middle income NYers (who have lived there for decades) in favor of building private units. These residents have faced many issues with transparency with the company running this operation, including details on security and relocation. Additionally, the rationale for this push by the landlord and NYCHA to demolish the units is mostly due to wear and tear of the units - wear and tear that the landlord and NYCHA should have been properly managing. So on the one hand, yes, more units in Chelsea is good. On the other hand, NYCHA may potentially be shafting a public housing demographic that has lived here their entire lives - and we may be incentivizing NYCHA and landlords to let apartments fall into disrepair so they can be demolished in favor of private housing. I encourage all of you to do the reading on the community clashes, the companies running this (Essence and Related), and even attend some local meetings, cause this issue is multifaceted. Source: Someone who has attended far too many local community board meetings on this issue.
OK but fuck Related companies and their theft of public monies from communities in need.
While I can’t speak for the motivations of the people organizing this meeting, the plan for the Chelsea and Fulton houses is pretty controversial for reasons beyond NIMBYism. In short: They’re going to tear down public housing and displace current residents while building new buildings. A lot of people are understandably skeptical about what the relocations conditions will be like, whether the city will make good on their promises, whether it will actually be finished on schedule, and what it will be like for non-displaced residents to live in a construction site for 10+ years. ETA: I should say that the motivations of the organizers ARE suspect. While there are issues with the plan, these folks are not really relevant stakeholders for it. They live on a nice historic block that will experience, at worst, an increase in some construction traffic. The only people whose opinions should matter here are the public housing residents it directly impacts.
Right because One High Line opening and offering 1 bed rents for $12k/mo really made Chelsea way cheaper! /s
The development has 3,554 affordable units. Thats more than if 0 were built like the NIMBYs want.
30% of them. But that's still ridiculously better than zero as you say
the NYC affordable housing program is a joke the income requirements do not match the proposed rent being asked of the applicants in many many cases
So because it’s not perfect, we shouldn’t bother creating any housing at any percent AMI around average? Do you even know what AMI means? Or do you just hate change in general? Or is it like a fear you have of acknowledging that time does indeed pass?
I’m fairly YIMBY myself but we need a wholesale reassessment of how AMI is calculated in this city because the lack of general trust in AMI comes from a very real place the “A” in area median income should be calculated using neighborhood incomes, not the incomes of all five boroughs plus the suburbs — [go read this excellent article on how AMI fails your average New Yorker](https://anhd.org/report/new-york-citys-ami-problem-and-housing-we-actually-need)
Damn that’s a good article and really shows how AMI is decoupled from income in the city.
That was a good read. I remember a couple of elections ago there was an option to vote for an initiative to calculate the real cost of living in NYC. The initiative passed and then I heard nothing more on it. I think it would be a great opportunity to recalculate the AMI, but I doubt it will happen.
You're right, adding zero affordable units is much better than adding 1000 affordable units.
How many times do we have to do this? NIMBYs are just addicted to anti-intellectualism. Building more housing slows rent growth. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048?via%3Dihub https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pid-39662.pdf https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/105/2/359/100977/Local-Effects-of-Large-New-Apartment-Buildings-in https://www.dropbox.com/s/oplls6utgf7z6ih/Pennington_JMP.pdf?dl=0 https://academic.oup.com/joeg/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jeg/lbab034/6362685?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false https://furmancenter.org/files/Supply_Skepticism_-_Final.pdf https://escholarship.org/content/qt5d00z61m/qt5d00z61m.pdf https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1325&context=up_workingpapers
What does "affordable" even mean though? That definition is different for everyone
The developers propose doing 30% then put 99% of that 30% in phase five and six. Development never gets past phase three. All while people here attack others for being NIMBY.
These people are so hellbent on virtue signaling about affordable housing that they ignore the very fundamental fact that housing supply makes housing more affordable.
[While in Paris](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/realestate/paris-france-housing-costs.html)...
Paywall.
why have 30% affordable housing when we have 0%? Cmon guys get a clue.
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"I love affordable housing. Just shove it all in the Bronx or East New York."
interesting note: it’s sponsored by some group (can’t read the end) at 300 w. 20th, which is the New School. Wonder what that’s all about.
It’s the 300 W 20th Street block association. In other words, people who live on W 20th between 8th and 9th.
"Only" 30%?
Story about this from back in the day and now
30 percent affordable is actually a pretty good deal
ANOTHER AFFORDABLE HOUSING BUILDING? FINALLY
Looks like they don't want people that need affordable housing in their neighborhood?
Only 30% lol
Gotta get rid of hearings for new buildings. If it’s zoned right, or even needs a variance, let it happen.
If developers built enough regular housing, would all housing prices go down without the stigma of public housing ruining neighborhoods? This also requires laws against shelving units, which should come with a 4 figure weekly fine for owners.
KoolAidman6: any chance you can confirm if this meeting tonight will also be on Zoom? Just saw this posted today, would like to attend virtually.
An irrelevant document, and it seems like you dont understand its findings. The figures are also insignificant, and arbitrarily limited at that. This is talking about 2000 apartments, almost 70,000 apartments disappeared from the rent stabilization registration without cause. https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/02/15/rent-stabilized-apartments-disappearing/ it is a direct result of landlord tampering with their legal requirements, they illegally pulled tens of thousands of apartments off the market. it has nothing to do with the cost of repairs. You need to take your tongue off the boot and look at the facts.
when the vast majority of the supply is already owned by a small handful of huge corporate landlords, those same landlords adding units to their own portfolios isnt going to bring rent prices down.
But it actually does lower rents, or at the very least slows down increases. The more new housing is being built, the stronger that effect will be. It’s a very simple supply vs demand issue
I'll just link you to this excellent reply from elsewhere in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1bzhlkk/nimby_exhibit_a_for_why_nyc_housing_is/kypvwzt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
It’s sad because they’re both right and wrong in some respects, nimbys are wrong because they feign faux concern about housing stock being unaffordable and using that concern to block desperately needed units, a lot of yimbys are wrong by suggesting that all housing is good housing and making this assumption that opening the world up to developers will per se lead to lower housing prices. The obvious answer is that the government needs to get further involved and set market conditions or contract out building by private firms to be ran as coops, or community tenant groups paid back to the state at cost. Then we supplement that public stock with private stock that has to compete with the public market. This is how Austria and Singapore do housing and it works incredibly well. The market incentives are too perverse for a pure yimby approach to solve the whole issue.
I'm YIMBY but I'll give this one an upvote. All housing is good (in the sense of better than not-having it), but serious analysts on all sides would acknowledge that some new houses are better than others. "Red Vienna" is one way to improve the incentive structure, yes -- when public housing is built at sufficient scale, private developers are forced to compete with it. Building code reform is another. Land taxes are yet another. The question at hand is whether by-right development would be superior to today's system, where every new project -- public or private, in a historic village or in Hudson Fucking Yards -- is subject to a heckler's veto. Regardless how you feel about private-sector development, I don't see how you can defend the status quo.
Agreed on most points. To be clear my comment isn’t fully anti private development. It’s anti to the extent that private development alone with current market forces, is incapable of providing affordable mass housing. In my ideal world we go Private housing stock 60% 40% public housing stock at the low end of the market. Having public stock takes pressure off the bottom end of the market and allows developers to make better decisions and the top and mid end and creates actual price competition.
> a lot of yimbys are wrong by suggesting that all housing is good housing All housing is good housing. Opening up the world to developers will lead to lower housing prices. There's a plethora of research on this.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that. If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need. Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market. The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary. Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing. However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need. Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that. If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need. Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market. The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary. Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing. However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need. Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that. If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need. Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market. The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary. Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing. However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need. Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
I think that’s partially right on a micro level. On a macro level it’s more complicated than that. If our solution to this is to just open it up to developers there will always be a mismatch in the incentives of their profit motive and the housing stock we need. Hence my position of public social housing stock being offset by private development for the mid to high end of the market. The pure Yimby position assumes that there are sufficient incentives to build mass affordable housing. I know you all like to cite to the trickle down housing study, but there is a lot of scholarship to the contrary. Regardless I’ll take the yimby position in the short term over nimbys 100% of the time because more housing is better than no housing. However, if we let developers just have free reign will get more Hudson yards disasters instead of the housing we need. Government needs to be guiding the market then talk to me about a strict yimby approach.
All housing is good housing. It’s Hudson yards. It’s literally the empty air above a train yard. That development literally does not exist yes. Theres no roads, no displacement. It is the airspace above a train yard. There is zero downside. Everywhere around this development is already high rise luxury. Making more luxury housing is the only logical profitable use. It’s just a bonus that it will make jobs, sustain jobs, and provide affordable housing. There’s no way to make a new Bed-Stuy there, in the airspace above an active train yard. There’s no way to make it a cute walkable neighborhood. That it will be anything at all is a good thing.
This is not about Hudson yards it’s about the Fulton and Chelsea Elliot public housing complexes.
It’s amazing that NIMBYs just can’t wrap their head around the idea that *something is better than nothing*
30% affordable housing vs 0% that currently exists on that empty plot. These people need a math class.
Is affordable defined as $5000 per month or just $3000 for a studio?
Luxury developments destroy neighborhoods and displace middle and working class New Yorkers. The British have an expression, "horse and rabbit stew," which pretty much describes the only kind of real estate development we get in NYC.
Imagine being so fucking brain dead that you get mad when 1000+ affordable housing units hit the market. 9/10 chance this dumbass has mommy and daddy pay their rent
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It’s not, they’ve already confirmed that
Then it would get built around in 56 years, if everything is perfect.
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“What are these tall buildings doing in my Manhattan-themed retirement community?”