A Sordid Affair between Bloomberg and Affordable Housing?

Sarah Solon

A Sordid Affair between Bloomberg and Affordable Housing?

Williamsburg_220[1] (2).jpg Saying that he'd like to make it more affordable to build affordable housing, Mayor Bloomberg announced this week that he's rethinking the tax incentive most popular among housing developers - 421 A.

The flashy veneer of this program is the appearance of investing in more affordable housing, seemingly in service of keeping middle- and low-income New Yorkers in New York. But the cold hard fact is that 80% of development within the "exclusionary zone" is luxury units - which dramatically change the economic landscape of these neighborhoods and end up kicking out the less affluent.

Sure, under Bloomberg's proposal, new towers jam-packed with affordable housing will spring up between 14th and 96th streets in Manhattan, and along the Brooklyn waterfront (which has just been added to the zones subject to this tax break).

When you boil it down, the mayor is offering a tax incentive to build in the areas that are already prime real estate destinations.

Trumpeting his goal of mixed-income neighborhoods, the mayor commented that "the cities that will compete and win are cities that can build successful, mixed-income neighborhoods rather than the historic economic divide between city and suburb that we've seen." To this end, the 421-A tax program applies to buildings that house three or more units - and is targeted toward sites that were underused, vacant, or used differently than their zoning. The problem is that these affordable developments will crop up the middle of trendy and expensive neighborhoods, surrounded by few affordable options outside of the new affordable housing tower.

Sometimes, developers can even build the affordable housing off-site - a prime example being the affordable developments that will be built in Bushwick. The effect of a developer building luxury towers in Williamsburg and affordable towers in Bushwick, an already low-income neighborhood, will be further economic segregation.

What's more, in these up-and-coming neighborhoods - suddenly without affordable supermarkets and laundry mats - the influx of the wealthier has the net result of pushing out the people in the neighborhood who had been living there affordably before the surge of new development. We may just lose more affordable housing than we gain.