NEW YORK, NY – April 2, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — Today, Borough President Gale A. Brewer and 26 other Manhattan elected officials– Members of Congress, State Senators, State Assembly Members, City Council Members– sent a letter to Carl Weisbrod, Chair of the City Planning Commission, calling for changes to the zoning text amendment which the de Blasio Administration has proposed to expand development in the City, including reforms to the city’s inclusionary housing policies.
A public scoping meeting is being held today on the “Zoning for Quality and Afforability” zoning text amendment at the City Planning Commission, before a final version is certified by the Department of City Planning and the official ULURP clock starts ticking.
While 100 percent supportive of the overall goal of increasing housing in the city, the officials write that, “We fear… that in the rush to solve the problem of housing supply we are both leaving behind the principle of sound neighborhood planning and forgoing an opportunity to fix the voluntary Inclusionary Housing program without truly gaining affordable units.”
“In effect, this proposal seeks to make inclusionary developments more likely and more profitable, without ensuring that they provide a reasonable amount of affordable housing.
“The [inclusionary housing] program needs to be strengthened to ensure the best value and highest amount of affordable housing, and this zoning text change is the perfect time to do it.
“The voluntary program should be amended so that the amount of affordable housing reflects the value of the floor area bonus. Currently, the same 20 percent of affordable housing is required regardless of whether the floor area bonus is located in a neighborhood that makes the market value of that bonus astronomical.”
The officials address two contentious topics: “poor-door” housing developments and height increases in contextual zoning districts.
Poor-door: ** “More and more, the existing Inclusionary Housing program is being used to create so-called “two-door” buildings that segregate low-income tenants into separate building segments. While this administration has said that it intends to fix this problem, it has taken no concrete, long-term measures to do so. The only way to permanently prevent two-door buildings is to amend the zoning text for the [voluntary] Inclusionary Housing program.”
Contextual zoning: **”By increasing height limits across the board, this administration is undermining these [contextual zoning] agreements made between previous administrations and neighborhood residents… The administration should consider more targeted actions that could keep contextual height limits in place in neighborhoods where they are working, especially in historic districts,” they write.
Contact: Jon Houston | jhouston (at) manhattanbp.nyc (dot) gov | 917.960.0627
