New York, NY – February 5, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — The Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy was saddened to learn of the passing of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch last Friday.
“Mayor Koch was a pioneer in housing policy,” said Furman Center director Vicki Been. “His 10-year plan for housing in New York City was by far the largest municipally supported housing production program in the country and subsequent New York City mayors have followed suit, continuing the city’s strong commitment to affordable housing.”
“Mayor Koch’s plan successfully created much needed affordable housing for New York City, but also revitalized and repopulated the city’s neighborhoods that were devastated in the 1960s and 1970s,” said Been. “His leadership and innovation established truly distinctive housing policies in New York that continue to define our city.”
“The massive scale of Mayor Koch’s 10-year plan for housing was unprecedented,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, co-Director of the Furman Center. “His plan was unique in that it committed city capital dollars to rebuilding the housing stock; the city’s housing investments dwarfed that of other cities.”
“Mayor Koch’s 10-year plan relied heavily on the private sector to develop and manage housing,” said Ellen. “As such, it helped to create an institutional infrastructure for affordable housing that remains more extensive than that in any other city in the United States.”
For more commentary on Mayor Koch’s housing legacy in New York City, Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Mark Willis are available for comment. Please contact Shannon Moriarty at sm4901 (at) nyu (dot) edu.
For more Mayor Koch’s legacy on housing in New York City housing, please see the following reports:
Housing Policy in New York City: A Brief History (PDF) Published in April 2006, this paper tells the story of housing policy in New York City over the past 30 years. The report describes the city’s unprecedented efforts to rebuild its housing stock during the late 1980s and 1990s and analyzes the specific features of the New York City’s 10-year plan that made these efforts so successful. See pages 8-10 for comments on the success of the 10-year plan.
The Impact of Subsidized Housing on NYC Neighborhoods (PDF) In July 2005, Ingrid Gould Ellen testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census, describing how the Furman Center’s research has consistently found that publicly-funded housing investments aimed at distressed urban properties deliver significant, positive impacts to the surrounding communities.
The External Effects of Place-Based Subsidized Housing (PDF) This study examines the external effects of subsidized housing built in New York City during the late 1980s and 1990s. The paper finds significant and sustained benefits to the surrounding neighborhood. Neighborhood benefits increase with project size and decrease with distance from the project sites. A simple cost-benefit analysis suggests that New York City’s housing investments delivered a tax benefit to the city that exceeded the cost of the city subsidies provided.
Revitalizing Inner-City Neighborhoods: NYC’s Ten-Year Plan (PDF) Published in 2002 in Housing Policy Debate, this article examines the impact of Mayor Koch’s $5.1 billion, 10-year plan for housing on the sale prices of homes in surrounding neighborhoods. The paper finds that properties in the immediate vicinity of homes newly built or renovated through the 10-year plan rose in value relative to comparable properties further away, suggesting the housing investments helped to spur revitalization in the distressed neighborhoods they targeted.
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The Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy is a joint center of the New York University School of Law and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The Furman Center is the leading academic research center in New York City devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate, and housing development, and is dedicated to providing objective academic and empirical research. More information on the Furman Center can be found at www.furmancenter.org.
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www.furmancenter.org
Contact: Shannon Moriarty sm4901 (at) nyu (dot) edu 212-998-6492
