What I found most striking about the Stein article on Mayor De Blasio’s inclusionary zoning plan was its impact and the deftness at which it achieves that impact. Specifically, Stein leaves his readers with feelings similar to the urgency and disillusion experienced by those actually affected by the plan.

Not knowing the context of the word ‘doomed’ in the title (as I didn’t know the specifics of inclusionary zoning either), I began reading with an open mind. The opening caption, “By embracing inclusionary zoning, Mayor de Blasio gets to put forth a big, bold plan for reducing inequalities without challenging capitalists,” immediately painted a picture of ambitious good intent. The phrases ‘reducing inequalities’ and ‘without challenging capitalists’ seen back-to-back like that set up my expectations for the proceeding explanation; I wanted to know–how could this be done? Stein fulfills these expectations and answers with a hopeful summary of De Blasio’s affordable housing plan before delineating inclusionary zoning, as well as the problem of affordable housing in New York City itself. During this time, Stein first presents inclusionary zoning as a promising prospect. He does not directly point out its deep flaws or hypocritical outcomes, but instead proceeds with an evenhanded account of ‘common and accepted criticisms’, leaving room to disprove these criticisms later on. Through the author’s tone and train of thought, readers unfamiliar with the topic are made to feel as outsiders peering in on an ambivalent matter. We know by this point that on the surface, the prospect is tempting, yet we also know that it is not all that it seems. I imagine that for people naive to the disservices of zoning plans, especially those who newly seek affordable housing, De Blasio’s plan would be difficult to distinguish as threatening.

However, in the following section, Stein pulls the rug out from under us. He dismantles the now ‘fatally flawed program’ ruthlessly and forces the reader to consider the viewpoints of those targeted by inclusionary zoning, through illustrating the toxic ripple effect that it would provoke. We learn that, not only are the promises of affordability and expansion both illusions, the plan proposed by De Blasio to double down on rather than rethink inclusionary zoning would likely result in decreased affordability and fewer affordable housing. Gentrification would spread like wildfire throughout affected neighborhoods, and displacement would follow. Here, I no longer felt like an outsider to a detached issue but a helpless witness to an obvious crime. I thought of the people who were to suffer and struggle to find a home on behalf of the seemingly benign proposal, and then I thought about those who would be unaffected: ignorant of their exemption and complacent in their ignorance. I wished that I, and others like me, would be further educated on the topic and that all those seeking affordable housing would definitely be made aware of De Blasio’s false claims. I couldn’t help but think that the paralyzing disenchantment which the article gradually builds on its readers was purposely strategized by Stein in order to evoke the feeling of being victim to such a proposal. And because of this, I found the Stein article to be singularly effective.

In class on Wednesday we wrapped up our section on “Shapers of NYC past,” with an investigation into gentrification- its root causes, how it has changed over time, and what it looks like today (in your group projects especially).   We ended by discussing a few alternatives that were raised by Sam Stein in his article on “DeBlasio’s Doomed Housing Plan.”  These include improving/expanding public housing, rent regulation, and Community Land Trusts.  We will explore these and other alternatives/”shaping strategies” as the semester goes on, through class readings and your projects.   For a round-up of recent news on these topics, and some supplementary explanations of things we didn’t have time to cover completely in class, please see the announcements page.

The readings for today wrap up our historical inquiry into what has shaped/is shaping NYC. In class we continued to develop our collective and small group historical narratives, incorporating key concepts from the readings (pictured above).  This main concept for today was ZONING, which is explained and critically interrogated by Angotti, Larson, and Stein.  We’ll continue this discussion/narrative development on Wednesday, and begin to discuss some alternative shaping strategies as raised in the readings and by your community contacts.

In thinking about planning in relation to the future of NYC, the article on DiBlasio’s plan was something of a tease.  It opened up with this great proposal; new lost-cost homes, opportunities for those being priced-out of their city, and offers a solution to the problem presented by a raise in rents by 75% with an insufficient wage rage at only 31% from 2002 to 2012.  DiBlasio incorporates inclusionary zoning, which sounds great as it would demand that new construction allot space for affordable housing aimed at lower incomes.  An interesting point in the definition of this concept, however, is that inclusionary zoning dictates that zoning is currently ex-clusionary.

Thus, while it has some positive results and seems like an appeasing strategy, inclusionary zoning may do more harm that good.  Looking at the long-term effects, IZ encourages a domino-effect of causes and effects that in conclusion would displace more than it houses.  Neighborhoods are up zoned, rent-stabilized housing is sold off to big developers by landlords, tenants are evicted, and buildings are knocked down and build back up as more expensive and rich housing.

The article is harsh on DiBlasio’s plan, but doesn’t really offer up any better solutions.  Rather, the opinion is that affordable housing is a contraction and will never be successful as long as there is a profit.  The one promising suggestion made, however, is that on public housing, which not only provides affordable living, but also combats gentrification by taking the land off the market.  This got me thinking about a statistic I read previously regarding Vienna’s famous public housing plan.

In Vienna, housing is both aesthetically pleasing as well as affordable, offering many amenities and luxuries, while still catering to the majority, which is lower-income inhabitants.  This is gone by total government involvement in housing, and in their opinion, “…housing is a human right so important that it shouldn’t be left up to the free market.”  Almost half of the city’s housing stock is owned/influence by the government, which allows for residents to enjoy a way of living what would otherwise only be reserved for the well-off.  Inexpensive rent, yes, but also renter’s rights to an [attractive] home, renter’s voices in the decision making processes, renter’s rights in living in their city.

Perhaps Vienna owes the success of their situation to an early established philosophy; residents are linked to their community and the city through design, in which, “It was always about the city. It was about not just providing private living space but also public living space to people for whom they were also providing housing.”  The people and their diversity are just as important in the establishment of the building as the economic and aesthetic factors are.  With admission, speculative residents need merely meet the income requirement to move in after being on a short waiting list, but don’t ever have to move out, which means that the housing units never become ghettos.  Logistically, the plan is executed when city-owned land is sold at an affordable price to developers, who are also give a quite nice loan which covers most of the project cost and doesn’t require pay off for a long time.  The caveat: developers provide half their residences for rent.

Maybe we can learn a thing or two from this, and take away some philosophies regarding housing and how the idea is about incorporate people into their city.  Vienna has had a jump-start; their historical political movements have spurred these plans and concepts that have centered around a strong government force in society, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that planning can be about the good for the people through encouraged diversity and building for the lower-class (Jacobian) and having a powerful source of command over the city’s domain (Mosesian) produces something rather incredible.

http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/gov-affordable-luxurious-housing-in-vienna.html

In a continuation of last week’s discussion, Larson describes planning strategies in New York that are shaping as a result of density and growth, as well as  a need for New York to function as a growth machine. Bloomberg’s planning strategy, as outlined by Larson, would be to combine the super planning efforts of Moses, while maintaining the needs of communities, as advocated for by Jacobs. De Blasio’s  plan would be an even further attempt at these ideals. It would incorporate “Inclusionary Housing” as part of rezoning in order to maintain affordability for low income residents.

Smith, however, is skeptical of these idealized solutions that would attempt to maintain low income housing within private developments. The term “inclusionary housing” in itself is a paradox; developers cannot call housing “inclusionary” if it is built upon a previous low income housing site, displaces those who once lived there, and is not affordable for those in need of affordable housing. “Inclusionary Housing” as a development strategy acts more as an appeasing method for private developers within the growth machine, as a way to ensure acceptance of developing within neighborhoods doomed to gentrification. The lower income housing within private developments does not consider those who would live there,  as the majority of these units would be sold or rented to more wealthy residents, reflecting a shifting demographic within entire neighborhoods.

Smith’s article is particularly relevant within the context of this class, and most clearly puts the historical context of past readings within perspective to our own projects. However, his article was clearest within its proposed alternatives to inclusionary housing in private development. We already know that inclusionary development is harmful. Smith’s article closes with several initiatives, including  the Community Land Trust, a planning strategy for community members to reclaim control of developed land. New York’s First Community Land Trust, as explained by Angotti, developed as a response to an urban renewal plan in 1959. In the 1970s, the CLT model took off as a means of combatting removal of government subsidized  housing  under the Cooper Square Committee. The Committee aims to maintain affordable housing and diversity within the Cooper Square area, specifically. Initiatives like this have so far proved successful because they separate land ownership from building ownership, and function to provide for residents and the needs of specific communities. A similar community land trust is currently developing in East Harlem, in response to the East River Plaza Development.

Smith’s article has proven that community planning is the best initiative to take on private development. Private Development, however, appears inevitable, along with its development of “inclusionary housing”. Is there a better way for private developers to gauge what constitutes low income on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis? To what extent can private developers meet an individual community’s needs?

Stein’s article is easily one of the most interesting, and easiest to read, pieces we’ve looked at so far. It talks about the issues we’ve studied so far: gentrification, affordable housing, displacement, and urban development. This content is not surprising, given Stein’s background in housing and labor. In the article, he paints a critical picture of DeBlasio’s “new” housing plan.

Stein starts off with a fairly unbiased recounting of DeBlasio’s plan: to use inclusionary zoning to create more affordable housing in a city desperately in need of it. And at first, Stein’s criticisms seem aimed at the broad inequality in the city rather than at the mayor’s “new” initiative. I can’t stop using quotes for the word new, because as Stein points out, this is not a wholly new plan. It’s a stepped up version of Bloomberg’s plan, replacing voluntary incentives with mandatory rules. And if one were to be considered better, it would be one requiring more of developers. But better does not necessarily mean good.

Stein outlines how this plan would lead to greater displacement, touching on concepts we’ve read before in this class. The required “affordable units” are priced according to a scale not actually in line with the average income of the city. For instance, units marked as “affordable” are noted as being priced for households making roughly $10,000 more than the average income in New York City. The other criticism leveled is that not enough affordable housing is created. The units created are unlikely to match the amount of affordable housing lost in the process. Stein specifically brings up rent regulated apartments in his argument. These apartments are priced to be more affordable than the so called affordable housing created by DeBlasio’s plan. Landlords of these units could easily be enticed to sell the buildings, and new owners could evict, demolish, and rebuild for greater profit. In addition, the number of wealthy people moving into the area would significantly outweigh the number of lower income people living in the affordable units. This would accelerate gentrification, driving up costs in the entire neighborhood and forcing low income residents out.

The author notes several alternatives that would be preferable to inclusionary zoning. The first seems obvious: for the city to own and properly maintain public housing; this would serve to stall gentrification. He also suggests an expansion of rent regulated housing, noting that it is far more universal and therefore more useful than simply cheapening a small number of otherwise expensive units.

Stein touches on elements of the housing system that by this point we are quite familiar with. However, he makes it seem more relevant than chapters from books set in what can seem like the distant past. By bringing the attention to issues going on right now, and explaining them in todays terms, he brings the issue to life. He also makes an important statement about profit: it shouldn’t, and really can’t, be king when it comes to housing. There isn’t a way to make affordable housing both truly affordable and profitable for developers. And at the end of the day, don’t we owe it to our citizens to at least house them?

Scott Larson discusses the threat that New York City faces because they are slipping when it comes to dominance in the global economy and because of its need to improve sustainability because of increasing population. To ward this off, the Bloomberg administration introduced the agenda of building big and fast like Robert Moses, while still taking into consideration all the diversity and community that Jane Jacobs stood for. The idea seems very idealistic and convoluted. Although the city talks big, it is actually private developers that control the redevelopment of New York City. What they can do is provide the framework for development through zoning. The city created incentive zoning initiatives that led to developers creating public amenities so that they could build higher buildings. Often, these amenities were inadequate and were created simply for the purpose of keeping up pretenses. In the end, it comes down to business. These policies that were supposedly geared toward community and the public good were gilded.

Larson mentions that Seymour Mandelbaum argues that a way of bringing together the opposing perspectives of Jacobs and Moses is by combining select aspects of them into a story that vaguely makes sense. There is a theme of misinformation throughout the reading that is evident in Samuel Stein’s article as well. When he explains how inclusionary zoning would actually destroy more affordable housing than it creates, he laments that it would still be considered an achievement. This is because new housing is easily visible, whereas those that are displaced are not. This leads me to question: How much harm did the inclusionary zoning under Bloomberg’s administration cause?

Stein’s stance against inclusionary housing and his explanation of how it does more harm than good are clear, but I would like clarification as to how the loopholes in the city’s rent laws can be closed as easily as they were made. He states that the city does know how to create affordable housing, but they simply do not have the political will to. On the other hand, Amanda Burden from the Larson text states that all they can do is provide the framework for development and wait for developers to shape the city.

Discussion Question: Does the city have the means to implement all the public housing and rent laws that Stein speaks of? How greatly would this affect the city politically and economically? Is the city’s unwillingness reasonable?

It was interesting to see the continuity between chapter 6 of Larson’s book and Stein’s article “De Blasio’s Doomed Housing Plan”. The chapter essentially outlined how the former mayor Bloomberg approached the topic of urban development that stemmed from the RPA’s Third Regional Plan advocating  investment in “Economy, Equity and Environment” and the city’s role as a global capital (Larson, 2013)  As reiterated many times in the chapter, Bloomberg’s urban renewal agenda featured a blend of modernist concepts advocating rapid and aggressive urban growth complemented by “incentives, tax subsidies and blurring of public and private monies. . .” and traditional ideas that championed healthy, multifaceted neighborhoods and voiced Jane Jacob’s call for diversifying and enhancing the use of “underutilized” land for the working-class  (Larson 2013). The chapter further explains how zoning was the impetus of urban development during the early 2000s, which not only attracted prospective private investors but also had elements from both ends of the urban planning spectrum. In other words, zoning during the Bloomberg administration was both large-scaled and diversified. It was interesting to note the political influence that zoning had in the city, where most of the downzoning  was taking place in primarily white regions that voted heavily for Bloomberg  and weren’t fond of high-density apartments. Also, i didn’t realize that one of the examples of diversified zoning in the chapter (Jamaica, Queens and the Airtrain) is actually where my father’s business is located. Whenever i work there, it is interesting to see how the local residents react when they find out that the tourist-oriented Airtrain costs $5 (via Metrocard) to go to JFK even though the subway and buses below are half the price.

The last part of the chapter is basically a juxtaposition of Stein’s article relating to inclusionary zoning. Even though inclusionary zoning was a part of Bloomberg’s agenda, with expectations of producing roughly 40,000 affordable housing units and financing another 82,000, it was merely voluntary and provided density bonuses for developers who accommodated some affordable housing. Moreover, Larson mentions that this method rendered it vulnerable to any economic recessions that largely dictated the investment of both the city and private developers. Ultimately the voluntary zoning accounted” for just 1.7% of housing growth between 2005 and 2015″ (Stein,2014) . It is no wonder that the “need to force developers to build less expensively” proposed in Larson’s chapter is what De Blasio currently has in mind (Larson, 2013). Yet as the title of Stein’s article suggests, the mayor’s double -down tactics have some inevitable shortcomings . Central to the argument (and something vital to our project) is that even though apartments built by private investors may ultimately accommodate affordable housing units, its application will not only cause rent to rise in the surrounding area due to the influx of wealthier families, but also compel landlords of many existing affordable housing units to sell their properties to such developers. Through the perspective of our project, the article also mentions some realities of the affordable housing dilemma. Simply put, the concept  is a contradiction and that “There are ways to do it well, but they are not profitable.” (Stein, 2014); revealing how the topic is more complicated than it seems.

Discussion Question: Even though the method didn’t work in San Francisco, could the application of inclusionary zoning over the entire city work in NYC?

References

Larson, S. (2013). Building like Moses with Jacobs in Mind, ( 5 and Ch. 6)

Stein, S. (2014) DeBlasio’s Doomed Housing Plan, in

This week’s readings once again show us the inherent inequalities present in every affordable housing plan presented by the city in the past decades. It seems that for every attempt to equalize the housing market, further divisions and more problems are created. In his article detailing the effects of DeBlasio’s latest affordable housing plan, Stein makes it clear that the plan will not have the game changing effect it is marketed to achieve. He goes into many aspects of DeBlasio’s plan that are often overlooked by media outlets who promote it as a radical new affordable housing solution for New Yorkers.

The impact of inclusionary zoning is interesting because at first glance, it appears to be a way for builders to create more affordable units than were previously allowed by the existing laws. However, as Stein points out, it brings twice as many middle class and market rate renters along with the supposed ‘affordable’ housing which completely changes the face of the neighborhoods the projects are built in- a so called ‘trojan horse for gentrification’.

As Lason explains in Chapter 6, zoning was originally intended to mold the city into a “large and smoothly operating machine” in the tradition of Taylor. This concept evolved into Moses’s vision of superblocks under zoning regulation for specific purposes. In the 1960s, these functionalist views were being combatted by planners and incentive zoning was introduced, where builders were granted permission to build in certain areas in exchange for providing public access spaces. Now this incentive zoning is being used in a very similar way to promote affordable housing as discussed by Stein in the DeBlasio plan.

When these new developments go into effect they will ultimately increase the divide between low and high income residents, while only serving about 3% of the city’s need for low income housing. Despite DeBlasio’s optimism about the impact of the new housing plan it is hard to ignore the principles of planning described by Larson or the obvious flaws highlighted by Stein to the principles on which the plan is based.

Discussion Question:

Is the city’s main incentive really to support low income residents, or to increase real estate market values through increased development in low income neighborhoods, spearheaded with the ‘affordable housing’ label?