Bloomberg’s housing initiative falls short, analysis finds

Low-income housing initiatives that Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced nearly five years ago have been less successful than the administration hoped, according to an analysis of city records by Gotham Gazette. Bloomberg’s so-called inclusionary zoning program, designed to incentivize developers to create permanent low-income housing, has come up short, creating far fewer low-income units than expected. In 2005, the Bloomberg administration reportedly said that the rezoned neighborhoods would allow for 6,000 units of affordable housing. But today, even with more than a dozen new neighborhoods rezoned since, fewer than half that number of units have been created or preserved, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.