“Not a chance in hell”: Developers slam politician’s housing plan

Brooklyn City Council member Crystal Hudson wants developers to provide her constituents with low-rent housing, health care, social services, parks, discount grocers, activities for seniors, schools, cultural institutions, youth programs, bus shelters, vegetable gardens, gated dog runs, and living-wage jobs for disadvantaged, underrepresented locals. 

“Not a chance in hell,” one developer said in response.

Her demands, released last week for Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, somehow did not include free ice cream on summer days. But give her time.

Hudson is certainly in tune with what her constituents want. Unfortunately, by asking developers for all of it, she will not get any of it. The amount of profitable housing she would permit would not nearly pay for all the goodies.

“These projects are known as loss leaders,” said the developer (who spoke anonymously to The Real Deal). They “must be subsidized through government-backed leverage that goes up to 100 percent of the stack.”

Some government programs do that, but they cannot provide all the housing and services New Yorkers need. Hudson’s idea that developers can do so is pure fantasy.

“She is living in a dream world,” said the developer.

The Council member’s proposal, laid out in a City Limits article, is important for three reasons:

1. Under the Council’s custom of “member deference,” Hudson alone decides whether to grant developers the zoning they need to build housing at scale in her district. In February she single-handedly killed a proposal to build 150 apartments, a child care center and manufacturing space on an empty lot at 962 Pacific Street in Crown Heights. (See rendering, above.)
2. Hudson represents an area crucial for easing the city’s housing crisis: desirable neighborhoods served by mass transit but shackled by outdated zoning. Thousands of homes, about a third of them affordable, could be built there with her green light.
3. Her plan shows that key policymakers still believe developers can and will build whatever the community demands — an enduring myth that produces fantasies rather than realistic solutions to the affordability problem. Until politicians join the real world, desperately needed housing will go unbuilt.

Hudson, who declined to comment, apparently did not seek feedback from developers. Nor did City Limits, which instead contacted a local activist, Gib Veconi. “Developers will read this, and they will be responsive to it,” he declared.

They were indeed responsive. But not in the way Veconi meant.

The Real Deal ran Hudson’s plan past two developers with extensive experience in the city and Brooklyn in particular, and granted them anonymity to speak freely. One echoed the other’s “dream world” comment, but more diplomatically, crediting Hudson for her transparency: “It’s a terrific idea to set expectations so developers don’t have to wait until the last second to be extorted during [the rezoning process].”

However, Hudson left room for extortion by saying she would only approve projects with market-rate housing if they “meaningfully” exceed the affordability requirements of the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law.

Analyzing the two kinds of projects that Hudson will allow, the developer said, “Track 1 is for affordable projects whose financing is all subsidized. Track 2 depends on the definition of ‘meaningfully’ exceeding MIH, which probably makes it much harder to pencil, particularly with living wage and all the other baseline requirements.”

“This strikes me as a wish list without regard for any concerns about financial viability,” the developer added. “She set such a high bar, it’s not going to produce all these wonderful benefits she’s hoping for.”