Manhattan Council Member Chris Marte Gets Housing All Wrong

Just because Chris Marte was the only Manhattan City Council member to vote against City of Yes doesn’t make him wrong.

What makes him wrong is every single reason he cites for his vote.

New York’s political establishment has been moving away from the prehistoric assumptions about real estate that helped create the city’s housing crisis. But not Marte.

The Soho lawmaker seems stuck in an era where people saw the sun trace an arc across the sky every day and concluded that it travels around the Earth.

This column is called The Real World because it attempts to pull people like Marte into that realm, and stop them from perpetuating myths that pro-housing groups have been working diligently to debunk.

Rebutting these falsehoods is crucial if the city is to solve its housing crisis because the necessary changes won’t happen without public support.

To that end, let’s compare Marte’s world with the real one. A single sentence from his Council floor speech was so packed with misinformation that I have to address each one separately. Here goes:

Marte’s World:

“I represent neighborhoods like the Lower East Side and Chinatown where unchecked market-rate development…”

The Real World:

Development is not unchecked anywhere in New York City. It is restricted by a dizzying array of regulations and limitations, such as zoning, that have driven up the cost of building and not allowed developers to keep pace with the demand for housing.

Marte’s World:

“…has led to skyscrapers that sit empty…”

The Real World:

The city’s only empty skyscraper is 161 Maiden Lane, aka the Leaning Tower of FiDi, which began tilting to the north before it was completed.

Marte was probably referring to the few towers with many units used as pieds-à-terre. These buildings have small footprints that leave plenty of space for other development. They accommodate buyers who might otherwise bid up existing housing. And they use virtually no city services while generating transfer and property taxes for Marte’s priorities, such as subsidized housing.

Marte’s World:

“…drive up speculation…”

The Real World:

Speculation is a loaded word intended to discredit investment. No investment — especially in real estate — is a sure thing, so it could always be deemed “speculation.” Property sales yield transfer taxes, which fund the transit system and city and state government, so even purchases intended to be flipped provide a benefit.

Marte’s World:

“…cause rents to skyrocket…”

The Real World:

Rents skyrocket when demand rises much faster than supply. Numerous studies have shown that adding supply tempers rent growth. Development that makes an area more attractive does increase demand, but research proves that the pricing effect of that demand is more than offset by the new supply.

Marte’s World:

“…and displace immigrant communities that have had their roots here for generations.”

The Real World:

The story of New York City is one of immigrants populating and reviving inexpensive neighborhoods, then filtering into other areas a generation or two later as other newcomers arrive.

Would Marte say Italians were “displaced” by Asians in Bensonhurst and Little Italy, or did their children and grandchildren prosper and move out to Staten Island and New Jersey? Were Jewish immigrants similarly “displaced” by Caribbeans in East Flatbush? Were Irish immigrants “displaced” by Chinese in Sunset Park? What happened to Bay Ridge’s Norwegians? Greenpoint’s Poles?

New York evolves, that’s what.

It’s true that as the city’s finance and tech industries grew, their employees populated transit-rich neighborhoods such as Marte’s Soho, a former manufacturing hub and haven for artists. Should we have banned these high-income taxpayers and diverted them to the suburbs?

Marte’s rants about displacement reflect a notion that the city should freeze communities as they are. That is a recipe for stagnation and decline.

Immigrants’ children and grandchildren won’t stay in the same tenements as their ancestors. If Marte wants them to remain in the ’hood, he should allow construction of buildings that appeal to them.

Marte has told many more whoppers. I can’t get to them all, but here’s one: “City of Yes is a plan by the real estate industry, for the real estate industry.”

If developers had crafted the plan, rest assured it would have added more than a paltry 5,300 units per year. If landlords had crafted it, it would have added zero units, to limit competition for their buildings.

Marte says the City of Yes should have mandated more affordability. He ignores the fact that housing must be paid for, somehow. Affordable housing loses money, so requiring too much yields no housing at all.

The Department of City Planning tries to strike that balance. Take the Soho rezoning of 2021, for example. You’ll never guess which local politician opposed it.