NYC Housing Disparity Unfair, But Projects Aren’t A Burden

It is unfair, we keep hearing, that housing development has been concentrated in a few neighborhoods.

For the New York City real estate industry, this narrative is a double-edged sword. I will explain why in a moment.

But first, the data: Last year, about the same number of permits for new homes were issued in 10 community districts as in the other 49 combined.

That is extreme, and it wasn’t an anomaly. This lopsided disparity in housing production has persisted for years.

Calling this “unfair” is a way to get the City Council members representing the 49 unproductive districts to rezone for more housing.

But pro-housing advocates and city officials making the fairness argument often make the mistake of framing housing development as a “burden” that 10 districts are shouldering. Other communities, they say, should do their “fair share.”

Excuse me, but “fair share” is a phrase used for siting homeless shelters, methadone clinics and waste transfer stations. Yet somehow, it is coming up in discussions of multifamily projects — the very lifeblood of the city’s housing stock.

Rather than projects being portrayed as investment in a community, they are cast as negative, as a kind of noxious medicine that must be tolerated in the interests of equity.

Perhaps in NIMBY communities it is effective to appeal to certain elected officials’ sense of fairness or guilt. That might have been a factor in progressive Council member Shahana Hanif’s approval of the Arrow Linen rezoning; she knew Windsor Terrace had contributed precious little of the housing so desperately needed by working-class New Yorkers.

But to me, the jury is still out on the shaming strategy. Just look at how the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity played out. The measure passed by just 31-20, and only after being watered down. It will add a modest 5,300 units annually over 15 years.

Not long ago, real estate investment was seen as a good thing. In some circles it still is. Opportunity Zones, for example, were created by congressional Republicans in 2018 as a way to spur investment in economically struggling areas.

The same was true for Empowerment Zones, a bipartisan federal program. New York City has two EZs, in Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx, and 306 census tracts that qualify as Opportunity Zones.

New York state also has Empire Zones, including in East New York, South Jamaica, East Harlem, Hunts Point, Sunset Park/Red Hook, Far Rockaway, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Staten Island’s North Shore. Investment in these low-income areas was incentivized by tax breaks.

Yet apartment projects are pitched as if they were chemotherapy for communities that don’t think they have cancer. No one should be surprised when they are rejected.

It’s not fun to live next to construction, and change is hard for people who like their communities the way they are. But new housing is beneficial for neighborhoods, as well as for the city as a whole. Calling it a burden is doing more harm than good.