The only way to alleviate the city's dire housing shortage while continuing to add jobs and grow incomes is to build much more housing in this decade than we did in the last one. The housing crisis demands aggressive action on many changes at once. Unfortunately, the mayor's plan fails to set a citywide goal for housing production or explain how new housing construction will be distributed in a fair way among the city's neighborhoods. He proposes no new rezonings to provide for additional density in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Nor does he explain how he will reform the de Blasio Administration's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program to make it economically workable across the city without deep public subsidies. Finally, he fails to propose reforms to the city's costly and time-consuming environmental and public review processes to enable new housing to be built much faster.
The mayor suggests some potentially valuable zoning text amendments that would provide more flexibility for small units and innovative housing types, as well as relieve new housing developments of the need to provide off-street parking. These changes could make a dent in the city's housing shortage. However, he's still vague on the details.
The plan's focus on reforming the management of public housing, improving homeless services, and speeding up the construction of supportive housing is important—but we hope for more substance soon on how the city will spur housing production, and in particular housing production without public subsidy. The current mix of city policies hostile to privately-financed housing growth mainly benefits incumbent homeowners, maintains segregation, and sustains a never-ending crisis. We have commented repeatedly on how policy needs to change and we eagerly anticipate more proposals focused on new housing production.
—Eric Kober is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of the recent report How to Solve New York City’s Housing Crisis: Building New Housing in Restricted High-Opportunity Neighborhoods. The report identifies regulatory changes in six key NYC community districts that would allow for significant supply growth without imperiling local neighborhood charm.
For questions for Mr. Kober, please contact Nora Kenney at nkenney@manhattan-institute.org.
