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KieranSingh2001SecondEssay 8 - 23 May 2024 - Main.KieranSingh2001
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
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| | | In 2023, the median rent in Manhattan reached $4,200. In Brooklyn, it was $3,500. Multiply those numbers by twelve and one can more clearly see the problem. On average, it costs fifty thousand dollars just for housing in Manhattan. Moreover, the population of Manhattan has declined significantly in the last one hundred years, and it's not for lack of people's desire to live here.
Zoning Laws | |
<
< | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhattan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. In areas of Manhattan, including my current neighborhood of Morningside and my future neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, residential areas are zoned as "R8," which means that the maximum floor-to-area ratio (FAR) is 6, with special exceptions for affordable housing developments. In many areas of Brooklyn, the land is zoned as "R6" or "R6B." R6 areas have a typical maximum FAR of 2.43, and R6B? zones, which are in neighborhoods like Park Slope and Bed-Stuy, exist to "preserve neighborhood character," and have much more severe height regulations at 50 feet. While there are no overt restrictions on the number of units allowed, these zones seem to restrict the supply of housing by allowing only limited buildup. | >
> | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhattan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. This ratio creates certain limitations in residential areas of Manhattan. In many areas of Brooklyn, the land is zoned as "R6" or "R6B." R6 areas have a typical maximum FAR of 2.43, and R6B? zones, which are in neighborhoods like Park Slope and Bed-Stuy, exist to "preserve neighborhood character," and have much more severe height regulations at 50 feet. While there are no overt restrictions on the number of units allowed, these zones seem to restrict the supply of housing by allowing only limited buildup. | | | Rent Stabilization and Affordable Housing | |
<
< | Currently, around a million units in NYC are rent stabilized, meaning that landlords can only increase rent by a certain percentage each year, and that the landlord cannot refuse to renew the tenant's lease, among other protections. The most recent version of the 421-a (16) tax exemption allows developers to avoid property tax if 25-30% of their units are affordable (defined as rents in the range of a third of a certain percentage of the median income for the area, and all of the units are subject to stabilization until they are priced past a "decontrol" limit. While theoretically abundant, affordable and stabilized units are hard to find. On sites like StreetEasy? , only 200 stabilized apartments are listed in the entire city. Stabilized and affordable apartments can also be obtained through lotteries, but that leaves something as significant as the right to shelter to chance. | >
> | Currently, around a million units in NYC are rent stabilized, meaning that landlords can only increase rent by a certain percentage each year, and that the landlord cannot refuse to renew the tenant's lease, among other protections. While theoretically abundant, affordable and stabilized units are hard to find. On sites like StreetEasy? , only 200 stabilized apartments are listed in the entire city. Stabilized and affordable apartments can also be obtained through lotteries, but that leaves something as significant as the right to shelter to chance. | | |
The Path to Housing Abundance
Rezoning | |
<
< | A 2018 Minneapolis rezoning plan allowed for the building of duplexes and triplexes on land that was previously zoned for single-family homes and eliminated parking minimums. The number of units in Minneapolis since the rezoning (from 2017-2022) increased by 14%, while the number of units in Minnesota at large only increased by 4%. Homelessness increased by 14% in the state, while decreasing by 12% in the city. Rents increased by 1% in Minneapolis, and 14% in the state. While still an increase in rent, 1% over 5 years far underpaced the rate of inflation. While NYC bears little similarity to Minneapolis, the same principle could apply here. Rezoning lower-density areas as "R10," a zone that allows for tall apartment towers and higher floor-area-ratios, will allow the construction of far more units per plot of land. The governor's office has proposed more exceptions to the FAR regulations, but only for "certain projects," and a more general lifting of the FAR cap may expand the supply of new units. | >
> | A 2018 Minneapolis rezoning plan allowed for the building of duplexes and triplexes on land that was previously zoned for single-family homes and eliminated parking minimums. The number of units in Minneapolis since the rezoning (from 2017-2022) increased by 14%, while the number of units in Minnesota at large only increased by 4%. Homelessness increased by 14% in the state, while decreasing by 12% in the city. Rents increased by 1% in Minneapolis, and 14% in the state. While still an increase in rent, 1% over 5 years far underpaced the rate of inflation. While NYC bears little similarity to Minneapolis, the same principle could apply here. Rezoning lower-density areas as "R10," a zone that allows for tall apartment towers and higher floor-area-ratios, will allow the construction of far more units per plot of land.
Opponents of this sort of rezoning draw apt comparisons to past "urban renewal" displacements. According to Village Preservation, an architectural and cultural preservation organization operating for more than a century, A SoHo rezoning plan approved in 2021 has not lived up to promises due to the replacement of rent-regulated buildings with market-rate buildings? . It may be easy to dismiss this sort of argument from a statistical perspective, but losing a rent-stabilized apartment is a massive loss to each individual affected. Moreover, | | | Rent Stabilization |
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KieranSingh2001SecondEssay 7 - 21 May 2024 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
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| | | These ideas may have a hard time getting past the legislature or city council, and there may be economic ramifications that I am currently oblivious to, but the current system is unsustainable. New York is the greatest city in the world, and its membership shouldn't be artificially restricted. | |
>
> |
There are several ways that this could be improved, it seems to me. Currently you bear the weight of having to make up everything: you cite no other writer on any aspect of the problem of city planning and housing construction in New York City. Given that an immense amount is written on the subject, which is intensively studied by many disciplines and engages, not surprisingly, quite a few capable and well-informed New Yorkers, you should not find it hard to locate writing you can learn from.
You can save space by removing technical details in the zoning system. Your objective is to show that moving from single-family homes to high-density high-rise apartment blocks creates housing. Perhaps not reading anything written about cities since Jane Jacobs would make it easier to say nothing about the social consequences.
Another route to improvement would be to think about politics, rather than dismissing it, like air resistance, from the simplified physics problem. New York City is a somewhat complicated political environment, which is why writing about even a small sliver of it (Peter Stuyvesant Village, or Forest Hills, let's say) will require more than a little political history to become intelligible. Robert Caro on Robert Moses still seems to me like the required starting place, though the New York City of The Power Broker is as old as I am now.
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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KieranSingh2001SecondEssay 6 - 20 Apr 2024 - Main.KieranSingh2001
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
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| | | The Problem | |
<
< | As someone who has never faced housing scarcity, it's hard to put my finger on why it ignites a passion in me more intense than nearly any other political issue. Perhaps it comes from seeing my neighbors, in my well-to-do neighborhood of Minneapolis, my hometown, preach high ideals of racial and economic justice in one breath, then lobby for zoning policies that keep their neighborhoods rich and white in the next. Maybe it comes from seeing economic progressives, my ideological compatriots, advocate for those same exclusionary zoning policies based on a well-meaning resistance to housing developers. The housing issue is marred in hipocrisy and misinformation, which is incredibly upsetting given how stable housing is a prerequisite to security and freedom.
Housing costs and scarcity are at their most severe in NYC, and living here has crystallized my impulse to use my legal career to fight for everyone's right to housing. But for every tenant I can represent as a lawyer, there are a hundred other people with no representation in subpar, or prohibitively expensive, living conditions. Thus, as much as I want to focus my pro-bono efforts on securing housing for as many people as possible, the question remains: is it possible, on a macro-level, to make housing affordable for everyone in New York? Even the oft-derided "transplants?" Is it possible as a practicing lawyer? Or only in politics? | >
> | As someone who has never faced housing scarcity, it's hard to put my finger on why it ignites a passion in me more intense than nearly any other political issue. Perhaps it comes from seeing my neighbors, in my well-to-do neighborhood of Minneapolis, my hometown, preach high ideals of racial and economic justice in one breath, then lobby for zoning policies that keep their neighborhoods rich and white in the next. Yet, housing costs and scarcity are at their most severe here in NYC, and living here has crystallized my impulse to use my legal career to fight for everyone's right to housing. But for every tenant I can represent as a lawyer, there are a hundred other people with no representation in subpar, or prohibitively expensive, living conditions. Thus, the question remains: is it possible, on a macro level, to make housing affordable for everyone in New York? Even the oft-derided "transplants?" | | |
The Current NYC Housing Landscape | |
<
< | In 2023, the median rent in Manhattan reached $4,200. In Brooklyn, it was $3,500. Multiply those numbers by twelve and one can more clearly see the problem. On average, it costs fifty thousand dollars just for housing in Manhattan. Moreover, the population of manhattan has declined significantly in the last one hundred years, and, while I would not assume causation here, I would wager that there are far more people that want to live in Manhattan than can. | >
> | In 2023, the median rent in Manhattan reached $4,200. In Brooklyn, it was $3,500. Multiply those numbers by twelve and one can more clearly see the problem. On average, it costs fifty thousand dollars just for housing in Manhattan. Moreover, the population of Manhattan has declined significantly in the last one hundred years, and it's not for lack of people's desire to live here. | | | Zoning Laws | |
<
< | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhatttan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. In areas of manhattan, including my current neighborhood of Morningside and my future neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, residential areas are zoned as "R8," which means that the maximum floor-to-area ratio is 6, with special exceptions for affordable housing developments. Other residential areas in Manhattan are zoned as "R7" or "R9," allowing slightly lower, and slightly higher ratios, respectively. In many areas of brooklyn, the land is zoned as "R6" or "R6B." R6 areas have a typical maximum floor-to-area ratio of 2.43, and R6B? zones, which are in neighborhoods like Park Slope and bed-stuy, exist to "preserve neighborhood character," and have much more severe height regulations at 50 feet. While there are not hard and fast restrictions on the number of units allowed, these zones seem to restrict the supply of housing by allowing only limited buildup. | >
> | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhattan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. In areas of Manhattan, including my current neighborhood of Morningside and my future neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, residential areas are zoned as "R8," which means that the maximum floor-to-area ratio (FAR) is 6, with special exceptions for affordable housing developments. In many areas of Brooklyn, the land is zoned as "R6" or "R6B." R6 areas have a typical maximum FAR of 2.43, and R6B? zones, which are in neighborhoods like Park Slope and Bed-Stuy, exist to "preserve neighborhood character," and have much more severe height regulations at 50 feet. While there are no overt restrictions on the number of units allowed, these zones seem to restrict the supply of housing by allowing only limited buildup. | | | | |
<
< | Rent Stabilization | >
> | Rent Stabilization and Affordable Housing | | | | |
<
< | Currently, around a million units in NYC are rent stabilized, meaning that landlords can only increase rent by a certain percentage each year, and that the landlord cannot refuse to renew the tenant's lease. More expansive policies were adopted in [x] when | >
> | Currently, around a million units in NYC are rent stabilized, meaning that landlords can only increase rent by a certain percentage each year, and that the landlord cannot refuse to renew the tenant's lease, among other protections. The most recent version of the 421-a (16) tax exemption allows developers to avoid property tax if 25-30% of their units are affordable (defined as rents in the range of a third of a certain percentage of the median income for the area, and all of the units are subject to stabilization until they are priced past a "decontrol" limit. While theoretically abundant, affordable and stabilized units are hard to find. On sites like StreetEasy? , only 200 stabilized apartments are listed in the entire city. Stabilized and affordable apartments can also be obtained through lotteries, but that leaves something as significant as the right to shelter to chance. | | |
The Path to Housing Abundance
Rezoning | |
<
< | In Minneapolis, the city council passed comprehensive zoning reform, which, while controversial (especially to those neighbors I mentioned earlier), achieved some genuine change in the abundance and pricing of housing in the city. The plan allowed for builidng of duplexes and triplexes on land that was previously zoned for single-family homes, and eliminated parking minimums. While causality isn't exactly determinable, the number of units in Minneapolis since the rezoning (from 2017-2022) increased by 14%, while the number of units in Minnesota at large only increased by 4%. Homelessness increased by 14% in the state, while decreasing by 12% in the city. Rents increased by 1% in Minneapolis, and 14% in the state. While still an increase in rent, 1% over 5 years far underpaced the rate of inflation. While NYC bears little similarity to Minneapolis, the same principle could apply here. Rezoning these "R6," "R7," and "R8" as "R10," a zone that allows for tall apartment towers and higher floor-area-ratios, will allow the construction of far more units per plot of land. The governor's office has proposed more exceptions to the floor-to-area ratio regulations, but only for "certain projects," and a more general lifting of the FAR cap may expand the supply of new units. | >
> | A 2018 Minneapolis rezoning plan allowed for the building of duplexes and triplexes on land that was previously zoned for single-family homes and eliminated parking minimums. The number of units in Minneapolis since the rezoning (from 2017-2022) increased by 14%, while the number of units in Minnesota at large only increased by 4%. Homelessness increased by 14% in the state, while decreasing by 12% in the city. Rents increased by 1% in Minneapolis, and 14% in the state. While still an increase in rent, 1% over 5 years far underpaced the rate of inflation. While NYC bears little similarity to Minneapolis, the same principle could apply here. Rezoning lower-density areas as "R10," a zone that allows for tall apartment towers and higher floor-area-ratios, will allow the construction of far more units per plot of land. The governor's office has proposed more exceptions to the FAR regulations, but only for "certain projects," and a more general lifting of the FAR cap may expand the supply of new units.
Rent Stabilization
Opponents of upzoning often invoke the possibility of developers buying buildings with rent-regulated units, replacing them with shiny new apartment towers that offer only market-rate housing. However, the status quo of restricted supply is unsustainable, and upzoning can occur counter to, or without, displacement. First, if swathes of the city were rezoned for R10, wealthier people and transplants may move into new market-rate units, and with a greater supply of market-rate units, it would lower the competition for units overall. Second, the city can allow affordable developments even higher than what the R10 limit allows, greatly expanding the number of affordable units allowable per plot. The 421-a tax exemption could be expanded to incentivize higher percentages of affordable housing, for longer, further expanding the availability of affordable units. For people in existing units, current regulation requires that those forced to move after a demolition get moving assistance and stipends. With a much higher number of affordable units available, the city could extend assistance after demolition, guaranteeing a similarly-priced unit in the same general neighborhood. Finally, this abundance of affordable and stabilized housing units could allow residents to find rent-stabilized units more easily. | | | | |
<
< | Rent stabilization | >
> | These ideas may have a hard time getting past the legislature or city council, and there may be economic ramifications that I am currently oblivious to, but the current system is unsustainable. New York is the greatest city in the world, and its membership shouldn't be artificially restricted. | | | | |
<
< | Opponents of upzoning often invoke the possiblity of developers buying buildings with rent-regulated units, replacing them with shiny new apartment towers that offer only market-rate housing. However, the status quo of resstricted supply is unsustainable, and upzoning can occur in counter to, or without, displacement. First, there is already a policy in the NYC zoning code that allows for FAR caps to be exceeded for affordable projects. If swathes of the city was rezoned for R10, it could do two things: wealthier people may move into new market-rate units, and with a greater supply of market-rate units, it would lower the competition for units overall. Second, the city can allow affordable developments to be built even higher than what the R10 limit allows, greatly expanding the number of affordable units allowable per plot. For people in existing units, current regulation requires that those forced to move after a demolition get moving assistance and stipends. With a much higher number of affordable units available, the city could extend assistance after demolition, guranteeing a similarly-priced unit in the same general neighborhood in the event of demolition.[other subsidies for affordable housing] It is notoriously very difficult to obtain a rent stabilized apartment, since people tend to keep their units once obtained, but an abundance of affordable housing units could allow us to move from an uncertain lottery to more of a guarantee. | | | | |
<
< | Courtroom or Legislature? | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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KieranSingh2001SecondEssay 5 - 20 Apr 2024 - Main.KieranSingh2001
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
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| | | In 2023, the median rent in Manhattan reached $4,200. In Brooklyn, it was $3,500. Multiply those numbers by twelve and one can more clearly see the problem. On average, it costs fifty thousand dollars just for housing in Manhattan. Moreover, the population of manhattan has declined significantly in the last one hundred years, and, while I would not assume causation here, I would wager that there are far more people that want to live in Manhattan than can.
Zoning Laws | |
<
< | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhatttan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. In areas of manhattan, including my current neighborhood of morningside and my future neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, residential areas are zoned as "R8," which means that the maximum floor to area ratio is 6, with special exceptions for affordable housing developments. Other residential areas in Manhattan are zoned as "R7" or "R9," allowing slightly lower, and slightly higher ratios, respectively. In many areas of brooklyn | >
> | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhatttan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. In areas of manhattan, including my current neighborhood of Morningside and my future neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, residential areas are zoned as "R8," which means that the maximum floor-to-area ratio is 6, with special exceptions for affordable housing developments. Other residential areas in Manhattan are zoned as "R7" or "R9," allowing slightly lower, and slightly higher ratios, respectively. In many areas of brooklyn, the land is zoned as "R6" or "R6B." R6 areas have a typical maximum floor-to-area ratio of 2.43, and R6B? zones, which are in neighborhoods like Park Slope and bed-stuy, exist to "preserve neighborhood character," and have much more severe height regulations at 50 feet. While there are not hard and fast restrictions on the number of units allowed, these zones seem to restrict the supply of housing by allowing only limited buildup. | | | Rent Stabilization
Currently, around a million units in NYC are rent stabilized, meaning that landlords can only increase rent by a certain percentage each year, and that the landlord cannot refuse to renew the tenant's lease. More expansive policies were adopted in [x] when | |
<
< | Proposed changes to NYC Housing Law
Hochul's plan
Subsub 2 | | | The Path to Housing Abundance
Rezoning | |
<
< | In Minneapolis, the city council passed comprehensive zoning reform, which, while controversial (especially to those neighbors I mentioned earlier), achieved some genuine change in the abundance and pricing of housing in the city. The plan allowed for | >
> | In Minneapolis, the city council passed comprehensive zoning reform, which, while controversial (especially to those neighbors I mentioned earlier), achieved some genuine change in the abundance and pricing of housing in the city. The plan allowed for builidng of duplexes and triplexes on land that was previously zoned for single-family homes, and eliminated parking minimums. While causality isn't exactly determinable, the number of units in Minneapolis since the rezoning (from 2017-2022) increased by 14%, while the number of units in Minnesota at large only increased by 4%. Homelessness increased by 14% in the state, while decreasing by 12% in the city. Rents increased by 1% in Minneapolis, and 14% in the state. While still an increase in rent, 1% over 5 years far underpaced the rate of inflation. While NYC bears little similarity to Minneapolis, the same principle could apply here. Rezoning these "R6," "R7," and "R8" as "R10," a zone that allows for tall apartment towers and higher floor-area-ratios, will allow the construction of far more units per plot of land. The governor's office has proposed more exceptions to the floor-to-area ratio regulations, but only for "certain projects," and a more general lifting of the FAR cap may expand the supply of new units. | | | Rent stabilization | |
<
< | Expanding access to rent-stabilized apartments is the second prong of expanding housing affordability, but scarcity problems remain, even if they aren't reflected in the price. It is notoriously | >
> | Opponents of upzoning often invoke the possiblity of developers buying buildings with rent-regulated units, replacing them with shiny new apartment towers that offer only market-rate housing. However, the status quo of resstricted supply is unsustainable, and upzoning can occur in counter to, or without, displacement. First, there is already a policy in the NYC zoning code that allows for FAR caps to be exceeded for affordable projects. If swathes of the city was rezoned for R10, it could do two things: wealthier people may move into new market-rate units, and with a greater supply of market-rate units, it would lower the competition for units overall. Second, the city can allow affordable developments to be built even higher than what the R10 limit allows, greatly expanding the number of affordable units allowable per plot. For people in existing units, current regulation requires that those forced to move after a demolition get moving assistance and stipends. With a much higher number of affordable units available, the city could extend assistance after demolition, guranteeing a similarly-priced unit in the same general neighborhood in the event of demolition.[other subsidies for affordable housing] It is notoriously very difficult to obtain a rent stabilized apartment, since people tend to keep their units once obtained, but an abundance of affordable housing units could allow us to move from an uncertain lottery to more of a guarantee.
Courtroom or Legislature? | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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KieranSingh2001SecondEssay 4 - 19 Apr 2024 - Main.KieranSingh2001
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
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| | | In 2023, the median rent in Manhattan reached $4,200. In Brooklyn, it was $3,500. Multiply those numbers by twelve and one can more clearly see the problem. On average, it costs fifty thousand dollars just for housing in Manhattan. Moreover, the population of manhattan has declined significantly in the last one hundred years, and, while I would not assume causation here, I would wager that there are far more people that want to live in Manhattan than can.
Zoning Laws | |
<
< | Manhattan zoning laws are not | >
> | Manhattan zoning laws are complicated, and not based exclusively on heights or units. In Manhatttan, at least, the amount that can be built is a function of the size of the property itself. The ratio between the total floor area of a building and the area of the plot of land is limited. For example, in an area with a maximum ratio of 6, a building that covers the entire plot can only consist of 6 stories. In areas of manhattan, including my current neighborhood of morningside and my future neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, residential areas are zoned as "R8," which means that the maximum floor to area ratio is 6, with special exceptions for affordable housing developments. Other residential areas in Manhattan are zoned as "R7" or "R9," allowing slightly lower, and slightly higher ratios, respectively. In many areas of brooklyn | | | Rent Stabilization
Currently, around a million units in NYC are rent stabilized, meaning that landlords can only increase rent by a certain percentage each year, and that the landlord cannot refuse to renew the tenant's lease. More expansive policies were adopted in [x] when |
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