Is Prohibitively Expensive Housing In New York City Inevitable?

-- By KieranSingh2001 - 16 Apr 2024

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

Rent stabilization

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?

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