Fw: The Growing Gap: New York City's Housing Affordability Challenge

[Scott Baker]

Hello Common Groundlings, and Friends:

Just a quick note to send you the latest report form Comptroller Scott Stringer's office on housing affordability in NYC (below). 

First, you will be disappointed to learn that none of the 5 suggestions for improvement offered by Stringer include taxing land at a higher rate (even the 1920s building boom he refers to are vaguely ascribed to "tax reforms), though perhaps he is open to taxing buildings at a lower rate (but then how do we make up the revenue shortfall?).

Other highlights include the not-surprising fact that housing costs have skyrocketed in the city - 55% overall since 2000, and even more among the low end, with a significant drop in stock in the rent-regulated section.  Nowhere in here does it mention the 200k spaces that Picture the Homeless and Hunter College found in a recent survey (2012) of vacant housing stock - enough to house the 52,000 homeless Stringer cites (the aforementioned sources say 55,000) several times over, albeit in some cases after necessary rehabilitation (bringing back the homesteading program of the 1970s-early 1990s would be a good idea too).

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Stringer proposes some fairly conventional, and stopgap at best, solutions such as strengthening rent control by raising the $2,500 cutoff threshold, undetailed tax incentives to build more affordable housing (while saying de Blasio's plan to increase it by 165,000 is "ambitious), preserving NYCHA stock, etc.

Stringer cites gentrification as a cause of declining stock, and says this has now spread beyond traditional Manhattan boundaries to the outer boroughs, especially Brooklyn, which are losing their "affordability edge" for traditional working poor/lower-middle class folks....but he doesn't identify the subsidies and tax breaks that caused much of this.  As we know, if the tax goes down, the price goes up.  

			OpEdNews Article: Fairness, Sustainability, & Growth are... Presenting the case for Land Value Taxation to a mixed audience of community leaders, alumni of the Henry George School - which sponsored the e...
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He seems favorable to the 429-a program that encourages developers to build affordable housing in exchange for luxury-condos in prime areas, but doesn't acknowledge, as the NY Times recently did, that places to build such "offsetting" housing are running out.

I was moderately disappointed in this report, and expected more from our usually creative and city-challenging former Manhattan Borough President, and now Comptroller.  Hopefully, my and community board member Desmond Atkins recent visit to two of Stringer's top lieutenants to encourage them to reintroduce the vacant land bills, will bear fruit and perhaps change the prescriptions in future housing related reports.

Members only:

If you haven't sent in your annual voting ballots by now, please do so ASAP.  The deadline for this election cycle is May 12.  As always, Rita and I appreciate your continued support.

 
Until next time, happy landings.

Scott Baker - President: Common Ground - NYC; NY State Coordinator, Public Banking Institute; Opednews Blogger/Senior Editor; Huffington Post Blogger; Author

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 9:02 AM, Office of the New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer <in...@comptroller.nyc.gov> wrote:

Dear Friend,   All New Yorkers know that rents have been rising sharply in all five boroughs. Last week I released a report on the true dimensions of the housing crisis in our City, showing that the median apartment rent has skyrocketed 75 percent in the last 12 years, while the incomes of working people have declined. My report, “The Growing Gap: New York City’s Housing Affordability Challenge,” offers new data and shows that, despite multi-billion dollar initiatives to expand the affordable housing stock in New York, apartments have become more expensive across every income level--with the greatest economic pain falling on the working poor.  By examining the impacts that demographic and economic trends have had on the City’s housing market, we found that:   New York City’s 75 percent increase in the median apartment rent since 2000 is 31 percentage points higher than the rest of the country. Housing affordability decreased for renters in every income group, with the biggest impact on poor and working New Yorkers earning less than $40,000 a year. Roughly a dozen neighborhoods—Chelsea, Clinton and Midtown, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene, Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Greenwich Village and Financial District and Park Slope and Carroll Gardens—saw a rising tide of incomes among tenants, or gentrification, which helped to drive up rents in those areas. But the numbers of these $100,000-plus renters are limited and proved to be only a small factor in the city’s overall average rent increases. Nearly 360,000 apartments renting for $400 to $1,000 per month (in 2012 dollars) disappeared from 2000 to 2012. The real median rent jumped from $839 to $1,100 in that same period, a 31 percent increase. In 2000, renters earning $20,000-$40,000 spent one third of their income on rent.  Twelve years later, that group spent over 41 percent on average.  My report recommends five areas of focus to help solve the problem, ranging from investing in  the preservation of NYCHA to repairing the rent regulation system. Now that we have begun to define the true nature of the housing crisis, the hard work must begin to provide decent, affordable shelter for all New Yorkers. I hope you will take a moment to review the report.  You can also read about it here.  Let’s make sure that New Yorkers across the economic spectrum have access to the affordable housing they need and deserve.  Best- Scott Stringer Comptroller of the City of New York  To unsubscribe from this email: salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50441/p/salsa/supporter/unsubscribe/public/index.sjs Office of the Comptroller • City of New York • One Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 • comptroller.nyc.gov   @scottmstringer     facebook.com/scottstringernyc      @scottmstringer   stringertheory.com