Zoning Wars

Last week I blogged about the idea, proposed by Mayor Adams and others, that vacant office buildings in NYC that have lost tenants due to the rise of pandemic-related work-from-home be turned into apartments.

The cost of housing in NYC is still far too high, and the biggest reason is that for all of our city's density, it's actually not dense enough. People might think NYC is a place full of tall buildings  but most people don't live in them -- most people live in buildings less than 10 stories high or in single or two-family homes. NYC is highly "downzoned." 

So the other part of addressing the housing crises is "up-zoning" -- allowing for higher density housing development (especially near transit hubs). Governor Hochul has a proposal, as do others in the state legislature, that would include the building of more multi-family homes, apartment buildings, capping/reducing lot sizes, and just generally allowing more homes to be built (up to 3% every three years). This means that the NYC suburbs (and areas outside the city) could be dramatically changed over time, making this urban oasis even more urban.

It's a political minefield.  

The Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) folks believe up-zoning would reduce their property values, strain local services, schools, and transportation, and "change the character" of their neighborhoods (i.e. more non-white people). But the cost of housing in NYC is sky-high, it's out of control, and the city has built less housing in the last twenty years than Detroit (Detroit!). We've also built less than cities like Boston and Washington DC, other really expensive places. 

In NYC, everyone agrees we need more housing -- just not in their neighborhoods.

I doubt Hochul's plan will come to pass -- her proposals are modest but her critics are violently against it. And it just goes to show how and why it's nearly impossible to create more housing in this town.