Affordable housing and non profits (video snip)

Here's a very brief snippet from the Occupy AltBank talk on zoning and affordable housing last week posted on facebook by Sumumba Sobukwe, an active member of AltBank and cocreator of Occu-Evolve.

Here again is the presentation in the form of blogposts:

The origins and history of zoning and the Amenities Dilemma

Zoning with a conscience

Contextual zoning and "affordable" housing

Collusion between gov't, developers and non profits: the cooptation of the left

the current mayor's plan

Zoning with a conscience (the talk'll be up at Columbia University in the Foreign Affairs building, 420 W. 118th Street, room 409, 2pm Sunday)

In 1961, the city updated its zoning. This time, the city's planners responded to the Modernist movement which had been around since 1910 or so, but gov't isn't exactly avant garde, so it takes time for gov't to catch on.

The principles of Modernism reflect deep social awareness, with its origins in socialism at a time when socialism was not only respectable, but viewed as the best means, perhaps the only means, towards social justice. Rather than merely serving the investors' financial interests, Modernist architects intended to design an ideal world for all. They developed manifestos and principles of design, competed intellectually for innovations that would improve humanity, not just the developer or his rich clients. Stylistically, they rejected the ostentatious flaunting of wealth that characterized the design fashions of their predecessors. Ornamentation signaled useless vanity. Modernism replaced the show of wealth with purely functional form -- no eyebrows over the windows, no more columns and terra cotta. Steel girders and glass walls -- the structural elements -- were left bare in rectangular shapes of structural support: the Seagrams Building is its most insistent and elegant expression.

You'll notice that unlike the Equitable Building that covered the lot completely, and unlike the Empire State Building that attenuates towards its spire, this building rises straight up but doesn't cover the lot. Instead of setbacks to bring light to the street, the new zoning required that as the building grows taller, its footprint must attenuate, not its tower. The result is an empty space surrounding the building, which then can be used by the public as a park or plaza. The method of bringing light to the street is shifted from the top of the building to the bottom where the public can benefit both from the light and from the space. 

The new zoning also introduced a method of restricting the bulk or size of a building. Previously, buildings could be built to whatever height, allowing overwhelming and oppressive density. City Planning Commission came up with a measure of density that still allowed for flexibility of height. The measure of size is the floor area. By zoning for floor space rather than for height, developers were allowed to choose the height of the ceiling freely. 

The New Museum has the same floor area and zoning as its nextdoor neighbor
but because its ceiling heights are 20'+ it dwarfs the buildings on the street.

But their innovation served much more than that. It was now possible to limit the bulk of all the existing or potential buildings in a specific zone. And it allowed landowners to sell their bulk allowance to other landowners who might want to build more than the zoning had given them. The new zoning created a market of space. 

It also had a preservationist consequence for owners who sold their bulk allowance in excess of their existing building. Once an owner has sold his excess bulk allowance -- his developmental rights, sometimes called "air rights" -- the owner can't develop anything larger than the building he already has, so there's no reason for him ever to redevelop his building. The result is a kind of preservationist balance: for every tall skyscraper built by buying developmental rights of small buildings nearby, those smaller buildings are preserved. The new ensures the old. 

It also ensures that the old, small owner loses the value of his property, can't sell it easily, since who wants a building that can't be redeveloped for increased rents, while the skyscraper next door increases the real estate values of the neighborhood and therefore the real estate taxes. The small owner may have gotten a one-time windfall from selling the air rights, but in the long run, he's losing. 

Next up, the current model and how it plays into affordable housing. 

Should be interesting:

A rare opportunity to learn the labor perspective in Chinatown. And Peter Kwong is an authority on Chinatown. Sunday, Jan. 10, 3pm, 345 Grand Street at Chinese Staff and Workers Association.

Sustainability

Even if restaurants do provide many more jobs than a 7-Eleven, are restaurants as sustainable as 7-Elevens? That's exactly the question that leads right to the heart, goal and purpose of NO711.

Because they can get higher rents from chain stores, banks and bars, landlords raise their commercial rents on small businesses as soon as their leases come due and drive out those small local-serving businesses in order to open up space for higher-renting bars, banks and chains.

As the highest rent-payer, chains take the highest-density foot traffic locations, clustering to increase that foot traffic. Increasingly, chains are invading less dense neighborhoods. As long as there's no regulatory restriction on chain stores, there's no reason to believe this trend will not continue. Landords in less dense neighborhoods speculate on that trend by raising rents even leaving stores vacant until a chain takes it, as the Pratt Center has observed.

Small storefronts increased rents by as much as 600% in 2006 to make way for bars and chain stores in the EV. Commercial rent increases and upscaling are not static levels. They respond to speculations on itself -- a recursive function that spirals upwards to the highest bidder creating a context in which only the highest bidder can survive. CBGB's was lost to Varvatos, a chain store. Veselka, an independent restaurant, opened on the Bowery after Varvatos opened and has already failed. This is no coincidence.

(As it happens, the restaurant I mentioned a couple of posts back has been around for decades. It has a full liquor license as most successful restaurants have. It is also nowhere near any chain stores.)

Face the new EV

EV Grieve has been following the piecemeal clearance of all the commerce on 14th Street for some yet unknown development. Locals expect a huge high rise like the ones we saw south of Houston (The Ludlow, Blue, THOR, SVA), so I thought I'd show what is allowed there --

Photo: DCP

except maybe all glass and steel and ground floor storefronts. You can imagine which stores.

The strip from Avenue A to 1st Avenue is zoned for mixed use commercial and residential space with an 80 ft height cap and a maximum floor area ratio of 4, about the size of an Old Law 6-story tenement. It's similar to the EV/LES 2008 rezoning but without any affordable housing provision (beyond the 421a tax incentive which keeps it affordable only for about 25 years).

Will the developer get a variance to build higher? The Board of Standards and Appeals doesn't give out variances like candy -- the developer has to show some rationale. Otherwise the city wouldn't have spent millions on rezoning 120 neighbrohoods under Bloomberg. 

The future of NYCHA

If NYCHA follows through with its infill plan, building market-rate housing among the subsidized projects, I bet that within a decade the city will come up with a plan to give the low-income residents ownership of their apartments for minimum maintenance in the expectation that they'll sell immediately on the open market. The city will require only that it get a cut from the flip to fund the program. NYCHA projects is quality housing stock, a lot nicer than tenement housing, and it's got those river views. Where will the current residents go with their windfall? The city doesn't care, and the city won't have planned for it either. DCP plans only for upscaling and revenue-enhancing real estate raising, not for people.

Reviewing the 2008 rezoning

Irrational opposition to NO711 takes me back to the EV/LES rezoning. The supporters of the rezoning were as outraged at me back then as I am towards the one person who maintains polemical objections to NO711 -- not because of his polemic, which is at least interesting, sound or not, but because he lied, then supressed the truth and followed with a string of manipulations and distortions. So I wonder if, in pushing my opposition to the rezoning, I was similarly manipulative. What I said about the rezoning back then was: 

1. The rezoning is an overall upzoning. The EIS bore me out -- 53% more development under the rezoning than under the previous zoning. (Harvey Epstein fortunately managed to mitigate the upzoning plan with an IZ application over the avenues.) 

2. The upzoning of sidestreets will turn townhouses overnight into candidates for demolition and luxury redevelopment. That was an accurate prediction.

3. Developers would often choose not to take the Inclusionary Housing bonus. Also an accurate prediction, although the jury remains out with the largest developments upcoming on Mary Help of Christians and the former theater/deli on A between 6th & 7th. 

4. The height caps were too high, which allows for air rights sales, undermining the inclusionary bonus incentive. We're seeing this at play on Norfolk Street, and there will be more. 

5. The LES downzoning would drive hotel development onto the Bowery and into Chinatown. Hotel development has gone crazy on the Bowery and in Chinatown since the rezoning, although it had already begun before 2008. Hotel development would probably have continued regardless of the rezoning, so it's hard to tell how much the rezoning increased it. 

6. If the EV rezoning is implemented, there would be little political will within CB3 to protect Chinatown and the Bowery. I think I was wrong about this. CB3 eventually came around to support the Bower Alliance of Neighbors zoning plan (although CB3 still features on its website its old Bowery study that BAN rejected), and CB3 has shown support for the Chinatown Working Group's zoning efforts despite its amibitious scope. It's taken time, but it's happening. 

7. CB3 did not push hard enough to protect the Bowery. Here I was completely wrong. The city was and is intransigent on the Bowery. When CB3 members told me this, I simply didn't believe them. I wrongly assumed that they were sacrificing the Bowery for the sake of the rest of the EV. Whether they could have tried harder is irrelevant: they saw (and I did not understand at the time) that the city wouldn't budge, so pushing would get nothing but push back and trouble. So, considering the possibilities, I now think that CB3 cannot be faulted at all for the Bowery and its lack of protection, and I was wrong to fault them then. 

(In my defense, the Task Force leadership undermined its credibility by insisting that everyone had to accept the plan immediately and without change otherwise DCP would walk away from the plan. I responded, btw, that DCP had no intention of walking out. I was right about that as well: CB3 never fully approved the plan, insisting on Harvey's and Paul's 11-points of contention to the end, and yet DCP never walked. It was DCP's plan as much as the Task Force's and DCP wanted it at least as much as the Task Force leadership wanted it.) 

8. Under the previous zoning, most development in the EV was contextual; out-of-scale development was mostly south of Houston. That was true. After NY Law School and TNC, there was a lot of redevelopment in the EV, but only two rose above seven stories, one on 12th & C and one on 13th & B, both about 9 stories, one story taller than would be allowed under the rezoning. Just about everything else capped at 6 stories. 

So was I full of manipulations, distortions and absurd arguments? I'd genuinely like the rezoning supporters to explain. I'm sure I see all this still from my own perspective, so I have to rely on them for a more complete assessment.

Chin, AAFE, development, gentrification and displacement

I posted this originally as a comment at the Villager in response to an article on Margaret Chin's council campaign. 

What troubles me most about Chin is what she's been doing to Chinatown. Despite broad Chinatown protest, Chin supported a Chinatown business improvement district (BID) which will destabilize small property owners, increasing the likelihood of the selling of Chinatown properties and redevelopment that will lead to gentrification and community displacement especially of the low-income community. 

While her association with AAFE and the First American International Bank may be well-intentioned, under city zoning the construction of affordable housing brings 80% market-rate luxury housing, raising real estate values and commercial rents. NYers saw this in Williamsburg -- the community was sold an affordable housing program that resulted in wholesale transformation of the neighborhood. The affordable housing non profits can't back off the city's Inclusionary Zoning program because affordable housing development is their mission and that's what they are funded to do. The result of collusion between upscale development and non profit affordable housing is a net loss of affordable housing, deeper gentrification and low-income community displacement. 

The close relationship created in the law between those non profits and market-rate developers has placed a destructive wedge between community and the non profits that should be protecting those communities. The fault is the city administration's, but the city's gentrification program succeeds by using those non profits. AAFE strongly supported the upzoning of Chrystie Street, Houston Street and Delancey, opening the door to upscale development for the sake of 20% affordable housing, playing the city's game rather than resisting, protesting, refusing and leveraging. 

Supporting NYU development, the demolition and redevelopment of 135 Bowery (for the First American International Bank), the Chinatown BID (promoted by that same bank again) and the SoHo BID -- intended or not, it's a constellation of development and upscaling. Chin is a good-hearted, hard-working activist, but she's been caught in a game that is headed in the wrong direction for community. That's why CSWA, a Chinatown labor organization, and a Chinatown small property owners group oppose her. That's an unusual coalition spectrum -- property owners and labor. Says a lot to me.

NO 7-Eleven city-wide petition on line!

NO 7-Eleven: resist chains and corporate control has a city-wide petition on line. Take a look at the great comments along with the signatures. 

To the New York City Planning Commission and City Council: Allow community self-determination to resist chain stores.

To: 

The New York City Planning Commission and City Council 

There are over 7,200 chain stores in New York City with more opening every year. 7-Eleven Corp alone is planning to open 100 new stores in Manhattan by 2015. Chain stores raise commercial rents, crowd out our commercial variety, our choices our mom-and-pops and our diversity. They efface our neighborhood character, erase our ethnic roots, erode our community relationships. They leverage wages down and, once cornering their market, leverage prices up. I call on the City Planning Commission and the City Council to amend the city's zoning text to require that no corporate formula store or bank open a new location without approval from the local community board. Such a zoning amendment will not only allow communities to restrict the number and location of chain stores, but also allow community boards to negotiate legally binding stipulations on all elements of chain store character from signage and closing hours to wage scale.

Allow community self-determination on chain stores, franchises and banks.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

http://www.change.org/petitions/to-the-new-york-city-planning-commission-and-city-council-allow-community-self-determination-to-resist-chain-stores?utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Sunday in the Park with NO 7-ELEVEN

We're going to chalk up the park at the Tompkins Square Park nonbandshell at 2pm and then take our chalk and our Community Wheel of Fortune to the corner of Avenue A and 11th Street, the site of the threatened 7-Eleven, and chalk up the street and talk to the passers-by who don't yet know what's coming to their neighborhood. Join us for some good old anti-corporate-anti-suburbanization-and-anti-Pringle-ization-of-our-souls-and-our-streets fun! 

Here's a video journalism piece CUNY TV did on us (NO 7-Eleven starts @ 12:45) --

http://219tvmagazine.journalism.cuny.edu/2013/04/10/march2013/

(Wissecracks about my apartment will be punished.)

How DCP works

Since some people still claim the EV is being downzoned, here's a telling story about DCP:

DCP's original plan allowed 120 feet on Houston, Delancey, D. Some of us in the neighborhood objected that too much upscale money would spill into the neighborhood from so much market-rate development running through it.

So the CB asked the 120 feet be reduced to 100 feet (it's in CB3's "11 points" proposal to DCP). In return, CB3 offered 150 feet on Chrystie.

Deal?

DCP promptly added the 150 feet on Chrystie (145 ft to fit their designations) but rejected the reduction on Houston, Delancey and D.

I asked DCP why. "We liked the Chrystie Street idea."
What about the reduction? "We don't like to do that at DCP."

They fleeced the CB, who should probably have known better than offer negotiating chips to the house.

This is characteristic of the entire rezoning. DCP turns community will to its own intentions. The only downzonings in this plan are the three blocks south of Tompkins Square, which Michael Rosen asked for, and the C6-1 area south of Houston. Everything else is upzoned.

Of course, we are losing the community facility bonus which allowed huge towers in the residential East Village. That's a downzoning, no?

Not quite. If there were money in community facilities, don't you think you'd be seeing them sprouting up all over the EV the way hotels are sprouting up all over the C6-1 zones on 3rd Avenue, the Bowery and around Orchard and Lodlow? If there were big bucks in a colossally huge 6.5 FAR community facility don't you think some Ratner or Scarano or Extell would have made an irresistible offer to the Archdiocese and the nuns at Mary Help of Christians, a huge lot with immense development potential, as time runs out on current zoning? I wouldn't be surprised if the Archdiocese is waiting for the rezoning to sell Mary Help of Christians. They'll be able to offer a full 4 FAR without having to include doctors' offices.

All the threatened dormitories in the EV have been intended for rental or condo conversion. Don't forget that Singer wanted to convert his phony dorm into condos or rentals. Same with the NY Law dorm. The only genuine community facility threat in the neighborhood, astutely pointed out by Aaron Sosnick, was at St. Brigid's. That was the Archdiocese intending church-type work more economically viable than sustaining a small parish; it was not the big cash-in on residential speculation that Mary Help of Christians will probably be.

The community facility bonus is bad, no question about it, but it is obviously not as dangerous as has been advertised. You can tell that by just looking. But everyone is so wrapped in their political biases or their personal reputations that they don't look or they can't see.

The EV is twice as large as the hotel area where 10 hotels have risen in the last five years. In the EV, twice the size, yet only one real community facility threat and one phony threat.

Current zoning is far, far from perfect -- there are real threats to the neighborhood here -- but the rezoning is 53.9% worse.

What part of "53.9% more development" is unclear?