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

Collusion between gov't, developers and tenant advocacy non profits

By using zoning to limit developable space, and allowing that space to be bought and sold, gov't created property literally out of thin air -- out of the words of the zoning text. By creating a market the raw resource of which was created by the gov't, gov't could exert influence, manipulate and extort from developers. If a developer wanted more space than was available in the zoning, he had to go beg it of gov't, and gov't could grant the additional space for a favor. This market was the beginning of the end of gov't directly building affordable housing and instead drawing the developer into building it for the public.

Housing projects were widely viewed as a failure. A new generation of planners followed Jane Jacobs' broad criticism of tower-in-the-park construction, which she viewed as anti-urban, generating wastelands of non commercial, semi-abandoned and dangerous, isolated space. The reality was more complex. After all Stuyvesant Town is a housing project but no one complains that it's a failure. If anything, it's become to successful, too attractive as its management tries to replace older tenants with tenants eager to pay much higher rents there. But Stuy Town was middle-income, well maintained, with residents who were also well served by gov't and the economy in many ways. The low-income housing projects relied on inadequate gov't funding streams and the community was consistently underserved whether by the education system for its children or the employment opportunities for its parents, health services, sanitation and the maintenance of the grounds. If it failed, it failed because of the lack of social and financial investment in the human capital of the community. But that failure could easily be dressed up instead as a failure of urban and architectural planning and design.

Zoning incentives replaced housing projects. Developers would be given additional space to develop in return for building a modest percent of affordable housing that would be managed by a non profit tenant advocacy group. This model brought together gov't, developers and affordable housing non profits: gov't offered bulk space incentives to the developers while giving the non profits funding to manage the affordable housing. The developers needed to cooperate with both gov't and the non profits. And critically, the tenant advocacy groups were now compelled to work with and for both gov't and developers. 

In order to obtain affordable housing, the tenant advocacy non profits had to sell upzonings to their community, otherwise the non profit wouldn't get the affordable housing or their funding from the gov't. Since the affordable housing brings with it market-rate development, the result is gentrification, investment, opportunity for more investment and a feeding frenzy of tenant harassment. At the end of the day, affordable housing through zoning nets a loss of affordable housing. And since the affordable housing is given to people who are not currently living in the neighborhood, to call this "community preservation" is Orwellian doublespeak. 

Those in the community who are aware of the consequences of the affordable cooptation of the non profits, are placed in the ugly position of having to protest affordable housing. The gov't has effectively driven a wedge between affordable housing advocates and anti-gentrificationists by this Sophie's choice dichotomy of affordable housing (+market-rate housing) or else no development (+no new affordable housing). 

If you go to a City Planning hearing you can see the wedge in living color. The state-funded affordable housing non profits arrive with their employees and clients -- the tenants they work with in their tenant advocacy -- all in bright orange or yellow T-shirts. They don't testify, since they are brought to the hearing to pad the audience. Their leaders testify in favor of the upzoning on the grounds that it will bring affordable housing to the community. The rest of the audience is comprised by ordinary residents dressed all diversely, unorganized and unfunded. They do testify, one by one. They testify against the upzoning, expressing their concern about gentrification and community displacement. The Planning Commission ignores them because the city wants development -- it's revenue for the city. The people lose, and the sham continues. 

Contextual zoning and inclusionary housing

As we saw last time, by limiting the developmental rights -- the allowable floor area -- in every zone, zoning created a market of space. By the same token, it made it possible for the gov't to create property out of air, out of words in the zoning text. Upzone a neighborhood -- allow more floor area per lot -- the owner now not only can build more actual rental space but, if he doesn't have the financial resources to construct, can sell the unbuilt floor area to another developer who does. This gives the gov't powerful leverage on developers.

We also saw that while the small landowners benefit form the sale of developmental rights ("air rights"), their property becomes developmentally inert and in the long run, less profitable, and because the nearby skyscraper has raised the local real estate taxes, the property may become a source of discontent. In addition, the Modernist model of surrounding tall, dense buildings with park space instead of integrating residences with commercial storefronts aligned on the streetscape turned out to be a disaster in the so-called "projects." Modernist ideals were replaced with a belief in value of the urban integrated streetscape -- storefronts on the street-level which would bring lively commerce and businesses that would clean and protect the street. This led to a reaction against the tower-in-the-park zoning which created disjointed, discontinuous streetscapes.

The response was the current model of zoning called "contextual." The city added another innovation, this in the measure of space: the height cap. Zoning would now provide a floor space allowance, but also a height cap, so a developer could no longer buy unused developmental rights ("air rights") to build out-of-scale skyscrapers in low- or mid-rise zones.

Meanwhile, the gov't got out of the business of constructing low-income housing (projects) using instead its leverage through zoning to get developers to build affordable housing. The Bloomberg model worked so:

1. Designate a height cap in a zone that is higher than is needed for the designated floor area.
2. Offer the developer additional floor area if the developer built some affordable housing there.

So it's an incentive deal made to the developer. If he builds affordable housing in addition to the market rate units he wants, the city will allow him more space to build additional market rate units. The market rate bonus wasn't much, but it was more than nothing. Typically, the ratio was something like 4 units affordable, 1 unit market rate. The developer might be allowed, in other words, to build another  25% more space, but the total building would have to be 20% affordable, so the market rate bonus was just 5%.

Not many developers bothered with the bonus. De Blasio claimed that they didn't want the bonus because in order to squeeze in the affordable units within the height cap, the entire building had to have low ceilings. So the Department of City Planning came up with a fix: raise all the contextual heights so that developers didn't have to sacrifice ceiling height for the affordability bonus. The developer could build high ceilings for the luxury clients and still have room for affordable housing plus the market rate bonus incentive. The developer could eat his cake and the city could have it too.

De Blasio also proposed that wherever there's an upzoning, affordable housing would have to be included -- if the developer gets an increase in floor area, the developer must build 20% of the building as affordable housing. Since this mandatory inclusionary housing doesn't apply unless there's an upzoning, de Blasio's proposal is similar to the Bloomberg model. But under the Bloomberg model developers might advocate to get an upzoning and not bother with the bonus affordability incentive. Under the de Blasio model, the developers might think twice about advocating for an upzoning since the affordability would be forced on them.

Next up, the role of affordable housing non profits and the community boards.

De Blasio's difference

For the last decade, the progressive left has been begging for a mandatory inclusionary housing program in New York City requiring that all new residential buildings include a quantity of affordable housing. The mayor has proposed exactly such a plan. The community boards and the progressive left have rejected it. Why?

First, compare the mayor's plan with the Bloomberg model of inclusionary zoning. Bloomberg rezoned 120 neighborhoods in the city. Each one contained significant upzonings -- greater allowances for larger buildings, a give-away to developers. In addition to the upzoning give-away, Bloomberg offered developers the option to build even more space if a portion included affordable housing. Usually the bonus -- the added market-rate housing that the developer could build above the affordable component -- wasn't enough for the developer to bother with, so they didn't.

However, affordable housing non profits, which manage the affordable housing component and get their funding for doing it, and whose mission is to create or promote the creation of affordable housing, were the advocates for the inclusionary program. So you'd see the irony of progressive community-based non profits selling development and upzoning to the communities with the promise that the affordable housing would benefit the community. Carefully not mentioned was that the development would raise real estate values, the market rate housing attract more money, and landlords, seeing an opportunity to cash in on the upscaling of the neighborhood, would harass tenants in a thousand ways, and the result would be community displacement and a net loss of affordable housing, particularly steep if the developers didn't even bother with the inclusionary bonus.

Of course, the affordable housing wasn't for the community in the first place. The housing was delegated by raffle, and the housing wasn't often affordable to the locals anyway. So this model of community stabilization or preservation was what I call the Invasion of the Body Snatchers model of community preservation. The community is replaced with other individuals who purport to be just like them with respect to income. But they are not the community. And since the housing isn't affordable to the prior community, it's not even Body Snatchers, it's just wholesale snatching.

Mandatory IZ doesn't solve this conflict between the creation of affordable housing through development and gentrification/displacement. That's one reason why the community boards haven't cottoned to it. But you'd think that the progressive non profits would still be advocating for it. And here's a big difference in the structure of the mayor's proposal. Instead of rezoning neighborhoods one by one, his proposal changes the zoning law itself, so the city would be upzoned automatically without any further process. Community boards would have little say and the non profits would be left out as well.

Under Bloomberg, it was possible for the communities to ask for additional perks in the form of funding for the non profits -- legal services to help evicted tenants, for example. Under de Blasio's proposal, there's no opportunity for the community to leverage such additional funding.

More important, the de Blasio proposal doesn't kick in until there's an upzoning, so in effect, his proposal is just as voluntary as the Bloomberg model. With a little difference: since developers, prior to any upzoning can develop now without including affordable housing, we should expect them to lose interest in upzonings. It has been well observed that mandatory inclusionary housing has this kind of dampening effect on development. We should expect to see the non profits still advocate for upzonings, and less upzoning advocacy from the developers.

The Bloomberg model placed the developer in the drivers' seat, drawing the non profits onto the developers' bus for the sake of the affordable housing and their legal services funding, while they all throw the community under the very bus they're driving. De Blasio's model takes the developer out of the driver's seat, leaving the non profits on a bus going nowhere.

The irony is even more stark -- we should expect to find that the only people advocating for upzoning, gentrification and displacement would be the progressive non profits under the new model.

Money laundering and affordable housing

The Treasury's decision to investigate money laundering through NYC real estate might actually save New York from wholesale gentrification.

Constructing a lot of new housing can keep rents low by adding supply. Because it's expensive to build, developers prefer constructing luxury housing to get the quickest and highest rate of return. If the wealthy move out of older housing stock or locations further from the city center into these new luxury units, they free up housing for the less wealthy, who decamp from their older and further locations in turn freeing up housing for the even less wealthy and so on down the line. This is the one good reason for de Blasio's Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) -- allow new units to have higher ceilings to attract the wealthy out of less appealing older models.

But if the luxury housing is being bought by foreign speculators or money launderers who have no intention of living in the apartments, new construction does no good for the housing market. It turns the city's real estate into a non housing market crowding out the housing market. It's a disaster for the resident citizen, especially the low-income and immigrants.

(You might think, well if we eliminated rent regulations, the market would be flooded with vacant apartments, but this is both empirically and theoretically wrong. Most people who would be pushed out of deregulated apartments don't -- and often can't -- leave the local rental pool. They just move to a lower income neighborhood where they create a tighter market and push out lower income tenants who in turn move to lower income neighborhoods evicting people there, again, all the way down the line until at the bottom immigrants huddle up in substandard housing crowded together in dangerous conditions. At the top, landlords renovate the vacated luxury units and hike the rents there. Iow, deregulation doesn't free up the market, it's just a game of musical chairs, destabilizing everyone and raising rents everywhere. This happened in Boston when rents were deregulated, so we know that it's not just a theoretical speculation-- it's reality.)

The alternative to constructing luxury apartments to ease the housing market is constructing affordable housing. But if the monied are still coming to the city and searching for apartments, the pressure on gentrification in outer boroughs will be greater than the creation of affordable housing can accommodate.

It's easy to show that the current model of affordable housing creation is necessarily inadequate. De Blasio's Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning, for example, would require one affordable apartment for every four luxury unit. But as we know from Occupy and presidential campaigns and memes everywhere, the ratio of the wealthy to the struggling is not four rich folks to each struggler, but more like 1:99, and that's actually generous. 1:999 would be closer to reality. So the current model is beyond inadequate -- it's preposterously inadequate.

So again, the affordable housing model can only work if the luxury housing doesn't become a place for billionaires to park their money. It's got to be housing, not speculation, otherwise the entire geography of the city will be distorted into empty speculation at its center without even a tax base.

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.

Margaret Chin, the developer's candidate

Margaret Chin is taking money from the Real Estate Board of New York's Political Action Committee. You'd want to ask, why would the founder of Asian Americans for Equality welcome large campaign support from real estate?

Affordable housing is built in NYC through incentives given to developers. So if you want to get any affordable housing here, you've got to welcome a market-rate developer, otherwise you get nothing.

Does that explain why Margaret voted for the NYU development (albeit curtailed)? Maybe. Does it explain why she voted for the Chinatown BID against widespread opposition within Chinatown? Maybe. Why she voted to help First American International Bank, the promoter of the BID, demolish and redevelop 135 Bowery?

The BID benefits larger property owners, larger businesses and developers and banks. But the small property owners and the small businesses are the anchor of Chinatown. At what point does a commitment to building new affordable housing sacrifice community entirely?

The city has shoved a wedge between affordable housing and community, turning affordable housing into a tool of gentrification and displacement. Look at Williamsburg. Chinatown next? The BID is a step towards the new Downtown Hotel District (DoHo?) formerly known as Chinatown.

From Crain's http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130729/BLOGS04/130729878 about REBNY's funding of Chin's campaign

From City Council Watch, Seth Barron (writer for City & State) "Margaret Chin Progressively Awful"

Sean Sweeney in The Villager "The billionaires back Margaret Chin for City Council"

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.

New blog "Chinatown for Chinatown: a discussion board"

I started a blog about Chinatown planning called "Chinatown for Chinatown"
http://chinatownforchinatown.wordpress.com/

I've avoided blogging about Chinatown while I was involved with a Chinatown planning group. It's not the kiss-and-tell aspect -- I believe in transparency. But journalism gives the writer an unfair advantage within the group. It can bias the process or coerce it. But the Chinatown Working Group has mostly concluded its discussions, now waiting for its planning consultant to come up with recommendations to the group. So I can write as an outside observer.

I've asked several local voices and urban planners to post as regular guest bloggers. I'm hoping to see an open, broad discussion that will be of help to the planning consultants as they dig into the issues and challenges that Chinatown faces.

Correction

GOLES, a tenant protection and advocacy group, is not engaged in the management of affordable housing, so they won't be beneficiaries of the rezoning's affordable housing bonuses. GOLES may, however, receive funding from the legal support fund that the Task Force has asked that the zoning package include.

GOLES provides an indispensable community service to desperate, frightened renters in danger of losing their homes. They represent one perspective on zoning:

zoning is a tool to create affordable housing.

Other grassroots organizations like Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Harlem Tenants Council and Coalition to Save the East Village hold a different perspective on zoning:

upzoning invites development, gentrification and community displacement.

The City has divided these two groups of activists with an ultimatum:

no affordable housing without an upzoning.

That's the bone of contention: which is worse, no new affordable housing or market-rate development that undermines the affordable housing that exists?

The Task Force has asked for mitigating measures against the added market-rate speculation that an upzoning brings, like anti-harassment and anti-demolition regulations, but these are not particularly effective at preserving affordable housing.

The Zoning Hearing

The hearing yesterday showed a community deeply divided. All the influential political and institutional players in Community District 3 lined up in favor of the rezoning. Opposed to the rezoning were the grassroots, especially from areas in immediate danger of luxury hotel development that the plan leaves unprotected, like the Bowery and Chinatown.

Humor was provided by those electeds, including the Borough President, who clearly didn't know the details of the rezoning but spoke in support anyway. The coordination of power was evident throughout.

More cynical was Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE), which packed the hall with a large group in orange T-shirts to shout their support -- for reasons that were unclear since the plan does not protect Chinatown.

Word has it that AAFE is in on recent meetings to plot a rezoning of Chinatown, a feeding frenzy for the developers, their fronts and shills and all the poverty pimps. No doubt AAFE will get their piece of the pie. They know where their bread is buttered.

The only disruption at the hearing occurred when an AAFE supporter in orange T-shirt stood up from the audience and tried to shout down testimony opposing the plan. In later testimony AAFE accused the plan's opponents of being disruptive. The delicate audience was not so impolite as to point out that AAFE's glass house has a broken window.

Perhaps the most significant testimony of the day came from a Judson Memorial chaplain who denounced City Planning's zoning study for failing to address adequately or at all the impact of the rezoning on the communities of the Lower East Side. That zoning study (the Draft Environmental Impact Statement) is the legal basis of the rezoning action. It presents the statistics but ignores or downplays the impacts. Both the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and Hunter College presented preliminary studies that give a much deeper and clearer picture of the impact of the rezoning.

In the street outside the hall, a large crowd from the Coalition to Protect Chinatown/Lower East Side protested City Planning's refusal to provide any zoning protection to the low-income neighborhoods surrounding the zoning area. Downtown councilmember Gerson addressed them saying he opposes the plan. But his testimony indoors was identical to most of the supporters of the plan: he will support it if the percent of affordable housing is increased. He also asked for protection for Chinatown and the Bowery, but he didn't condition his support for the current plan on it, so it was a feckless, toothless demand, no more teeth than a toad.

The plan provides height caps on new buildings throughout the zoning area but brings a projected 53.9% increase in development (height caps don't limit the quantity of development, they merely redistribute it among more buildings). Only 10% of the total development will be affordable housing.

The plan also ends the community facility bonus which was used to build above current FAR. If there were big money in dormitories and hospitals, the EV would be sprouting huge facilities everywhere, just as the Bowery and south of Houston are growing huge hotels. But there's no money in such facilities, which is why at most we see an occasional doctor's office used to boost FAR a couple of stories. The last dorm built in the residential EV was built with the intent to convert to residential apartments. That's where the big money has been.

Here are the numbers from DCP's study:

Projected development in square feet

NEW PLAN - - - - - - CURRENT
in 10 years (sq ft) - - - - - - in 10 years (sq ft)

commercial sites
396,863 - - - - - - - - 450,928
enlargements
25,374 - - - - - - - - - 25,374
total commercial
422,237 - - - - - - - - 475,302

residential sites
3,891,399 - - - - - - 2,289,681
enlargements
216,853 - - - - - - - - 178,529
total residential
4,108,252 - - - - - - 2,468,210

Total projected development
NEW PLAN - - - - - CURRENT ZONING
4,530,462 - - - - - 2,943,512

53.9% more development under the rezoning than would occur under current zoning.

total affordable units under the new plan:
456 (comes to less than 456,000 sf)
or around 10% of the total development

The EV is being upzoned far more than anticipated

According to the Department of City Planning, the proposed EV/LES rezoning is expected to bring 53% more development in the next ten years than current zoning would bring over the same ten years.

That's only expected development. Add potential development and the rezoning will allow an incredible 124% more development than current zoning would allow over the next ten years.

It is hard to believe that this rezoning has been advertised and sold to our community as a "downzoning."

Current FAR in the EV is so low that few air rights are available to build with -- that's why nothing out-of-scale has been built in the EV in the last five years, while huge developments surround us in the commercial zones from 3rd Avenue down the Bowery and south of Houston. The low FAR is a cap on development. The much-touted height caps of the rezoning simply eliminate the transfer of air rights from one site to another. They don't limit development any better than the current FAR caps do. They simply redistribute the development.

The height caps of the rezoning will actually encourage owners of small buildings to build to the new maximum. Under the rezoning they can't sell their air rights, so the only way to add profit is by building to the max. The maximum, under this rezoning, has been increased from 3.44 to 4.0. Expect rooftop additions, demolitions and redevelopment, gut renovations with additions and the accompanying wholesale evictions.

The only downzoning for the EV in this plan is the elimination of the community facility bonus and the FAR reduction of a small area south of Tompkins Square Park.

DCP's numbers tell the true story: we're being upzoned for development. DCP looked at all the available buildable space under current zoning and under the rezoning and found:

53% more expected development and 124% more possible development under the rezoning than under current zoning.

And, btw, less than 10% of the expected total development will be affordable housing. Most of that won't be low-income.

DCP did not study the availability of current air rights. If air rights have mostly been consumed south of Houston, then there is little benefit to this rezoning. It seems to me that no decision can responsibly be made about the value of this rezoning until the availability of current air rights has been assessed.

Here are the actual figures from DCP's DEIS:

4,530,389 sq ft of commercial and residential development expected under the rezoning plan.
2,944,512 sq ft of commercial and residential development expected under current zoning.

Less than 450,000 sq ft of that development will be affordable housing, using DCP's sq ft/housing unit averages.

Source:Notice of Completion of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, pp. S-7,S-8, table S-1 and pp. S-39, S-40, table S-6.
It is available in pdf here:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/evles/evles4.shtml

Mistaken priorities

photo:J Blough (flickr)Chinatown!
Or Chinatown??
A demonstration yesterday sparked several articles on DCP's omission of endangered neighborhoods from the EV/LES rezoning (the urls are below).

Locals have good reason to worry: the commercial zones surrounding the residential East Village are in much graver danger of rapid out-of-scale development than the residential East Village itself.

Since 2003 over a dozen huge structures have begun construction or have been completed in the commercial zones surrounding the East Village including 3rd Ave, Essex-to-Bowery and the Bowery itself.

Since 2003 only three out-of scale structures have been proposed for the East Village -- and area over twice as large as those three commercial zones combined.

Block-for-block the rate of out-of-scale development in those commercial zones is 8 to 10 times the rate of out-of-scale development in the residential East Village.

After the rezoning, which protects the Norfolk-to-Forsyth area, that rate will increase on the Bowery and in Chinatown.

A US recession won't necessarily stop it. The weakening dollar turns New York into a hot, cheap international tourist destination. Commercial zones are for hotels. Developers and patrons will be foreign. Of New York businesses, the chic end of NY's nightlife industry will thrive on the transformation. Local businesses and residents will be edged out.

If the Borough President and Councilmember Gerson don't listen to the community and act now to preserve the Bowery/Chinatown communities, those communities won't be there tomorrow. There's no road back from development.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/lower-east-siders-deliver-petition-against-re-zoning-plan/?scp=1&sq=rezoning&st=cse

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/07/15/2008-07-15_lower_east_side_rezone_plan_another_mike.html

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/07/stringer_on_hot.php

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=83792

Demonstration, March and Rally in Harlem

Demonstration, March and Rally in Harlem
Against Displacement & Gentrification

Saturday, June 21

10am Rally at Marcus Garvey Park
124th Street & Fifth Avenue

11am March to Morningside Park
116th St. & Frederick Douglass Blvd(8th Ave) Rally at 2pm




details and press advisory below

We are the heart of Harlem

March & Rally



HARLEM TENANTS COUNCIL, Inc.

21 West 130th Street New York, NY 10030

Email:Harlem tenants@gmail.com

Contact: Nellie Hester Bailey 646-812-5188
PRESS ADVISORY

Demonstration/Rally in Harlem Against Displacement & Gentrification

Saturday, June 21, 2008



10 AM Main Gathering: Marcus Garvey Park
Enter at 124th and Fifth Avenue.


10 AM Feeder March in East Harlem
Gather at 116th & 3rd Avenue: northbound on Third Avenue to 125th Street. Proceed westbound on 125th to Madison Avenue southbound to 124th into Marcus Garvey Park at approximately 11 AM


11 AM Main March begins:
Leave Marcus Garvey at 124th and Madison Avenue northbound to 125th - proceed westbound to Broadway- northbound to 145th- eastbound to Frederick Douglass Blvd - southbound to 116th Street - eastbound to Manhattan Avenue into Morningside Park.


Route distance:
approximately 70 blocks equivalent to 3 and ½ miles.


Sites to join march:
125th Street/Old Broadway;
135th Street/Broadway in front of 3333 Broadway;
145th Street & Broadway; 145th Street & Frederick Douglass;
135th & Frederick Douglass;
116th Street & Frederick Douglass Blvd.


2 PM: Rally begins in Morningside Park with speakers and performances.


Background: After decades of public policy neglect, redlining and disinvestment Harlem now stand at the brink of losing its historic status as Black America's cultural Mecca for more than a century. Although development is a welcome relief from abandoned buildings, neglected open spaces, few service amenities and crime the "revitalization" of Harlem is displacing tenants, driving out local businesses and will impact Harlem's ethnic, political and socio-economic makeup. Projected developments will create nearly 5,000 units of mostly luxury housing within Harlem's 125th Street commercial corridor from river to river. The scheme includes high rise office tower, hotels and space for giant retails, in some cases with millions in public subsidies such as Columbia University, the city's second largest landlord, that was given city streets, sidewalks and the below surface land.

Our Demands: Build and Preserve Low income housing; Protect Public Housing; Fund legal & anti-evictions services; Protect Local businesses: Re-establish Mart 125th for Local businesses & Street Merchants; Re-establish NYC Youth Boards for jobs for youth in crisis; Enforce Executive Order 50-provide equal access in construction industry jobs; No Eminent Domain; Moratorium on zoning/rezoning; Conflict of interest investigations on EIS Studies; Landmark & monument for African Burial Ground in East Harlem; No skyscrapers in Harlem; Landmark historic resources in Harlem; and inclusion of local community as vital stakeholders in a transparent and accountable public review process on development.

*** The End***

The contentious town hall

As I'm sure you've heard, the EV/LES Rezoning Town Hall began with a protest of two hundred or so residents.

Notably absent were the two City Council members who will vote on this plan. That means that they do not support the protesting residents' demands and were avoiding the meeting so as not to find themselves in a difficult situation. Most likely they will soon issue statements in strong support of rezoning the Bowery and Chinatown -- in a separate plan.

Unfortunately, a separate plan will take years to complete and will not be implemented without the inclusion of developer interests unless the council members get a commitment now from DCP to protect Chinatown and the Bowery. DCP is seeking approval now for its plan. The approval process is the last moment for leverage over DCP. Unless that leverage is applied, statements of strong support are meaningless.

The Town Hall was described to me as "a dog and pony show." Not ten thousand angry residents could change one detail of this plan: the city wants it; the community board originated it. DCP is not interested in what protesters have to say, and community board members, less seasoned in their political approach, would like to respond punitively towards their opposition (the community), and will, unless the experienced voices of reason there hold sway.

The Borough President, who ran on community board reform, is committed to pretending that he has reformed his community boards to perfection, so he will support whatever the CB decides. That's politics.

The community board and Councilmember Alan Gerson have this one chance to get a commitment from DCP for the Bowery and Chinatown. The responsibility (especially now that the CB is "deeply offended" -- how dare the community express its needs at a community meeting when they should be listening to DCP promote its plan!) mostly rests with Gerson. The City Council gets the final vote and the areas most threatened by development and most vulnerable to it are in his district.

If you were expecting a detailed report on the Town Hall, sorry to disappoint. Unable to attend except for the first two or three minutes, I can't offer much beyond the second-hand. Having had my say here and at Task Force meetings over the last three years, and knowing that nothing I do will change the outcome of this process, I felt my presence would make not the least difference.

A plan for Chinatown

It is the irony of the current administration of affordable housing -- four units of luxury housing for every unit of "affordable" housing -- that the programs for new affordable housing spread gentrification and displacement resulting in a net loss of affordable housing in low-income communities where tenants are vulnerable to harassment and eviction. The problem will not be resolved until the City commits to protecting communities by regulating the location and direction of development.

Contextual zoning -- zoning that prohibits taller buildings -- for Chinatown and the Bowery would protect existing buildings from redevelopment. But protected buildings are themselves vulnerable to gentrifying pressures: when a zoning prevents redevelopment, the only means of profit maximization on a property is evicting low-income tenants, replacing them with upscale tenants.

Designating sites for light manufacturing and 100% affordable housing, the market-rate IZ bonus of which could be transferred to distant, already gentrified neighborhoods that are not harmed by luxury development, would help prevent gentrification of protected buildings in busy, thriving low-income neighborhoods.

These two measures together -- (1) contextual zoning and (2) identifying sites for luxury housing distinct and far distant from light manufacturing and affordable housing -- could protect the Bowery and Chinatown from residential and commercial displacement, while contributing to the vitality of existing communities.

CB3's zoning task force meets this Wednesday, April 16, 6:30, 100 Hester St. (btwn Eldridge & Forsyth). Come ask them for contextual zoning in Chinatown and the Bowery, and no upzoning on Chrystie Street.

Upzoning Chrystie Street

Sorry for that last dense zoning post. I wanted it on record that the Alternative Proposal, still supported by CB3, is a luxury upzoning of Chrystie with almost no additional affordable housing benefit over the DCP's plan.

Here's a simpler summary. You can see below that the DCP plan downzones luxury on Chrystie while the Alternative upzones luxury there:

Current luxury allowable: 6.0 FAR
DCP plan luxury with bonuses: 5.76 FAR
Alternative luxury with bonuses: 6.8 FAR

Below you can see that the DCP plan offers nearly as much affordable housing as the Alternative:

DCP plan affordable housing: 1.44 FAR
Alternative plan affordable housing: 1.7 FAR
Difference in affordable housing: only 0.26 FAR

The Alternative allows 1.04 more luxury FAR than the DCP proposal, but only 0.26 FAR more affordable housing.

Worse, inclusionary zoning allows off-site renovations to qualify for the bonus instead of new affordable housing. So there is no guarantee that any new affordable housing will be created under inclusionary zoning (IZ).

With the Alternative, we'll see 14-story luxury developments on Chrystie leading into Chinatown, with maybe a bit of "affordable" housing somewhere far away in the district, affordable in name only.

The CB's quest for every possible crumb of affordable housing has blinded them to the dangers of upscale upzoning.

Upzoning Chrystie Street for luxury housing

The EV/LES rezoning will save much of the LES south of Houston from luxury hotels, but it will push that development onto the Bowery and into Chinatown, which remain unprotected. To reject the rezoning now entails losing the LES, so we are cornered into accepting a rezoning that promises to accelerate luxury development in Chinatown and the Bowery, where that development is already spreading.

It troubles me that Community Board 3 currently supports a planning alternative that upzones Chrystie Street to fourteen stories (from current F.A.R .6 to F.A.R. 8.5), right on the edge of Chinatown. The CB maintains that the inclusionary upzoning will bring 20% affordable housing to the neighborhood. That's still a luxury upzoning to 6.8 F.A.R. And the Department of City Planning (DCP) allows that affordable 20% (1.7 F.A.R.) to be already existing affordable housing, provided the developer renovate it. Even without the IZ bonus, this alternative upzones Chrystie to 6.5 F.A.R.-- that's an upzoning with no affordable housing component at all.

In the worst-case scenario, the CB is inviting a 100% luxury upzoning to 145 feet on Chrystie Street for the sake of a few renovations and no guarantee of any new affordable housing. That's the worst case. When considering development strategies in NYC, the wise assume the worst.

By contrast, the DCP plan actually downzones Chrystie Street, although it allows additional bulk with affordable housing. The DCP plan offers almost as much affordable housing as the CB-supported alternative, but with no luxury upzoning. In fact, DCP actually downzones luxury even with all the bonuses.

I hope the CB will reject the Chrystie Street inclusionary upzoning alternative and accept DCP's downzoning. I don't see how our local community can accept an alternative that brings additional luxury development for only 0.26 F.A.R. (roughly one apartment) more affordable housing than the DCP plan, which actually downzones for luxury.

The numbers speak for themselves:

Current Zoning of Chrystie, C6-1
FAR 6
FAR 6.5 Community Facilities

DCP Rezoning of Chrystie, C6-2A
FAR 5.4 (no affordable housing)
FAR 7.2 (with 20% affordable housing or renovations)
FAR 6.5 for Community Facilities

CB3-supported alternative for Chrystie, C6-3A
FAR 6.5 (no affordable housing)
FAR 8.5 (with 20% affordable housing or renovations)
FAR 7.5 for Community Facilities

As you can see, if CB3 continues to support the alternative, it is asking for 25% larger buildings on Chrystie than are currently allowed, more than twice as large as what is currently built there. This alternative would provide at best 1.7 F.A.R. of affordable housing/renovations along with 0.8 F.A.R. of added luxury over current zoning -- 1.04 luxury F.A.R. more than the DCP plan. And if the developer doesn't take the affordable housing bonus and builds no affordable housing at all, this alternative still gives the developer a 0.5 F.A.R. luxury upzoning. In short, the alternative upzones Chrystie Street for luxury in all circumstances.

The DCP plan would downzone Chrystie Street by 10% from current 6 to 5.4 F.A.R. With affordable housing/renovations, DCP's plan requires 1.44 F.A.R. of affordable housing/renovations, but less additional luxury than what's allowed in the current zoning. DCP's plan allows a maximum of 5.76 F.A.R. luxury, which is 0.24 less luxury than current zoning allows.

In other words, the DCP plan provides almost as much affordable housing/renovations as the alternative, while consistently downzoning luxury F.A.R.

The alternative would allow .8 F.A.R. more luxury than current zoning. The DCP plan allows .24 F.A.R. less luxury than current zoning allows.

Even under the best-case scenario in which we actually get new affordable housing, the DCP plan provides virtually all the "affordable" housing the alternative provides, without the alternative's egregious luxury upzoning. So even accepting the CB's faith that inclusionary upzoning will bring us affordable housing, the alternative has virtually no benefit to the community over the DCP plan. And its price is high: the alternative upzones the street for luxury development without inclusionary upzoning, and significantly upzones it for luxury with inclusionary upzoning.

I hope CB3 changes its position on this alternative that will flood Chinatown with gentrification. It is inconceivable that the local community would welcome significantly more luxury housing than even DCP proposes and without any significant benefit -- possibly no benefit at all.

City previews the EV/LES rezoning

City Planning has issued its statement of final intent for rezoning the East Village and Lower East Side ("Final Scope of Work").

The good news is: it's not final. They will continue to consider alternatives as they study the area for their final rezoning proposal. So it is possible to influence the final plan, though time is short.

Also good news:
1. the study will cover a quarter mile around the rezoning area, so all of the Bowery to Pell Street and a large part of Chinatown will be studied
2. the rezoning will end most hotel development south of Houston between Essex and Allen
3. EV sidestreets will remain, in effect, unchanged
4. the end of the Community Facility bonus will protect larger sites like Mary Help of Christians and P.S. 64 from being developed into towering dormitories. Both sites will be limited to eight stories, though Mary's, on the avenue, will be allowed greater bulk
5. underbuilt tenements on 4th-7th Streets between A&B will be protected.

There's bad news too.

A.
Developers will be allowed to build larger buildings on 1st and 2nd Avenues and Avenue A if they develop or recycle affordable housing anywhere in the district or within a half mile of the district.

So the three, four and five story townhouses and tenements from the 1840's through the Civil War which line 1st Avenue and Avenue A, filled with long-term tenants paying truly affordable rents, will be vulnerable to demolition and redevelopment into seven- or eight-story buildings. To get the bonus size, the developer has merely to promise to rent some apartments somewhere at stabilized rates forever.

There appears to be no meaningful oversight for this permanent off-site stabilization, so, in effect, anything goes. And affordable housing bonuses are bought and sold -- according to HPD it's quite a market -- so developers will be getting their height bonus for free and without contributing any affordable housing to our community.

This sad excuse for an affordable housing program is called "Inclusionary Zoning," widely known as "yet another scam."

Since many stabilized rents have already risen to market rate, developers will feel no pain. However, this plan will add to the pressure to evict tenants and warehouse empty apartments. Currently, large buildings can be developed only on multiple lots. This seems to have protected the avenues from development in recent years. Under the rezoning, larger buildings could be built as-of-right on single lots, facilitating the spread of development at every level, even among smaller owners.

B.
The rezoning plan will protect the Lower East Side from Allen to Essex from new hotel development, but it will allow large developments on Houston, Chrystie, Delancey, Pitt (forming a wall surrounding the LES south of Houston) and on Avenue D. This wall of market-rate luxury development will exacerbate the up-scaling of the LES as a nightlife and tourist destination and the decline of its day-time, residential and arts community.

C.
Upzoning D will threaten the projects, bringing up-scale development and gentrification, adding to the pressure to move the projects out of subsidy and into the market.

D.
The rezoning itself does not include the Bowery or Chinatown, so we can expect that hotel developers, prevented by the rezoning from developing in the LES, will turn all their attention to the Bowery and Chinatown.

E.
In addition, City Planning is changing the zoning text so that residential storefronts in all the planned residential zones can be reverted to commercial use, no matter how long they have been out of commercial use. In plain English: more bars encouraged.

For the intrepid, here are the technical details:

The sidestreets of the EV: FAR 4 (about the size of a six story tenement) -- R7A

The large avenues of the EV (2nd,1st,A): IZ bonus to FAR 4.6 (seven stories) -- R8B

The LES south of Houston: FAR 4 (six stories) -- C4-4A&R7A

EXCEPT
Houston, Delancey, Chrystie, D and parts of Pitt: IZ bonus to FAR 7.2 (with required setbacks this maxes out at 12 stories) -- C6-2A

AND
City Planning is considering an alternative which would allow IZ up to FAR 8.5 (maxing out at 15 stories). So far this alternative is only being considered for Chrystie Street, but their language is vague and evasively non specific.

The plan downzones 7th - 4th Streets between A&B from FAR 3.44 to 3.

Finally, the city will add R8B zones to those zones in which commercial storefronts are deemed perpetually available for commercial use, no matter how long they have been used as residences.

197 Plan Task Force will meet Monday, April 16 at 6:30pm, University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street between Rivington & Delancey. It's an important meeting.

The Department of City Planning has rejected the Community Board's seven recommendations for the environmental impact study of the rezoning of the district. At this Monday's meeting the Task Force will discuss whether and how to support the City's plan without the community's recommendations. There are some on the Task Force who will push to support the City's plan despite community opposition.

The City continues to promote its IZ upzoning to "grow the city." IZ upzoning will likely result in a net loss of affordable housing and further gentrification pressure on the neighborhood. Giving developers a free upzoning is clearly not in the interest affordable housing. This is not rocket science -- it's pretty clear, and you all don't need me to tell you that this city administration is all about development. Meanwhile, the developers lobby in Albany is fighting against extending the 421a exclusionary zone to our neighborhood, so there is no guarantee that we'll get any affordable housing out this rezoning.

The only way to ensure affordable housing is to accompany the IZ bonus with down-zoning -- in effect, mandatory affordable housing with neighborhood preservation. Since the City has expressed its intent to upzone, the community no longer has anything to lose by demanding what it really wants and needs. The time for compromise and wishful thinking is past. It's now time to stand up to the City in unity and numbers.