Affordable For Who?

The Mayor's housing plan leaves behind the New York's most vulnerable: Under the current plan, over 1/3rd of NYC households are too poor to afford the Mayor's "low-income" housing. Fast-food worker and homecare worker will not be able to afford the vast majority of apartments under this plan, and because the plan does not include labor standards to protect good union jobs, the New Yorkers who build the Mayor's "affordable housing" won't be able to afford it! Too many families will be at risk of displacement and homelessness unless the city figures out a plan to create truly affordable housing. Join Real Affordability For All and other community activists on Tuesday, February 23rd at 10:30AM in City Hall Park to ask the Mayor, "affordable for who?"

Click here to RSVP to Real Affordability For All

One Size Does Not Fit All!

"Zoning for Quality & Affordability (ZQA) is a wholesale upzoning of the entire city, and will not guarantee either goal of affordability or quality. There is no panacea for NYC’s affordable housing crisis, and ZQA is not even a cure for its symptoms. Rather, it seems that ZQA is a concession to developers to sweeten Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), the only part of this proposal which might actually provide “affordable” units. ZQA loosens the entire city’s existing zoning to allow greater density for market-rate development, under the guise of creating affordable units, which, as we all know, is optional... This upzoning amendment raises height limits and diminishes yard requirements across the city according to a mathematical nicety, without examining the built fabric of our city’s neighborhoods. Contextual zones came to fruition after years of effort by community-driven, carefully examined, neighborhood-specific studies. NYC thrives because of the diversity of its neighborhoods, yet this proposal’s approach will deal with each neighborhood as the same, with a one-size-fits-all approach."

Whether his heart is in the right place or not, the concessions Mayor de Blasio is making to the real estate industry in an effort to create what amounts to not enough affordable housing units, at a truly affordable rate, is incredibly troubling. The re-zoning and up-zoning will enable developers to reshape and rebrand neighborhoods, which will in turn skyrocket rents, making entire areas unaffordable to the average New Yorker.

The public hearing on Zoning for Quality & Affordability and Mandatory Inclusionary Housing is February 9th and February 10th (at 9:30AM both days). Join activists from across the five boroughs at City Hall (between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street) and tell the NYC City Council that New Yorkers deserve affordable housing without upzoning the entire city.

If you can't make the hearings, the Historic Districts Council and Greenwich Village Society For Historic

Preservation have made it easy to send letters to the entire City Council: HDC letter | GVSHP letter.

Abridged quote from the Historic Districts Council Statement to NYC City Council on ZQA/MIH.

Alliance Against Displacement

“From all across the city, we’re concerned about displacement and we’re concerned about the mayor’s development policies. We’re here today to say that his complete development policy is a complete sham. It’s not building more affordable housing — it’s actually leading to more displacement and gentrification in the most vulnerable communities.” -David Tieu, Coalition To Protect Chinatown And The Lower East Side

On January 21st dedicated activists from a handful of community groups (organized by the Citywide Alliance Against Displacement) braved the cold to protest the Real Estate Board Of New York outside their 120th Annual Banquet, which was attended by members of City Hall including Bill de Blasio and Melissa Mark-Viverito. The gathered activists stood to denounce the underhanded deals between developers and NYC elected officials who receive large campaign contributions from them. The protestors called for a rejection of Mayor de Blasio’s zoning plan which they say promotes luxury development, pushing out local businesses and services, displacing more people of color and working families, and eliminating more affordable units than it claims to create.

Photography by BERodriguez © 2016
Quote from the Commercial Observer

March Against Displacement

On September 25th, close to one-thousand residents, workers, small businesses, students, and others from Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and across the city marched to City Hall to demand that Mayor de Blasio protect our community from displacement. We must show the Mayor that we will not stop until our Chinatown and the Lower East Side receives the equal protection they deserve. We call on everyone to join the march on Wednesday, October 28th! Click here for more details and to RSVP.

You Can Fight City Hall

City Hall press conference on manufacturing and industrial zone land-use/redistricting.

Photo credit: Nancy Brous