Q&A
Prioritizing homeownership in communities with significant affordable housing
1:12:31
·
3 min
Council Member Salamanca raises the issue of prioritizing homeownership in communities that have already built significant affordable housing, asking how HPD can shift focus in these areas.
- HPD acknowledges this as an important fair housing question that needs to be addressed.
- They note that down payment assistance has been used in some districts with lower homeownership rates.
- HPD is open to reviewing Open Door applications for these areas, subject to financial feasibility.
- The department is considering ways to balance housing types across the city, including using zoning and regulation to build mixed-income housing with less HPD resource intensity.
- HPD mentions the City of Yes zoning text amendment as a potential tool to rely more on private action for building rental housing, allowing HPD to focus more on homeownership opportunities.
- Council Member Salamanca cites Via Verde in his district as an example of a successful mixed affordable rental and homeownership development.
Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
1:12:31
To bring that funding to the city so we can create more homeownership.
1:12:34
Yes, sir.
1:12:35
You appreciate that.
1:12:36
My last my last my last question here is their communities such as Diana, myself, I know, far yes, where we're building affordable housing.
1:12:51
Right?
1:12:52
And actually, we're doing more than our fair share, and we we wanna see homeownership.
1:13:00
How can HPD prioritize or change their focus on these communities that are doing or building all the affordable housing in the city of New York?
1:13:09
Right?
1:13:09
Because that's really what's happening here.
1:13:11
How can HPD change their focus instead of focusing on more affordable housing in our communities since we've done since we're housing more New Yorkers than other districts and changing our focus to actually bring in homeownership.
Kim Darga
1:13:24
Yeah.
1:13:25
I think that's a very that's a very interesting question.
1:13:30
And I think it is I'm not sure that I have a perfect answer for you today on that.
1:13:37
Okay.
1:13:37
I'm a be honest.
1:13:38
I think that from a fair housing perspective, that is a question that we should absolutely be grappling with.
1:13:47
And the best answer I have today is we have seen use of down payment assistance in some of the just drinks.
1:13:56
There are not like, if you look at the share of homeownership, it is lower.
1:14:01
So the options there are fewer options for people to purchase.
1:14:05
We are open to taking applications through Opendoor.
1:14:10
And I would, you know, encourage you to talk to developers about your interest in that.
1:14:16
We have to then review them from a financial feasibility perspective.
1:14:20
Yep.
1:14:22
Sorry.
Diana Ayala
1:14:22
Go ahead.
1:14:22
Go ahead.
Ahmed Tagani
1:14:23
The only thing I would add here is that, you know, as the deputy commissioner mentioned, we have, you know, we haven't need the responsibility to build enough rental housing to match what the demand is in the city.
1:14:35
That being said, There are there are ways we can do it that isn't as HPD resource intensive and using zoning and regulation to build that housing, build mix income housing, build more affordable housing that would allow us to be able to sync creatively and more strategically with the resources that we have.
1:14:53
So we've mentioned how the city of yes, the zoning tax amendment would allow us to rely on more private action in the city to help build up the rental market and include regulated, required affordable housing that would take some of the pressure that we have in our responsibility to build rental there and think about home ownership opportunities elsewhere in the city.
1:15:18
And especially given the fair housing work we've done and where we live as an administration moving into this.
1:15:25
The fair housing legislation, your question chair is exactly the one that we're thinking and looking at to making sure that we're having a balance of housing types across the city.
Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
1:15:34
It's doable.
1:15:35
I mean, in my district, I believe I have, it's called Fipps Houses.
1:15:38
They build Via Verde.
1:15:40
Half of it is affordable or affordable housing.
1:15:42
The other half is co op, you know, homeownership.
1:15:45
And so And and and I know that all the developers are watching, fair warning.
1:15:50
If you wanna come to district 17 going forward, I wanna see homeownership.
1:15:54
Right?
1:15:54
There we go.
1:15:55
31.
1:15:56
So so with that, I'm gonna go to my colleagues who have questions.
