Q&A
Addressing concerns about market-rate housing and building density
5:53:34
·
3 min
Council Member Bottcher raises concerns from constituents about new housing being predominantly market-rate and the potential for tall buildings with few apartments. Chair Garodnick responds by explaining the Universal Affordability Preference and its implications for affordable housing.
- Garodnick explains that in medium or high-density districts, the Universal Affordability Preference offers a 20% bonus for 100% affordable housing.
- He emphasizes that this 20% increase is entirely for affordable housing and will be permanent.
- Garodnick assures that these changes can be easily absorbed into existing building plans while addressing affordability concerns.
Erik D. Bottcher
5:53:34
And my second question is, I think a lot of New Yorkers are open to the idea of allowing more housing to be built in their neighborhoods.
5:53:47
The concerns that a lot of people have that I hear is that their concern that all of that housing is gonna be market rate, and it won't include affordable housing.
5:54:01
And also that these are gonna be tall buildings with very few apartments because that's what we've seen go up in many instances, a very tall building with 50 apartments in the whole building, floor through apartments.
5:54:18
Can you speak to my constituents who have those concerns about this proposal?
5:54:25
What will actually happen with respect to affordability and these the size of the apartments in these buildings and the density within these buildings.
Daniel Garodnick
5:54:38
Thank you, Councilman, and thank you for all of your leadership on on this issue.
5:54:43
The answer the first question.
5:54:46
The incremental addition of 58 to 108,000 units of housing or what we just colloquially call about 100,000 units over 15 years will definitely help us to get to where we need to be.
5:55:03
It is not the end of the conversation though because we need more units than that.
5:55:09
And that's where we turn to the other tools and sources that we have.
5:55:13
Some of them relate to HPD, some of them relate to our neighborhood planning process, some of them relate to finding ways to better and more effectively approve private applications through the Department of City Planning or other agencies.
5:55:27
This is a a moment where we need to be looking at all of the levers that we have.
5:55:32
It just happens we are proposing one of those levers here.
5:55:36
It's a big one.
5:55:36
It's an important one.
5:55:38
It's one that has created real challenges for the creation of housing, city wide, over a long period of time, and then one that we think is deserving of the council's attention and approval at this moment.
5:55:51
As it relates to market rate housing, and tall buildings.
5:55:54
I will note that in a medium or high density district, like your council district, what one would see is a bonus here of about 20% under our universal affordability preference.
5:56:07
That 20% is an incremental addition above whatever that building was able to be in the first instance.
5:56:15
And that 20% is for 100% affordable housing forever.
5:56:20
So I would say to your constituents, I certainly understand the point or concern about incremental changes, but that 20% is important.
5:56:27
It's consistent with the city's policy goals and is one that can be easily absorbed in the context of that building as it is already conceived or proposed, and we wanna make sure that we get those units right there on-site.
