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Q&A
Discussion on current issues with affordable housing requirements and income calculations
0:52:05
ยท
3 min
Commissioner Leah Goodridge discusses the problems with current affordable housing requirements and income calculations in New York City. She highlights issues with the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) formula and its impact on affordability.
- Critique of income requirements for affordable housing being too high
- Discussion of the homelessness crisis and lack of truly affordable units
- Explanation of how current formulas result in unaffordable 'affordable' apartments
- Concern over the predominance of studio and one-bedroom units in affordable housing projects
Keith Powers
0:52:05
What is the goal of affordability when it comes to talking about we know what the specifics that we may not be attainable for a full fledged example you mentioned, but some examples that might make sense when it comes to trying to approve a project based on exceeding or achieving affordability levels?
Leah Goodridge
0:52:26
Well I think you know I'd like to point to some of the factors that don't work so that we can look to what we should do moving forward.
0:52:35
One of them is that the income requirements for affordable housing at this point need need really to be reviewed.
0:52:43
They're based on the MIH formula which is also follows HUD and so for example, if you if you are making 6 figures, a hundred and $30,000, you can qualify for for one person for yourself for affordable housing in New York City.
0:53:02
I think we need to review that.
Keith Powers
0:53:05
You think it's too high or too low?
Leah Goodridge
0:53:06
I think it's too high, and I think that some people will say, well we need that's middle income technically in New York City, we need that, but from where I sit we also have a very huge homelessness crisis that we've been battling for many decades, do not have a handle on it, and a big part of that is because of lack of affordable housing.
0:53:26
Only 15, I'm sorry, 16% of the low income or affordable apartments under the Adams administration have been for extremely low income.
0:53:38
So there's a real problem of having affordable apartments that actually are not affordable.
0:53:45
The so there's the income requirements and then the income requirements also inform the actual rent.
0:53:53
So we have these people, people think I'm joking when I say that there literally are $3,000 studios.
0:53:59
We just had one with in Brooklyn.
0:54:04
There was a huge fight in Brooklyn where residents were challenging a developer's proposal to build a taller building and that building because of its height, 14 stories would have impacted sunlight for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
0:54:19
And so this is a treasured and beloved garden that has been there for many years, and so residents fought it.
0:54:26
And my question of course that you know we we were a lot of the the proposals there were was well well let's look at the housing, we need more housing, so if it may impact the garden let's look at the fact that it would still bring in housing.
0:54:42
So I immediately asked how much is the housing?
0:54:45
It's 3,000 the studio and a little studio for $3,030.
0:54:52
So this is a real problem that we have to fix in the city.
0:54:56
I think for me the actual rent under these studios, growth, the fact that 30% is based off of gross income, so by the time you take out taxes, we're still talking about someone paying $2,000 for a studio and their actual take home pay may not be 80,000, it may be more like 60,000.
0:55:18
So it just doesn't work and I think that we really need to address it even when we have projects to sum up that they're 25% of the units are affordable.
0:55:27
This is a big part of why we have these fights because when you look at those actual 25% of affordable units, most of them are for moderate income, most of them are studios and one bedrooms.
0:55:41
One Gothamist article said 70% of the Adams administration's affordable apartments have been studios and one bedrooms.
0:55:51
This is this is a real problem, and this is why we have these very controversial projects.