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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Professor Mitchell Moss from NYU on alternative housing solutions and process changes
1:50:10
·
7 min
Professor Mitchell Moss from NYU argues that blaming only ULURP for stalled housing is incomplete, citing over-zealous landmarking and inflexible zoning as contributing factors.
He proposes several charter changes: empowering Borough Presidents by giving them expedited review authority over small residential projects (8 units or less) bypassing ULURP; requiring 10-year infrastructure impact assessments for projects; and updating building codes to reflect modern technology and lifestyles by eliminating requirements for windows in every bedroom (allowing office conversions) and mandatory baking ovens in kitchens (reducing unit costs).
- Moss argues landmarking and restrictive zoning contribute to housing shortage alongside ULURP.
- Proposes expedited (60-day) Borough President review/approval for small residential projects (<=8 units), bypassing ULURP.
- Suggests requiring 10-year environmental impact assessments for projects (water, waste, transit).
- Advocates eliminating window requirements for bedrooms in conversions, relying on modern ventilation.
- Recommends removing mandatory baking ovens from kitchens and allowing shared kitchens to lower housing costs.
Mitchell Moss
1:50:10
Thank you, Chairman Burry, thank you, Vice Chairman Kreinberger.
1:50:14
And I want to say I want to thank members of the commission for inviting me.
1:50:17
And I also want to thank the executive director and the staff of the commission because by inviting me, I got an hour and a half lesson in some of the challenges about housing.
1:50:25
And I cannot resist the opportunity to comment correct some of the statements that have proceeded.
1:50:31
First, let me just say this.
1:50:32
ULIP isn't the only thing that has stalled housing.
1:50:35
We have aggressively landmarked areas that are undeserving.
1:50:39
That are just because something old doesn't mean it's important.
1:50:42
In fact, just the opposite is the case.
1:50:44
We also are too inflexible.
1:50:47
We should undo landmarks like the South Side Of Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, where we have preserved Dunkin' Donuts and other locations.
1:50:54
The corridor on Lafayette Street, which is in NoHo, has parking lots, industrial structures from filled with mass transit access that has a combination of historic preservation and manufacturing, limiting housing.
1:51:06
So it isn't EULIP which is the sole cause of our problem.
1:51:10
One.
1:51:10
Two, I wanna say that I'm very concerned.
1:51:13
There's such a tendency here to think that we should replace elected members of the council with power given to appointed officials.
1:51:21
I wanna say just the opposite.
1:51:23
I'm a fan of what Fritz Schwartz and Eric Lane did, but they did it thirty five years ago.
1:51:29
It's not that it needs updating.
1:51:31
This was before the iPhone, before social media, before robotics, before AI.
1:51:35
And I just wanna say it's time to recognize that nothing lasts from thirty five years.
1:51:40
Even, you know, in modern physical, everybody gets facelifts.
1:51:43
Everybody gets eye lifts.
1:51:44
We should think that Charter deserves even more.
1:51:47
And the and the point here I wanna say is that they diminished the borough president correctly because that was the source of the Supreme Court decision to make it unconstitutional.
1:51:57
But they diminished it so it's really a junior varsity.
1:51:59
I mean, it's a cheerleader role.
1:52:01
We should think about reinserting the borough presidents and diminishing the council members, and I'm gonna give my testimony will reveal that.
1:52:07
So we should give them a job.
1:52:09
We're paying them.
1:52:09
They have a staff.
1:52:11
There's no reason they should get up in the morning and wonder what they do.
1:52:14
And then they have lost their administrative responsibility, which they once had.
1:52:18
They once controlled streets and highways.
1:52:20
They once controlled parks.
1:52:21
We should put them back to work.
1:52:23
So let me just say a few words, and I want to live within the time limit.
1:52:27
And so this is what I want to say.
1:52:28
I have a few different ideas, and I'm sure that they're not going to be at the macro level you've heard.
1:52:34
But first, I want to say that when we're dealing with lots zoned for residential purposes across the city, we should allow owners of those properties to build housing with eight units or less that's in a residential zone already, so we're not rezoning it.
1:52:52
We may have to deal with higher densities.
1:52:54
And we should do this in a way that allows small scale development to completely bypass ULURP, let it be saved for units of eight or 10 or higher.
1:53:04
And the way we should do this is with a one stop expedited review press landing in the office of the borough president who then has sixty days to make a decision.
1:53:12
Many of them don't know how to make a decision.
1:53:13
They'll learn.
1:53:14
And I think this is not trivial.
1:53:16
We should treat the borough president seriously, and then that decision making should then go to the council and the council as a whole, not to the committees, which we've heard about and not the members, but they have to review this.
1:53:28
And I know it's bypassing the city planning commission.
1:53:31
Let them focus on the larger scale challenges.
1:53:33
City planning commission has enough to do.
1:53:35
And if you go to Greenpoint, you see an average home which had one or two units, and now they have eight.
1:53:40
This is something which is done across the city.
1:53:42
We should not trivialize it, but we should encourage it.
1:53:44
The second part I want to say, and I think this builds on Eric Kober's testimony, I think, an earlier hearing.
1:53:50
He suggested this for units of six or more with a 35 foot height limit, I would raise it to eight and forty feet.
1:53:57
In other words, I think we could go further and let the owners determine what the size of the units are.
1:54:02
The second point I want to make is a simple one, which is we have neighborhood plans for housing that now comply with city planning and building regulations.
1:54:10
With climate change becoming a pervasive part of everyone's life, we should recognize that housing has an impact on the water supply, on the wastewater treatment and solid waste, and on mass transit and service transportation.
1:54:23
And that rather than have assessments over the course of thirty to fifty years, we should simply require that all proposed housing developments that have to meet, you know, city requirements should include those basic environmental assessments, but for a ten year period, recognizing that they plan we're not going to ask them to plan forever.
1:54:39
The third idea and I want to say it builds on the report by the Robinhood Foundation, but it takes a little bit further than you guys did which is to suggest that we think about the rules we have for what is a housing unit.
1:54:52
Now one hundred years ago I'm looking I don't think no one was here we required windows to be put into bedrooms because they didn't have air conditioning.
1:55:01
They didn't have ventilation systems.
1:55:03
And it was a very intelligent part of improving public health.
1:55:07
The Pew Foundation for Research just came out with a report that points out that you have new technologies, including advanced ventilation systems, that eliminate the need for windows in open residential buildings.
1:55:18
There are vast amount of underused, almost obsolete industrial and office buildings which could be easily modernized if we got rid of the window requirement for bedrooms.
1:55:30
And I mean, we would have triple or quadruple the amount of buildings, which and if you notice, you read carefully, some of them are going at less than half their price of five years ago.
1:55:38
So I wanna propose that the window in every bedroom is an impediment to to housing construction and is obsolete.
1:55:45
And New York City should allow windowless bedrooms and structures, certainly for any structure within 2,000 feet of a a warehouse, a vehicular based truck terminal, and certainly of any publicly owned bridge or tunnel, which are truly sources of hazardous chemicals.
1:56:02
And finally, I want to make one modest suggestion, which I'm sure will upset many, but we're going to take a risk.
1:56:08
Why not?
1:56:09
That's why you'd be a professor.
1:56:12
We have in our buildings all kinds of features which add costs.
1:56:18
And I want to propose that New York City eliminate any requirements for home baking ovens in the kitchen.
1:56:25
The modern kitchen should have Internet access, plumbing for kitchen sink, running water, and electrical systems to accommodate whatever people cook with, microwave surface cooking, air fryer, etcetera.
1:56:37
In Japan, housing doesn't even have baking ovens.
1:56:39
They use steaming and boiling.
1:56:40
I'm not recommending this as a technique, but I want to make a point.
1:56:44
There's a the size of households varies in this city enormously from two or less, some to three or more.
1:56:50
But we should not impose a baking oven and all the infrastructure required to support this as well as the size.
1:56:55
And if you go, you know, into most and I ask my college students about this today.
1:57:00
I have 54 students.
1:57:01
They don't even know what an oven is.
1:57:03
They don't know how to make coffee.
1:57:04
They put sweaters in their ovens.
1:57:06
Now this is an important point.
1:57:08
We should think about reducing the actual cost of a housing unit.
1:57:11
And rather than try to beat up on the unions, you're not gonna win that battle.
1:57:14
You know, let us try to figure out to lower the actual fixed cost of building residential units.
1:57:19
So I would suggest that we allow buildings to have shared kitchens.
1:57:23
So once a month or once every year, you have your family over where you can figure out a way to entertain them.
1:57:28
But, overwhelmingly, we should reduce the size, scale, and investment in kitchens to reflect the modern habits of ordering in, taking out, not eating at all as a family, and to reduce the cost of the housing unit will be a way to add to the number of units you can build.
1:57:44
So let me thank you for my opportunity to talk to you.
1:57:47
And I'm happy to answer any questions.