"NYC is now one step closer to being a city where EVERYONE can work and live." - @BilldeBlasio #affordablenyc pic.twitter.com/LN6kgDzTTE
— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) March 22, 2016
As expected yesterday, City Council approved Mayor de Blasio's housing plan that will pave the way for a series of rezonings across New York City that aim to build and maintain 200,000 units of affordable housing by 2024. Here's a roundup of headlines from various media outlets about the mayor's rezoning victory ...
---
New York Passes Rent Rules to Blunt Gentrification (The New York Times)
De Blasio’s affordable housing plans both clear City Council with ease, despite spirited protest from community groups (Daily News)
City Council Approves Zoning Changes Key to de Blasio's Affordable Housing Plan (WNYC)
Council overwhelmingly approves de Blasio’s plan to rezone the city (Politico New York)
Community Groups Disappointed by Lack of Details and Info on Rezoning Deal (DNAinfo)
Developers say de Blasio affordable housing plan is “almost meaningless” without 421a (The Real Deal)
De Blasio Earns Political Win in NYC Affordable-Housing Vote (Bloomberg)
Developers Are "Very, Very Excited To Pioneer" New Neighborhoods Under De Blasio's Affordable Housing Plan (Gothamist)
New York City Just Took A Huge Step To Tackle Obscenely High Rents (Huffington Post)
What you need to know about de Blasio's affordable housing victory (New York Business Journal)
Activists Vow to Fight Mayor's 'Gentrification Plan' in the Neighborhoods (DNAinfo)
Protesters Denounce De Blasio's Housing Plan Ahead Of Vote: "The Word Affordability Has Been Co-opted By The Government" (Gothamist)
City Council Approves Mayor's Affordable Housing Plan, But Not Without Drama (NY1)
New York City affordable housing programs designed to benefit developers (World Socialist Web Site)
5 comments:
The whole process was a joke. Amazing how the City Council will turn themselves inside out on their own wheel base to vote yes on this and thereby maximize the developer dollars they'll receive as campaign contributions, but ask them about the Small Jobs Protection Act and the silence is deafening.
And Gothamist certainly got it wrong - Developers Are "Very, Very Excited To Pioneer" New Neighborhoods Under De Blasio's Affordable Housing Plan? I think, instead of "Pioneer", they meant to say "Overrun, Destroy, Overdevelop and Ruin". There were plenty of neighborhoods in NYC that needed pioneers in the 1970s and 80s when, funnily enough, there wasn't a developer to be seen; that certainly tells me everything I need to know about those predatory scum, willing as they are to throw the true pioneers out of apartments they've lived in for decades when their neighborhoods were not *quite* so hip and happening.
Sounds like Gothamist is rewriting a real estate developer press release. 'Pioneer' is their language.
The whole thing is a SCAM. Read "NYC East Harlem Re-Zoning Scheme" by ace reporter Marina Ortiz in the upcoming SHADOW....
More on the city's re-zoning schemes:
Zoning is a city's most powerful tool that determines what gets built where, how dense and what STAYS. This city has facilitated the 20 years of hyper-gentrification we've experienced by generously providing variances and re-zoning to developers, thereby inflating the "value" of formerly reasonably-priced parcels to unsustainable levels, unless "luxury" units are created, catering to monied transients willing, for some insane reason, to pay ANYthing to live here.
To sweeten the pot, the city also provides 10 year (or more) tax abatements to developers, as well as tax dollars to subsidize the creation of market rate housing AND tax credits to already wealthy buyers of units.
With all of these welfare incentives, developers would have to be crazy to not take advantage of them.
Is this a matter of developers getting what they've paid politicians to provide them with or is this part of a master plan to rapidly change the demographics of New York City?
Politicians have been corrupted without possibility of penalty or recourse, laws and zoning have been changed to allow for high-density "market rate" units and rent protections have been watered down year after year.
This is a conspiracy co-ordinated between elected officials, developers and banksters to change the demographics of New York City in favor of the wealthy over the poor.
Demos are only ONE thing. Other steps need to be taken, including class-action law suits, removal of politicians who work against us from office, mass-withdrawal drives from banks that finance yuppie ghetto projects and getting new laws passed that penalize real estate speculation, that strengthen zoning restrictions, and that remove tax abatements and other incentives to build over-priced housing.
There is a lot MORE than can and should be done, but NOTHING will happen if you sit on your asses and wait for someone to do your activism for you.
The city will be a less livable place with the new zoning. Yes you might be more able to find an apartment, but living there will be more of a chore.
Post a Comment