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Affordable Housing Not Included





This is the first in a series, to run between now and Election Day, examining Mayor Michael Bloomberg's record in key areas.


Judy Stein has lived in New York City all of her life, and in Williamsburg for a third of it.

She spent most of her time there in a one-and-a-half bedroom apartment on Bedford Avenue above the street's 60-year-old print shop -- once owned by her former roommate and confidante.

That shop is now about to become a cell phone store. Stein at age 63 is now homebound, stuck in a wheelchair after her left leg was amputated last year. And last week, her attorney was headed to housing court to battle an order of eviction for the third time.

Stein used to pay $550 a month in rent. The building's new owner wants closer to $2,100, she said. She brings in $9,000 a year in social security and disability.

"They don't want this to be a neighborhood," said Stein, sitting in her yellow and blue kitchen last week. "All of these people that are buying these buildings... they don't live here. They don't care about what's going to happen to this neighborhood," she said, slamming her hand against the kitchen table. "All they are interested in is this." Stein rubbed the tips of her fingers together. "The money," she said.

Stein's story is familiar to tenants across the city. As gentrification and the now-busted housing market fueled astronomical rents and luxury development, some lower-income New Yorkers (just call them "poverty people," said Stein) have been left with fewer housing options.

Almost five years ago, the Bloomberg administration came up with several solutions. One of them was to rezone scores of communities, Williamsburg included, across the city and provide financial incentives to developers to build permanent affordable housing -- otherwise known as inclusionary zoning.

The problem, some advocates and experts say, is that it isn't meeting expectations.

A review of the units created by this type of financial incentive shows that the administration is not close to hitting its goal. And given the economy, it is unlikely to anytime soon. What a spokesman from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development calls a "key piece" of the administration's affordable housing agenda has to many advocates, officials and experts been disappointing. The city disagrees, saying the program already has created thousands of units, despite being temporarily set back by the crippled housing market.

For their part, advocates and experts wonder how the mayor's free market driven development and affordable housing policies will fare now that the boom has gone bust.

It's Not Just Luxury


View NYC Inclusionary Housing sites in a larger map, Purple markers are completed inclusionary housing projects, yellow markers represent housing projects that have been closed and financed.

Nowhere was the mayor's inclusionary housing program predicted to take off more than in Williamsburg.

The beacon of the newly expanded program, which had once applied only to skyscraper-saturated areas of Manhattan, the massive Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning has produced 768 affordable rental apartments since 2005. According to the Department of City Planning, the city had hoped for more than 2,200 over the course of a decade. About 20 percent of the units that have been built or are now under construction are renovations of existing affordable apartments, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Back in 2005, the administration said the rezonings already approved -- like Hudson Yards and Greenpoint-Williamsburg -- would alone create 6,000 units of affordable housing thanks to inclusionary zoning.

Nearly five years later and with more than a dozen new neighborhoods under the program, less than half that number have been preserved or built during Bloomberg's first two terms. A vast majority of those apartments, 1,786 of the total 2,716, are in Manhattan, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Some of these developments were projected to create affordable housing over an extended time period. Even taking those deadlines into account, they are behind schedule.

Inclusionary zoning gives developers the option to increase a project's total floor to area ratio by 33 percent if it designates 20 percent of all the apartments as affordable housing. Up until this year, it applied exclusively to rentals. That bonus could mean seven additional stories for a 23-story building. In addition, the affordable apartments can be financed with public subsidies. They can also be located on the same site as the rest of the project or within the same community district.

For most projects, tenants must make less than 80 percent of the area median income -- $61,920 for a family of four. Portions of some projects, like Hudson Yards or West Chelsea, can opt for higher brackets, between $96,750 and $135,450 for a family of four, and still receive subsidies and the density bonus.

These incentives were supposed to make the voluntary construction of affordable housing economically feasible for developers. And for communities, the promise of these affordable units was seen as compensation for high-density luxury development in their midst.

Since 2005, the administration has extended inclusionary zoning to 20 neighborhoods -- including the Bronx's Lower Concourse, Brooklyn's Flatbush and Queen's Dutch Kills. So far, in more than half of them (some of which were approved in 2009 and 2008) developers haven't taken the bait.

In Brooklyn's South Slope, only six units have been a part of the program since it was rezoned in 2005. In Maspeth and Woodside, which was rezoned in 2006, there has been nary a unit.

Or take East Harlem, which was included in the massive 125th Street rezoning approved in April 2008 -- just as the market started to reel. According to the Community Board 11 Chair Robert Rodriguez, affordable units from inclusionary zoning are not on the map.

"The simple answer is no, we haven't seen any development in the areas that were rezoned," said Rodriguez. "It's hard to tell the free market what they can and cannot do."

According to the housing department, 37 units are under construction in that community district.

Those in the real estate industry say the city shouldn't expect to see any increase in these numbers soon.

"A lot of stuff out here is stalled," said David Maundrell, the president and founder of aptsandlofts.com, a real estate marketing firm that specializes in Williamsburg. Maundrell just saw a more than 400-unit development fall through, a portion of which would have been inclusionary housing. The developer, he said, couldn't get financing. "People aren't building."

Opting Out

According to Eric Bederman, a spokesman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, inclusionary housing will work -- eventually.

"While the current economic climate has slowed the development of market-rate housing, inclusionary zoning was put in place as a forward thinking initiative to ensure that affordable housing can still be created during the strongest housing markets, when it is historically more difficult to do so," Bederman said in an e-mail. "The good news is that even in a time when we're seeing drops in housing starts and new construction, the city still has projects being developed through the mayor's inclusionary zoning plan."

Officials tout projects like Williamsburg's Edge, which will bring 346 affordable units to North 6th Street, or its neighbor, Toll Brothers' Northside Piers, which provides 263 units within a half-mile of its waterfront Williamsburg towers. These have been Northern Brooklyn's largest success stories so far.

Simultaneously, housing advocates and policy experts claim the inclusionary zoning program was flawed from the start.

"I think there is some Peter principle for public policy that anything that is a good idea on a small scale will inevitably be expanded and pushed to a much larger scale so it no longer works," said Julia Vitullo-Martin, the director the Regional Plan Association's new Center for Urban Innovation. "I think inclusionary zoning is in that category."

Nationally, the program has had its ups and downs. According to a report from the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, inclusionary zoning created more than 15,000 affordable units as of 2003 in the Washington D.C. area. But in suburban Boston, where 43 percent of the jurisdictions had adopted inclusionary zoning as of 2004, there were no affordable homes at all.

Vicki Been of the Furman Center says traditionally the most flexible inclusionary housing programs -- the ones that give developers multiple options, such as a density bonuses or tax incentives -- have been the most successful.

But some advocates disagree. They claim if inclusionary housing was mandatory, then the city would finally have a steady stream of affordable units with every project.

"It hasn't generated the number that people thought it would, partly because the subsidies weren't deep enough," said Adam Friedman, the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. "Now that the market is in the doldrums, it's time to look at mandatory inclusionary zoning."

Recently, the city has retooled the program to include a home ownership option, which it hopes will encourage more developers to participate in the program.

A New, New Housing Plan

Inclusionary zoning is just a sliver of the Bloomberg administration's housing plan, and it alone can't solve the city's housing drought.

So, enter the Bloomberg administration's larger affordable housing program, dubbed the "New Housing Marketplace Plan." Its goal: to create and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing in a decade. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development says it has created or preserved 94,000 affordable homes so far -- more than half of that number have been reconstructed and rehabilitated apartments, not new construction.

But that housing plan, which includes preserving affordable housing stock and finding new land for affordable units in addition to inclusionary zoning, is facing a far different economy than when it was first proposed.

In front of a packed audience at the New School late last month, the department's new Commissioner Rafael E. Cestero explained the approach.

"The reality is that many of these neighborhoods have had a hard time supporting those kinds of developments and many of those developments are in trouble," said Cestero of the large luxury condominium developments now stalled across the city. "Faced with the current economic realities, we must and are examining every element of the plan, every new market-driven innovation in front of us and looking at the way forward with a different lens and a different focus."

With that in mind, the department (borrowing from the campaign slogans of the mayor's Democratic competitors), will look at every project through a "neighborhood lens," said Cestero. Some of that, he added, would include turning failed luxury condominiums into affordable housing as well as reclaiming apartments taken off of rent stabilization rolls during the booming market.

Advocates, though, aren't applauding yet. They say much of the Bloomberg administration's housing policy has focused on getting private developers to create new housing -- not on trying to preserve the existing stock. For instance, between 2005 and 2008, according to the city's most recent housing survey, about 20,000 rent stabilized units, or 2 percent of the entire stabilized stock, were lost to the market. Focusing on rent stabilization reform and rent control -- as proposed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn -- is the real solution, they say.

"The priorities that Bloomberg has put on development of new construction as a solution to affordable housing has been the wrong emphasis," said Mario Mazzoni, the lead organizer at the Metropolitan Council on Housing. "You cannot build yourself out of the affordable housing crisis in New York City."

Another Four Years

In Williamsburg, Stein was never optimistic about the neighborhood's waterfront development. She knew she would never be able to live there.

"My grandparents came here as little kids. They worked. My parents were born here. My family had a business. We owned a house. Things were looking so nice," recalled Stein. "And now, you know, my mother is 91 and is living in a nursing home in Pennsylvania. Maybe I'll have to go live with her."

Stein could be just one more New Yorker displaced by the city's affordable housing shortage.

There is no question that luxury development and the city's changing landscape have been hallmarks of Bloomberg's tenure at City Hall. But given the drastic change in the economic climate, advocates and experts are waiting to see, if Bloomberg is re-elected, how he will adapt.

"OK, he had two pretty good terms on this issue, and now all the problems are coming home to roost and the future looks grim," said the Regional Plan Association's Vitullo-Martin. "In a way the question is what is he going to do next."

Homes, including Judy Stein's, hang in the balance.

Housing Project Splits Bushwick District


Photo by Dana Farrington

Politics are personal in Brooklyn's 34th City Council District. Candidate Maritza Davila, a local community organizer, is running with the help of the Brooklyn Democratic leader, Assemblymember Vito Lopez, who was once a mentor and supporter of the incumbent councilmember, Diana Reyna. The third Democratic hopeful, Gerry Esposito, is hoping that the relationships he's built during his 32 years as district manager for Community Board 1 will help him break away from the pack.

Election 2009

District 34 encompasses Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ridgewood and Williamsburg. This predominantly low-income, Hispanic area has confronted the candidates with questions surrounding affordable housing, new development, job security and the general safety of its residents. A dispute over a proposed housing complex in a neighboring district has played a central role in the campaign.

Thanks to the extension of term limits that she helped pass, Reyna is now running her third campaign for the position. So far, the third time clearly has not been a charm.

"There certainly is a different component in the sense where, you know, my mentor, who at one point was supporting me, is now not supporting me -- but even further than that is supporting a candidate to run against me," said Reyna. But, she added, "I don't think we've allowed it to affect us." Instead, she said, the campaign has remained focused on the services it wants to provide to the community.

Nonprofits and Politics

Photo by Dana Farrington
Diana Reyna

This is a district where non-profit community based organizations have become entwined in politics. In the 2007 book, Bargaining for Brooklyn, sociologist Nicole Marwell, a professor at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs, explains what she refers to as "voter education," where politicians help secure government funding for specific groups and then "educate" the population -- the voters -- about the politician's role. The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, founded by Lopez, played an integral part in Marwell's research.

The senior council has played a key role in devising a plan for affordable housing on the Brooklyn Triangle in District 33 and also has been selected by the Bloomberg administration to develop the property. Davila has worked with the council since 1993.

The plans calls for building 1,895 apartments in low-rise buildings on the Broadway Triangle, a 31-acre plot bordered by Broadway, Union Street and Flushing Avenue. The plan requires City Council approval.

Supporters say the housing is needed. Reyna, though, has opposed the project. She said the project goes against the wishes of a number of community organizations and described her opposition as a way of standing up for various "voiceless" community groups and nonprofits that have not been included in developing the plan.

The Broadway Triangle Community Coalition has emerged as an opposing force as well. Though not against affordable housing, the coalition includes over 40 religious and community organizations that seek to open up the planning process to more groups.

The city awarded no-bid contracts for the project to the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizen's Council and the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg. On its website United Jewish Organizations describes itself as having a "well-established partnership" with the senior citizen's council.

Reyna said the Broadway Triangle has affected her City Council race. "I would say it has to do everything with the election. It speaks to the leadership as to who is going to be representing this constituency," she said. "Anybody who supports this plan will be turning their back on the community of the 34th district because it doesn't matter whether it's inside our outside the community district, the point is it's part of the community and whatever's built there we should have access to it."

Davila could not be reached for comment.

As district manager of the community board that oversees the area, Esposito approved the plan with stipulations.

Photo by Dana Farrington
Gerry Esposito

"The community board reviewed what was placed before us for property that was -- lest we not forget it has been empty for decades, alright -- and we saw the possibility of bringing affordable housing into the community, and the community board accepted it with conditions," said Esposito.

Despite his involvement, Esposito tried to distance himself from the controversy.

"I think people are familiar with my positions as district manager for the Community Board for the past 32 years, and they know that I'm a fair and honest person, and I want to bring fairness and honesty to the City Council," he said. "I want to bring government back to the people."

In general, Esposito is wary of links between nonprofit work with politics. "I think they [community based organization] are very important... Oftentimes they provide services where the city is void," he said. "However, I think they need to stay one million percent clear of the political process."

Lining Up Support

A sign for Davila hangs in the window of a local Internet spot on a corner along Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick. The business is about a block away from Davila's campaign headquarters at the Bushwick Democratic Club, founded by Lopez. Victor Borja owns the business that proudly displays Davila's smiling face. Wearing a Mexican soccer jersey and shorts, Borja explained his reason for supporting Davila.

Photo by Dana Farrington

"Because we know her, because she has chatted with us, even if they're get-togethers, she's here in the area," he said in Spanish. Borja later added, "We hope she wins, and all of us Hispanics in this area are going to vote for her, including me."

Approximately 60 percent of the district's residents are Hispanic. Davila, born in Puerto Rico, is the only one of the three, born outside of New York. Reyna is the first woman of Dominican descent on the City Council, and Esposito's grandparents emigrated from Argentina in the early 1900s.

Just a few blocks away on the last Sunday in August, a handful of local community-based organizations gathered in MarĂ­a Hernandez Park with Reyna's blessing for a back-to-school event co-organized by her liaison Francisco Mercado.

Local resident Gwen Schantz handed out fliers and free food to families in the park. Schantz, 28, is the founder of the Bushwick Food Co-op, a group organizing to open a storefront food co-op in the area. Schantz has decided to vote for Reyna on Sept. 15.

"For the food co-op, she has been very supportive of our plan, and she's given us advice with regards to how we should reach out to the community," said Schantz. She later admitted that she did not know "very much" about the other candidates, but said she "just lean[ed] in the direction of Diana Reyna because I like what she's done thus far."

Representing the District

As for Esposito, he consistently refers to his experience as district manager and his lifelong familiarity with Williamsburg as having prepared him for the job of councilmember. Esposito has worked closely with small businesses and their owners during his time on the Community Board and said he hoped to strengthen and not strain small businesses during financially difficult times. In terms of organizations providing services to the community, Esposito pointed to the need to "think outside the box."

"You can't just throw money at issues. You have to make sure that money is going appropriately to solve the problem so it will address the issue," he said.

Reyna said Esposito had done a "great job" in his position, but did not accept that this necessarily qualified him for City Council. The district, Reyna said, includes not one, but three, community boards, and any council member must reconcile the distinct needs of all these communities is unique to her position. In addition, every councilmember has to work with the other 50 members, and Reyna said she already had the "good relationships."

Reyna said her priorities had not changed over the last eight years. Her platform still emphasizes affordable housing, job creation and education.

Davila, whose website feature a picture of her with Lopez, says on the site she will work for rezoning for projects that are "100 percent affordable." Her platform offers few specifics. In education, for example, its cites her experience as president of Community School Board 32 and said she " understands the needs that are needed inside of classrooms, that will benefit our children."

Beyond Vito Lopez

For the campaign, Davila has secured not only Lopez's help, but also the endorsement and financial contribution from Local 1199 SEIU and a number of other unions. Plus, she has the Working Families Party at her side, support usually provided to the incumbent.

In an email, party executive director Dan Cantor said, "Maritza Davila knows first-hand how hard New York's working families have to fight in this economic climate for good homes, good schools and good jobs. Her years of experience as a tenants' rights advocate and organizer will make her a strong voice on the City Council."

The New York Times has endorsed Reyna, as has the United Federation of Teachers, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who also backs the Triangle Project and U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez. The New York League of Conservation Voters and the Greenpoint Star have endorsed Esposito.

As of the Sept. 4 filing deadline, Reyna had raised $84,414 in private funds and $84,122 in public funds. Davila had received $88,127 in private funds, with $84,122 matched by public funds. Esposito raised $91,424, mostly from a number of private local businesses and $73,028 in public funding. He has spent the most money thus far on the campaign and Reyna has spent the least.

The Democrat elected in the Sept. 15 primary will face Republican candidate Jacqueline Haro in November.

Housing Bias Persists, Fueled by the Internet


Photo (cc) travelertish

It's been some 40 years since the federal Fair Housing Act was passed allowing the Department of Justice to prosecute "patterns or practices" of housing discrimination" and 20 years since that act was amended to permit the department to act against municipalities that violate fair housing standards.

Yet housing discrimination persists in New York, according to the Fair Housing Justice Center, a city-based non-profit fair housing organization. The city's acute shortage of affordable housing combined with the fact that "real estate brokers and agents handle much of the rental market, unlike any other U.S. city" has created an unchecked system riddled with corruption and abuse, said Diane Houk, executive director of the center.

Even though city government has taken some measures to fight this kind of discrimination, fair housing advocates still see the need for better and more flexible enforcement. They say that all levels of government have failed to keep up with rapid technological changes -- like the advent of the Internet to advertise apartments -- to monitor compliance and ensure rules are followed.

Segregated City

The Fair Housing Justice Center's latest data reveals a considerable increase in complaint volume. Since opening in 2005, it has received some 400 allegations of housing discrimination, about 55 of which have led to lawsuits or the filing of agency complaints. The most common complaints registered "involve allegations of discrimination because of a person's disability or source of income discrimination." This kind of discrimination may occur against tenants who lawfully pay rent with money other than earned income, usually in the form of a government subsidy.

Utilizing statistics from the most current census, the Fair Housing Justice Center determined the New York City metropolitan area is the fourth most segregated metropolitan area in the United States for African Americans and the fifth most segregated for Latinos. As recently as this month, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development charged two Queens landlords for denying housing to prospective black tenants in what the landlords described as a "white neighborhood."

The center's findings reflect national indicators. Earlier this spring, the National Fair Housing Alliance issued its annual trends report based on surveys from member organizations and data from state and local governments, and federal agencies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Justice Department. The alliance concluded 2008 was a peak year for housing discrimination complaints, reaching almost 31,000, an increase of 3,735 since fiscal year 2007. This is the highest total number of complaints ever taken from all reporting agencies.

The increase may have been fueled by the economic downturn and the foreclosure crisis, as people who have lost their homes turn to the rental market. These problems have disproportionately affected minority communities, who face the greatest threat of housing discrimination

Barriers for the Disabled

The disabled find themselves at a particular disadvantage in New York's housing market. A Fair Housing Justice Center 2007 newsletter cited New York City for "substantial non-compliance with … accessibility requirements" for all new multifamily buildings. Federal standards call for accessible common and public areas and sufficient floor space in bathrooms to allow wheelchairs, among other features to accommodate the disabled, but the city, according to the center, has not enforced the rules.

In 2008, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York filed charges against a private development group, Chrystie Venture Partners/Avalon Bay Communities and others, for discrimination against people with disabilities in the design and construction of a building in the East Village, which was built only a few years ago. The developers flaunted the accessibility rules even though the building was constructed on one of the city's last remaining large plots of land and in conjunction with the city's Department of Housing, Preservation and Development.

The Council Acts

In 2008, City Council targeted a different kind of discrimination as it moved to protect people who receive housing vouchers, disability payments or other types of government assistance to help pay their rent. The legislation bars landlords from refusing a person's eligibility to let an apartment because of an income source.

The Bloomberg administration and the city's Commission on Human Rights, designated to enforce the measure, opposed the bill. Council then overrode Mayor Bloomberg's veto.

Patricia Gatling, chair of the Commission on Human Rights, explained the administration opposed the measure as a matter of semantics more than substance. There was, she said, "concern over the wording and who would be most affected by it, particularly in the case of small landlords where it would not be cost-effective for them to retrofit their units" to be able to rent to someone receiving disability payments.

Now that the law has gone into effect, Gatling enthused, it "has been really effective." Of the almost 1,000 cases a year the human rights commission reviews, about 20 percent now relate to source of income housing complaints. The law, she said, has been especially beneficial for long-term tenants receiving subsidies. "We're seeing cases [dating] from the Koch administration," Gatling said. "People can use vouchers now who couldn't before."

Discriminating On Line

In addition to lax government enforcement -- particularly on the federal level -- fair housing advocates say a key culprit in illegal behavior has been Internet advertisements and postings on list services.

"Internet advertising is becoming more and more important in how people look for housing, especially apartments to rent, so even if a few illegal ads are posted, this discourages renters from contacting the landlords and gives the impression that it is legal for a landlord to refuse to rent to a family with children, for example," explained Houk in an e-mail.

The Fair Housing Justice Center conducted its own analysis of apartment postings on one such service, Craig's List, over several days during 2008 to monitor compliance with fair housing procedures. The study, "No License to Discriminate," found countless examples of apartment listings with "conditions" --many of them placed by licensed real estate brokers who should know better. Examples ranged from limiting family size to phrases such as "no government programs."

Focusing just on July 2008, the center also examined income source violations specifically. It found New York City brokers violated the new legislation close to 400 times in that one month. Some 161 different reat estate companies put up the illegal postings.

Houk criticized city government, and the Commission on Human Rights in particular, for a lack of aggressiveness to force compliance. "We are not seeing vigorous enforcement by the commission or other city agencies of this new provision." she said.

Commissioner Gatling vehemently disagreed with this analysis. Since the bill's passage, "there's so much more work." To address that, Gatling said she is considering "sectioning off some attorneys" to work exclusively on housing discrimination/income source cases.

Although Gatling said her staff carefully keeps an eye on Craig's List, she wants the city to adopt a policy mandating that developers who publicize vacant apartments must advertise throughout the mainstream printed media and not just at sites aimed at their targeted demographic. Because more people could be notified about empty units, this would "improve access to new and bigger buildings."

Ultimately, Houk would like to see better, more updated training of realtors and brokers, better enforcement from the city and state, and significant and consistent penalties for breaking the law.

The Real Estate Board of New York declined to comment in time for this article; the New York State Association of Realtors did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Jillian Jonas is a freelance journalist focusing on local and national politics, government and public policy. She is a former national political analyst for U.P.I.



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