Three of the six ballot questions (numbers 2-4) that New York City voters are facing are falsely advertised as promoting “affordable housing.” They are instead the most recent scams that substantially reduce the ability of community boards and City Council members to influence big developer schemes that, in the end, are more likely to increase rents and house prices and fuel gentrification and displacement in their neighborhoods.
The changes to the City Charter follow the long history of fueling developer-driven growth that tends to jack up rents and housing prices and displace existing residents. It follows the previous Eric Adams scam known as “The City of Yes,” which targeted lower- and medium-density neighborhoods that have opposed big development schemes that raise rents and home prices while failing to protect and instead displace many tenants and homeowners. Adams took his cue from the developer-backed YIMBY (Yes-In-My-Backyard) critics, which white-washed community opposition to giant zoning changes that fueled increases in land values and rents. Those pushing back on developer proposals were disproportionately Black, Brown and Asian working class renters and homeowners but they also included many working class whites. Yet they have been dismissed by the pro-developer advocates as racist, stubborn romantics or just plain self-interested.
These ballot initiatives are a continuation of housing and land use policies that have for over a century been based on the myth that building more housing units is the key to “solving” the shortage of affordable housing. However, stacking up more housing units around the city has invariably jacked up land prices, which in turn increased rents and housing costs and further fed the displacement of existing low-income and working class tenants and homeowners. It completely evades the need to preserve and expand existing affordable housing units – in public housing, Mitchell-Lama and low- and middle-income cooperatives, and low- and middle-income working class homeowners who face predatory investors, deed theft and speculators anxious to clear out more space for more profitable new development (albeit with some token “affordable” housing)…