Study: Landmarking Limits Affordable Housing in Brooklyn and Beyond
The Real Estate Board of New York, a trade association for the real estate industry, has come out with a new study claiming landmarking historic neighborhoods retards construction of affordable housing citywide. Its last report, which said the same thing, was about Manhattan only. “Landmarking historic neighborhoods could make it more difficult for Mayor de Blasio…
The Real Estate Board of New York, a trade association for the real estate industry, has come out with a new study claiming landmarking historic neighborhoods retards construction of affordable housing citywide. Its last report, which said the same thing, was about Manhattan only.
“Landmarking historic neighborhoods could make it more difficult for Mayor de Blasio to fulfill his ambitious affordable housing goals,” said a story about the study in The New York Daily News. The report’s conclusions were based on data that found only 100 units of 35,000 affordable apartments built between 2003 and 2012 were inside landmarked districts. Absolutely zero affordable housing was built in landmark districts in Brooklyn in that time.
The report also said landmarking can impose “unforeseen barriers” on construction, such as additional costs created by a lengthy review process and higher design standards required by the LPC.
The head of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation said the report is poppycock because only 3 percent of the city consists of historic districts. “The notion that this is a major contributor to the unaffordability of our city is just laughable,” he told the Daily News.
The real estate industry has opposed landmarking since at least the 1950s. What do you think? Should de Blasio restrict landmarking in Brooklyn to encourage more affordable development here?
REBNY Study Finds Landmarking Historic Neighborhoods Could Limit Cheap Housing [NY Daily News]
The Historic Districts Council Analysis of The Real Estates Board of New York’s ‘Housing Production on NYC Landmark Properties’ Study
‘Using a selective comprehension of statistics, the study shows that the percentage of affordable housing created on landmarked property from 2003-2012 was much lower than on non-designated property. Given that the percentage of affordable housing developed over that period was only 16.94% of the total property development in New York City, their argument begins to look a little skewed. The crisis in affordable housing which has finally captured the public’s attention is not a landmarking issue; this is a deeper indictment of the real estate market to provide for the needs of New Yorkers and the subtle failure of government to guide market forces to help meet that need.’
http://hdc.org/blog/historic-districts-council-analysis-real-estates-board-new-yorks-housing-production-nyc-landmark-properties-study
REBNY thinks landmarking is bad? LOL.. You don’t say.