Stopping Big Rent Hikes at Ex-Mitchell-Lamas

he's an "artist"

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:04 AM

Seriously. More useless hand outs to a privileged few.

Get a career that will allow you to pay market rate where you live or move.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:11 AM

He is clearly an artist--he must be, as he is wearing a beret. That is the only excuse.

Terrific work with that sign!

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:13 AM

As one of the people who responded to the recent survey that s/he checks brownstoner obsessively, I'll have to make a mental note not to bother reading the predictable posts on this topic.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:20 AM

if only we can all be as cool as 9:20 (aka a r/s leach)

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:23 AM

c'mon guys, let's be fair
art is his passion
bartending pays his bills
he has a right to live in manhattan at below market rates, since he obvioulsy adds so much culture to our fine city, the very culture that makes us want to be here. we should be grateful for commuting an hour, working hard, paying taxes.. so that we can subsidize his very presence.
without him we would be nothing
no, it doesn't matter that i already have snagged a rent controlled loft for life at $87/month. thats totally irrelevant. we need a strong middle class, such as this guy, myself, etc to keep nyc afloat
and oh yeah if you dont like it go back to ohio or something

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:27 AM

so $4,000 a month for a 1 bed is ok with you guys...

right?

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:31 AM

i charge my tenants more that 4K for a 1BR

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:38 AM

thats a bummer.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:45 AM

Why all the hate? Ok, maybe he is an unemployed artists - and if he isn't making any money, then that's his problem.

But come on, you don't think $4k a month is a lot of money just to rent a 1 bedroom?

Even if you earn $150,000 a year, that $4k a month in rent is about half your take home pay. And while many here earn that much or more, it is still a relatively high salary. Most people don't earn that much.

And paying that much in rent only leaves you another $4k a month to live on - gas, electric, phone, food, subway card, entertainment, etc. Sure, you could live nicely on that still, but then you can't save much each month either to purchase something.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:47 AM

subsidizing only a few is bad policy
leads to higher market rates for the rest
its unfair and unethical and easily corrupted

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:50 AM

i think that you guys are being too hard on this poor guy. artists add a lot to nyc. for example, an artist on my block painted the sidewalk purple and then drew a smiley face on top of it. he said that it symbolized our racist, sexist, ageistic, speceistic, homophobic, society. he also pointed out that most sewing scissors are designed for right-handed people and that this discriminated against artists, many of whom are left-handed. i was moved to tears. i told him he was a genius and should be moved into a palace so that he could create more works of beauty. so lay off, you mean people. artists rule!

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:51 AM

Welcome to New York anon 9:47.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:52 AM

9:31 and 9:47 --

4k is a lot for a 1br

that's why some of us live in neighborhoods where a 1br costs less than half that

and don't believe that we're entitled to government help to live in a more expensive neighborhood

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:57 AM

What is problem with clearing up a loophole?
Why no hate for developers and their reduced rate mortgages they have been paying and reduced tax rates?
Why no hate for 'subsidized' home owners and all the tax deductions for mortgage interest and real estate tax- even in million dollar homes. And tax free capital gains?
What is their right for all those subsidies?

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:02 AM

ita always funny until you get priced out and have to move to east orange.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:04 AM

I just bought a speed boat for my contracting company.

WRITE OFF!!!!!

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:05 AM

the mortgage subsidy is no way near the value of a R/C or R/S subsidy...give it up

love how the only defense of these ridiculous housing policies is to bring the old "greedy developers" line...yawn

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:09 AM

yep, I was right -- 9:20, who rents an apartment in a two-family.

hey, glad you guys are all smarter than the governor, DHCR Commissioner VanAmerongen and the state Court of Appeals.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:11 AM

Let's see, we recently learned that a sizable majority of brownstoner.com viewers earn over 100K.

The 2006 median household income in the US was $48K. Just 19% of American households earn over 100K.

The most income data readily available online for Brooklyn is dated -- 1999. But in that year, median household income was 32K.

So is it surprising or just predictable that posters on this website despise people who can't afford more than $1,000 per month rent on an apartment and think they should all leave NYC and move elsewhere?

Do posters ever wonder who will clean their toilets and raise their children for them if all modestly compensated people leave the City?

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:17 AM

they can live in public housing!

oh wait

SHIT!

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:19 AM

Not sure where it is confirmed this guy is an artist, but in any event, 4K for a 1 bedroom is market in Manhattan, but certainly not anywhere else. Not sure why people who obtain subsidies think there is some right to live in prime space.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:22 AM

10:17--

I doubt the dude in the picture has ever even cleaned his OWN toilet, much less anyone else's.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:40 AM

4K is market for 1BD in manhattan? Only if you are a sucker.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:42 AM

10:17,

Please explain to me why my tax dollars should fund your desire to live in NYC if you can't do it for yourself? I don't need you to clean my toilet or raise my kids I can handle that myself. Thanks.

Most of median America as you describe it live where they can afford without handouts.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:57 AM

10:57... Your tax dollars should fund the poor because if it doesn't:

Smart people, no matter how poor, will only commute so far, only deal with so much, until they move. So, if we don't support some kind of lower and middle class, we will have the absolute worst services and OUR quality of life goes down.

So then _I_ will have to move to Ohio, because I no matter how much money I make, I can't get a meal without disgruntled server, a ride without a disgruntled cab driver, or school teacher, or cop. MY quality of life goes down.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:10 AM

Mitchell-Lama buildings are OK in my book. Most of them are high rises; it's not like they're brownstones. And, in theory, once your income rises, you have to move out. But anyone lucky enough to win the M-L lottery is going to hide any excess income.

BTW, I do in fact know 2 playwrights who are in subsidized city housing. Yes, they could probably get a job on Wall st. or something, but subsidies allow them to eke out a living in the city. No hard feelings there.

Not sure I like going from M-L rules to rent stabilized, though. Near as I can tell oversight of RS apts. is pretty spotty.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:10 AM

Ah, another post from Brownstoner about rent protections in NY...and another bunch of semi-literate and less than semi-informed posts about how rent protection deprives landlords of the profits they deserve. Hve any of you actually read the rent protection laws? Do you know that those laws ensure that landlords make a profit? Probably not, since it's so much easier to toss comments out on a blog than to actually inform yourself before you start typing.

So here's one fact for you all: the median income of rent protected tenants is under 35K; the median income of rent protected landlords is 65K.

Abolition of rent protection in New York will not make market rents come down. Only an over-abundant supply of housing will do that. So instead of posting meaningless drivel here, why don't you start lobbying your community boards and elected officials to make that happen.

Oh, right: that would mean educating yourself and doing some work...

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:16 AM

i think we are misunderstanding this guy
he means to say "WTF?? that's a steal!!!"

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:25 AM

11:10 Do you know how to support those people that you need to maintain your standard of living? Raise their wages. You require their services so pay them more.

There is no need for government subsidy through taxes to fix this problem. Either wages will rise or housing prices will fall because as you say people will move to get the services they want. A third possibility is that some of the jobs will be automated.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:26 AM

here we go again with ethe f*cking "teachers and firefighters" blah blah

firefighters dont live in public housing, they have far more integrity than that

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:33 AM

Actually the “handout” in the Mitchell Lama program is to the developer more than the tenant. The program, which was created in the 1950s as an answer to the housing crisis (which existed then and continues now), gave developers very low interest loans and in some cases free land in return for regulated rents.

Under the law landlords were given the right to “buy out” of the program after 20 years by prepaying their mortgages. Residents in buildings that are bought out, which were developed before 1974 are protected by the ETPA (emergency tenant protection act). Residents in post ’74 buildings (such as Starrett City) face market rate rent increases.

The landlords and developers, who took advantage of the loophole in the law, got the benefit of the loans and then looked to charge market rate rents after buy-out, which violated the spirit and the intent of the law.

Every developer and landlord who entered the Mitchell Lama program did and so voluntarily and therefore they are hardly victims. They bought their property at a subsidized, below market rate and now they want market rents.

How is that fair?

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:47 AM

Hey 9:13, if you think that dude is wearing a beret, you are a total MORON. I mean, a complete and utter IDIOT. What a FOOL you are. A NINNY! That's not a FUCKING BERET!!!! What a LOSER.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:09 PM

either subsidized housing for ALL or subsidized housing for NONE

what we have now is nothing but utter bullsh*t

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:23 PM

Carol Gardens,

Did you catch this part of my post before you cherry picked? "Either wages will rise or housing prices will fall because as you say people will move to get the services they want."

And I don't know any firefighters but all the teachers I know who rent or own pay market price.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:30 PM

EAST NEW YORK — Not far from Starrett City, the middle-class housing development that has been much in the news of late, there is a former Mitchell-Lama complex once known as Fairfield Towers that is offering condos to middle-income families.

Now called MeadowWood at Gateway, this 21-acre, 19-building complex along Flatlands Avenue in East New York is undergoing some major renovations and 983 apartments will soon be ready for occupancy. It is said to be the largest condominium conversion in Brooklyn.

Fillmore Real Estate is handling sales of the units, which have prices ranging from $100,000 to $340,000.

Does anyone know about this new project in E. NY?

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:31 PM

I AM THE PERSON IN THIS PHOTO...

Rest assured, I am not an artist, but rather a community organizer working for an affordable housing non-profit based in Hell's Kitchen.

I am also a resident of Brooklyn... paying more in rent than I'd like to, but certainly a mere fraction of the $4000 on my sign. Landlord greed and market pressures are transforming much of Manhattan (and parts of the outer boroughs) into a veritable playground for the very wealthy who can afford an astronomical 4k monthly price tag.

This photo was taken back in May from the 7,000 person, citywide rally to strengthen NYC's rent laws: http://newyorkisourhome.blogspot.com/

Tossing aside the rather absurd assumptions about "undeserving artists" posted here, New York City's housing crisis is having a devastating impact on our low- and moderate-income neighbors.

Oh... and despite what some here might say, I think that hat suits me just fine for sun-drenched rallies for tenants' rights ;)

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:35 PM

The whole idea that this controversy is the rich vs the middle and low income ("Who will clean your toilets," etc.) is ludicrous and misunderstands the social dynamics of this city.

NYC is full of rich liberals who are fully in favor of all manner of social subsidies, like rent stabilization, because they can afford to be.

The greatest resentment toward these entitlements comes from OTHER middle-income people, who are not lucky enough to have received them, yet directly or indirectly subsidize them. And yet can not afford to hire anyone to watch their kids nor clean their toilets.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:48 PM

Why shouldn't Manhattan be a playground for a wealthy? Beverly Hills is a playground for the wealthy. All of West LA is a playground for the wealthy. The Gold Coast of Chicago is a playground for the wealthy. The 16th Arrondissement is a playground for the wealthy.

New York has four other boroughs. There are other injustices, if you can call this one, far more deserving of public money.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 12:53 PM

"It took sixty years for the price to return to that level."

Wrong. You didn't adjust for inflation.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 1:52 PM

Dabrowski you are right on. I too have relatives living in ML housing throughout the city who all have incomes well above 100K. They also have 2nd homes in really nice places. One aunt, a retired school teacher doesn't even live in her apartment because she is in Florida most of the year and travelling the rest. When they got the apartments they met the middle class guidelines over 20-30 years ago but the recertification process is not based on income like in public housing projects. By the way, teachers and firefighters aren't so bad off once they hit top pay and move up in rank. They make over 100K retire after 20 years and have excellent benefits. Fire Chief and principals make over 120K. The same goes for Cops and CO's and they get a 12,500 check every December, in addition to their pension which is their half pay once retired.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 1:56 PM

community organizer = poverty pimp

In this case, 'closing a loophole' means changing the rules of the game midway through. The developers played by the rules, but now the state is going to change the rules. The 'windfall' a landlord gets when the building opts out of ML was already factored into the price he paid when he bought the building.

Rent regulation is partially responsible for the shortage of housing, along with exclusionary zoning, byzantine buildings regulations, and organized-crime controlled construction industry.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 2:27 PM

I dig the hat.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 2:28 PM

"Rent regulation is partially responsible for... organized-crime controlled construction industry."

From what deep part of your ass did you pull that nugget?

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 2:35 PM

What amazing insight these forums offer. I can now confirm my suspicions about most of the smug, elitist, new arrivals that I have the unfortunate luck of standing shoulder to shoulder with on the F train.

I'm curious: Did that recent Brownstoner survey include how many minutes some of you have lived in this city? Oh wait... that doesn't matter because fat wallet trumps lifelong residency. Right bro'?

I was brought up in Mitchell Lama housing. Ten years in Queens and ten years in the Bronx.
My father was a Teamster back when there was still industry this city. Mitchell Lama housing in the 70's was one of the few options for a middle class fleeing a city that most of you could never imagine.

Beyond incentive to developers, the 20 year opt-out loophole existed because the city believed that, down the line, affordable housing would always exist and be provided for the middle class.
Polyannaish or just plain bullsh*t, the city got it wrong and we're facing a crisis now because of it.

Again, I'm curious: Other than leaving the city, sterilization or pushing them into the river to die, where should a middle class family go?

Bring on those snarky, oh-so-smart answers then go back to your latest issue of Time Out New York.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 3:06 PM

"Again, I'm curious: Other than leaving the city, sterilization or pushing them into the river to die, where should a middle class family go?"

Dyker Heights. Kensington. Jackson Heights. Forest Hills (expensive houses, cheap co-ops). Ditmas Park (ditto).

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 3:19 PM

3.06;

My background is similiar to yours. My father was a Teamster and I was raised in the city (part of my yourth was spent in projects, not M-L). I find your post disturbing. It is backwards-looking in so many ways. It is great material for a Jimmy Breslin type column, but doesn't correspond to the current reality of NYC.

Are you claiming that we natives have some special "right"? Are you claiming that those who are recent arrivals, those whose infusion of talent, enthusiasm and money (read: taxes) in large part revived this city, should have no say in how it is run? Are you saying that these housing programs should be maintained as some type of "entitlement" to the working class from days of yore?

NYC as an industrial city died in the 1970's. No housing entitlement/lottery for a lucky few is going to change this fact. Moreover, I make the assertion that it was indeed the city goverment's inability to adjust with the changing economics/development of the town that hindered its progress. Instead of welcoming new talent and business sectors, it created entitlement programs such as ML: a lottery system for the "woiking stiff", or so they said. As others have mentioned on this board, it degenerated into the way of all lottery entitlement systems: corruption, lying about incomes, etc.

Finally, your hyperbole notwithstanding, there are plenty of places for middle income folks to go in this city, as 3.19 pointed out.

Benson

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 4:10 PM

The rest of the discussion aside can we get off of the tired meme that police, fireman, and teachers are poor. Both my parents were educators. We weren't wealthy but they made decent money. Many teachers, fireman, and police are better paid and have better benefits than people working in the private sector...and no, its not just the chiefs and the principals.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 4:11 PM

"Again, I'm curious: Other than leaving the city, sterilization or pushing them into the river to die, where should a middle class family go?"

Staten Island. Coney Island. Brighton Beach. Canarsie. Ozone Park. Bay Ridge. Ridgewood. Flatlands. Flatbush.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 4:15 PM

ML is a crock of shit. f this socialist bs. move further out until you can afford where you live. freebies are disgusting.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 4:43 PM

I think the issue is that Mitchell-Lama housing, like rent-controlled apartments, benefits many people who may once have had low income but no longer are in that situation. That in turn means that people who really need such housing have to turn to the free market and end up paying through the nose and squashing kids into 1 BR apartments or suffering very long commutes, while Auntie or whoever who has lived in a ML building for 29 years has enough money to buy a second home in Florida and leave the ML apt empty most of the time. Obviously as long as this kind of situation persists, few people are going to support the continued existence of subsidized housing for low income people.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 5:15 PM

I think we should raise the monthly mortgages of owners to coincide with market prices because they're totally fucking everything up. Paying 50k for a Chelsea apartment in 1985 and having be worth 700k now is ruining everyone elses buying power.

stop fuckin up the system.

dur

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 5:15 PM

I am recently retired from the NYPD. Montrose, I usually agree with you but you are incorrect in your accessment that only a small number of officers make over 100K. After five years of service the average officer will make that amount. Officers sometimes make more than their superiors because there is more overtime at their rank. The same holds true for the FDNY and Corrections. My friends who are teachers make even more under their new contract. Take a look in "The Chief Leader" civil service weekly newspaper and you will see what the salaries are. The $12,500 that the poster referred to is called a defined benefit/variable supplement and damned right I earned every penny of it. The problem is that the starting salary for officers in the beginning of their careers is atrocious. Many of them have to live with their parents and some because they are married and have children are actually eligible for food stamps! I collect more in my pension checks than they earn by getting up everyday and putting their lives on the line. Of course the PBA will continue to tout the info about the officers not at top pay who are not the majority because that's what they're supposed to do to get a better contract from the city. Hell, state troopers and Nassau/Suffolk cops get a 89,000 base pay after 3 years! One thing that I am is honest and I can't complain about our salaries when I came in contact with so many people everyday who got up to go to work just like I did, but just could not make ends meet nor did they have health insurance. They worked in city offices, hospitals, bank branches, supeermarkets, etc... So while the finest, boldest and bravest deserve every dime that they get, let's not forget the other working New Yorker's who are really bad off ans stop the pity party for us.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 5:30 PM

dur;

Perhaps you should set the example for us all? Why don't you buy an apartment in Chelsea for $1M, and sell it for the same price 25 years from now?

Benson

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 5:31 PM

There are two major forces increasing market rent in NYC:

1) Serious lack of supply since the majority of apartments in NYC are rent regulated in one way, so the tenants never move.

2) NYC property taxes on rental apartment buildings are absurdly high (approximately 1/3rd of gross rent) not to mention all other cost of doing business in NYC are high.

It's not the landlords who are greedy, as the dude with the hat claims. As long as property taxes are outragously high, like they are on multifamily rental housing in NYC, landlords have no choice but to increase rents as much as possibe, just to catch up.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 5:35 PM

"So while the finest, boldest and bravest deserve every dime that they get, let's not forget the other working New Yorker's who are really bad off ans stop the pity party for us."

Wow...honesty and reason from NYPD! Who'd a thunk it??!??

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 5:40 PM

Right as always, Montrose Morris.

Back in the 60's, NYC was going to hell and Mitchell Lama housing was one of the few options for moderate income people to stay in town. The buildings were big and plain, but the apartments were often family-sized, and a refuge for people who were committed to staying in the city while many others fled town. Teachers, civil servants, police officers, teamsters, and white-collar workers made them home, often in unsafe urban renewal districts, raising kids, contributing taxes, and helping to keep the city alive. (I know, because several of my friends lived in these buildings.) Walking around them today, I see lots of people (now often black, brown, and yellow) doing the same. If the neighborhoods around them have improved, it's because these developments have helped make them viable. (Think of University Terrace in Clinton Hill, Lindsay Park in Williamsburg, and the great union-sponsored projects in the Lower East Side and Chelsea.) The problem now: the developments are victims of their own success, their surrounding "gentrifying" neighborhoods encouraging developers (and co-op owners) to opt out of the program and go fair-market. Too bad some hefty flip tax isn't applied to help support construction of new affordable housing, as desperately needed today as it was when I was growing up.
Nostalgic on Park Avenue

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:12 PM

6.12;

Your limousine is waiting.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:17 PM

6.17:
Today is Wilson's day off.
NOP

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:25 PM

Montrose;

Your sermon at 6.15 PM encapsulates your philosophy. All life is luck of a draw, eh? What's the point of trying to set up a system that rewards initiative, thrift, creativity, etc? Don't bother, life is just so unfair, we need compassionate folks like yourself to help us rig our way into a lottery/entitlement.

Sorry, I'm not buying it. This is exactly the philosophy that led NYC to ruins 40 years ago. Every time someone points out the corruption that results from these housing lotteries, your best defense always lies along the "everyone is doing it" , and "life isn't fair" lines. While this class-based cynicism has its appeal to some, it is a recipe for the absurd market that is NYC housing, a market in which price signals are totally distorted. You keep your head in the sand and ignore the fact that all other big cities have gotten rid of rent control (see Boston) and/or are transforming their projects to those that reward responsibility.

Keep trying. There's got to be some true believers out there.

Benson

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:29 PM

Benson, why are employed, tax-paying, family-raising residents of Mitchell-Lama housing (past and present)irresponsible? Why are retired, still tax-paying, fixed-income residents irresponsible? Since when is responsibility tied only to the price one can afford to pay for housing?
NOP

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:39 PM

NOP;

How about this as a definition of irresponsibility: paying only part of the bill, and sticking someone else with the rest? Moreover, it is irresponsible because they are paying only a share of a bill due to the fact that they prefer to live somewhere, rather than live where they can afford to on their own.

How about the notion of thrift, or put another way, living within your means? Mitchell-Lama is a perversion of these values. It incentivizes folks to lie about their income, to feel entitled, to put their hand out to the taxpayer. It treats as a shmuck someone who looks for a house in a neighborhood that they can afford, rather than one they feel they're "entitled" to live in.

benson

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:46 PM

Even when older members of the wolf pack die off the caves are not empty. Case in point, My ML mooching aunt put her grandson on her lease years ago. He will have the right to sucession of her apartment, a three bedroom by the way. He wants to go to NYU for grad school and will no doubt assume the main tenant position on the lease at that time. Mitchell Lama, Rent Control and Rent Stablization may have served a purpose at some point but it is high time for it all to end. I am no economist but if all of the apartments were deregulated wouldn't the availability of affordable places increase ?If people did not hold on to cheap apartments as second homes, or pass them down to their kids this and other factors would then increase the supply and market rate on rentals would be a little cheaper across the board.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 6:55 PM

Benson:
Then you'll agree that mortgage deductions should end; churches and universities should pay full property taxes; and people with grown children should stop paying taxes for parents with school-age kids -- hand outs, all.
NOP

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 7:00 PM

its pretty lucky for anyone who bought before 2000.

NYC is filled with lucky people who play their cards at the right time.

just because you didnt doesnt mean you have to ruin the party. Everyone always bitches about bitter renters. Talk about bitter buyers and renters who complain too much.

people live in rent stab apartments.

deal with it

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 7:22 PM

Sickening to see the ugliness behind those prettied-up brownstone facades. Mark my words: Every one of you greed-crazed landlords (not the nice landlords, you are exempt) who post on this site will have done to you exactly what you are gloating over doing to other people with less money than you have. Your Wall Street investments will be wiped out, your properties will become worthless, you will not be able to pay your mortgages, and you will have no renters left to exploit. That's what all this rage is really about: It's the slowly dawning awareness that you cannot keep going up into the economic stratosphere forever. Power like the kind you have accumulated can flip in an instant. My friends: You are going down.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 7:23 PM

Montrose:

"Do we ask brownstone owners who bought thirty years ago for less than $100K, to sell, because it's "not fair" that they got (now)cheap houses? Them's the breaks."

And if your M-L goes market legally, like Starrett City, them's the breaks, too. I guess you don't have a problem with that.

Benson's right -- once you back off (or can't come up with) a moral argument and fall back on, "It's legal, therefore, it is acceptable," you have just justified all the things you usually deplore here in open-market housing.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 7:24 PM

"Every one of you greed-crazed landlords (not the nice landlords, you are exempt) who post on this site will have done to you exactly what you are gloating over doing to other people with less money than you have. Your Wall Street investments will be wiped out, your properties will become worthless..."

The market will crash, but only for properties owned by bad people?

rotflmao

i am rich

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:26 PM

NOP;

I will answer your questions below, just so as to not seem evasive. Let me state up front, however, that your questions demonstrate that you miss the fundamental point.

Whatever the arguments for or against the subsidies you mention (mortgage interest deductions, public schools and property tax exemptions for churches, there is a huge difference between them and Mitchell Lama housing: THEY ARE OPEN TO ALL. The Mitchell Lama program is nothing more than a CLOSED lottery system that is funded by the taxpayer. Moreover, this closed lottery system promotes all the negative values associated with such systems. It rewards the liar, the insider, the union crony, the corrupt (you don't believe that people pay bribes to move up on the list?). They promote a sense of entitlement. Aunt "Mimi" feels that she is "entitled" to her second 3BR apartment when she visits NY from Florida. After all, she's "entitled" because she was once "poor".

As to your specific questions:

-mortgage interest deduction: I don't support it. It should be eliminated. It is nothing more than a handout, as you state.

-property tax exemption for churches. I support it. We have a separation church and state in this country: let's keep it that way. I don't want government using its power of the tax to tilt the playing field for particular churches.

-public funding of education. I support it (though I would prefer vouchers). Education is the TRUE way to promote social mobility, as opposed to these rigged lotteries known as Mitchell-Lama and the projects.

Benson

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 9:52 PM

very bad things happen when economic profit is someone's only goal.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:07 PM

Thank you Benson for being a constant voice of reason among the sea of limousine liberals

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:14 PM

haha, anyone notice the irony in the Oro advertisement on this page for an art exhibition to "celebrate" Brooklyn-based artists? all you developers in Brooklyn's hottest neighborhoods have one group of people to thank for your success: the ones whose presence make neighborhoods desirable, the very artists you ridicule here. thanks for the celebration and congratulations on your cash.

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:15 PM

Benson, Benson, Benson:

As if Mitchell Lama is the only "closed" or "rigged" system!

I notice you don't include tax-exempt universities in your reply, perhaps because you've been reading the newspaper stories that even within so-called "public" universities 80% of the places go to applicants from the top 20% in household income, leaving kids from the bottom 80% to scramble for that 20% of leftover spaces, even as their parents pay taxes to support the education of richer kids. (And let's not even touch the tax-exempt Ivy League, targeted from pre-school by affluent parents who pay and pay and pay to "tilt" the admissions process in their tykes' favor.)

And are Mitchell Lama residents the only people in this town with senses of entitlement? What about our CEOs with their enormous payouts irrespective of performance, also much covered in the press? These are the folks negotiating (and getting) fat tax exemptions to keep their companies in town and riding off with bushels of cash from the "little" stockholder.

The anger directed at Mitchell Lama residents is misplaced. There's more widespread, costly, and deeper cronyism and malfeasance almost anywhere else you might care to look. Abuses in housing developments? Sure, crack down. But there are bigger systemic problems whose correction might help pierce the bubble of bitterness so much displayed on this site.

Now I'm going to have a nightcap. Perhaps, Benson, we'll meet again on Brownstoner.

Nostalgic on Park Avenue

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:45 PM

10:14:
We call them cars, not limousines.
NOP

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:47 PM

NOP;

Like Montrose, you can't state a postive rationale for Mitchell-Lama. And so, you fall back to class-based cynicsm: a combination of "everyone is corrupt" and "life is unfair".

Great way to build a society: pure cynicism.

Enjoy the nightcap!

Benson

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 10:54 PM

Benson:

Please re-read the following:

"Abuses in housing developments? Sure, crack down. But there are bigger systemic problems whose correction might help pierce the bubble of bitterness so much displayed on this site."

The paragraph calls for:
1) Cracking down on Mitchell Lama abuses.
2) Correcting bigger abuses to help relieve some of the bitterness people feel.

Inelegantly written, I'll admit. But not cynical.

NOP

Posted by: guest at November 26, 2007 11:10 PM

9:26,

"i am rich" ?

Please tell me that's a reference to your first name
and not a comment on your wealth because that would
be sort of, you know, piglike, no?

Posted by: guest at November 27, 2007 8:55 AM

10.45, you've got it upside down. The affluent parents pay to tilt their progeny's profile to the admissions requirement, not vice versa. Unless you are suggesting the parents regularly bribe the admissions committee or something.

Posted by: guest at November 27, 2007 9:04 AM

9:04:
Affluent parents pay for the tuitions, test prepping, and coaching that give their kids an unfair advantage over equallly bright ones who can't afford it, and that's not fair. And bribery takes many different forms: contributions to colleges in advance of their children's applications; gifts (and threats) to teachers for recommendations (read the newspapers about the prep-school teacher in Riverdale who was fired for writing about it); and service on committees and boards that greases the wheels admissions time. (I saw plenty of this during my college and graduate-school years; there were even kids who had been registered at birth!) As Lani Guinier at Harvard writes, instead of filling out applications, kids should just send in their parents' tax returns (or better yet, their grand parents' tax returns).
NOP

Posted by: guest at November 27, 2007 9:36 AM