Commentator Balks at Mayor's Housing Plan
Arguing that Bloomberg’s affordable housing plan will in effect increase housing costs for middle-income New Yorkers, Nicole Gelinas, of the Manhattan Institute, outlines the theory that regulating prices acuses supply to become restricted. The result? Housing becomes more valuable and prices rise for living space still on the free market. She also makes the generalized…
Arguing that Bloomberg’s affordable housing plan will in effect increase housing costs for middle-income New Yorkers, Nicole Gelinas, of the Manhattan Institute, outlines the theory that regulating prices acuses supply to become restricted. The result? Housing becomes more valuable and prices rise for living space still on the free market. She also makes the generalized argument that rent stabilization leads to the deteriorization of housing conditions by depriving landlords of revenue needed for upkeep, forcing them to cut corners. Granted, some single mothers may not be able to afford their apartments without government regulations, she says, but that’s “a problem of the dysfunctional underclass.”
Bloomberg’s Housing Horror [NY Post]
We have had this discussion Arsenic, but it’s an onging discussion. Until rent stabilization is phased out by “high” rent decontrol (say, 10-15 years from now), we won’t get to see supply and demand in full effect in the five boroughs.
Until then, we have to keep building mixed-income housing that has a twilight clause built in so that we will be able to see the grand experiment in fulll effect eventually.
Didn’t we just have this discussion?
http://brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2006/07/bushwicker_make.html
You’re right, Mateo- the misspelled Crownheightsprowd is not the real CHP- just a cheap wannabe.
Nicole Gelinas always writes like a second tier Ann Coulter. Neither is good anyway- just very good at poorly thought out, ideological verbiage. And when that doesn’t work- go for the insults. What many people forget is that many of the laws and regulations were written in response to abuses and needs. It’s piecemeal of course, and an administrative nightmare, but for the most part laws were enacted in response to things. So while Gelinas may think the free market will improve things, past experience has taught us over and over that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Give developers and landlords a completely free market and rents will skyrocket while a glut of expensive living spaces will sit empty because there won’t be enough people who can afford to rent or buy them. But that’s the quality of the thinking at the Post and the Manhattan Institute. Anyone who can blithely write off poor and lower income people as the “dysfunctional underclass” needs a serious reality check. And an education.
I’m not surprised by your response, CH Proud. As expected, you talk a good game on these boards, but when it comes to sacrificing your own profit margin, you conveniently dodge the issue.
Typical, and it shows where your heart truly lies.
There’s crownheightsproUd and crownheightsproWd.
As far as the article goes, it’s unclear who Gelinas wants you to feel sorry for.
The landlords? Well, if you’re supposed to feel sorry for them, then they shouldn’t take the freebies and the discounts they receive when they OPT INTO the program.
The tenants? I suppose you could argue that it creates a little bit of a luck system, but the idea that there does exist affordable housing doesn’t seem to be an overall negative from tenant’s perspective. Also, her whole the landlord will run the place into the ground argument doesn’t work in the case of mixed-income housing. Unless she thinks that some floors or some wings will be designated subsidized and other floors or wings will be open market and the landlord will just let the subdizied floors/wings go to pot. Except that doesn’t make any sense.
Right-wing idealogues? Ah. Now we have a constituency. They hate anything that “interferes” with the market, even if it’s completely optional (which they’ll argue for in lieu of mandatory regs) and the facts of the matter be damned.
Terrible piece. Trying to cram ideology into a fact pattern that doesn’t support it.
Is it me, or does it appear that the posts attributed to CHP are not really from her?
I must say I’m quite surprised to read so many thoughtful posts about the city’s rent protection laws. Usually it’s just rants about how unfair the system is and the specious argument that abolishing rent protection would somehow make NYC apartment prices go down.
In a building I lived in, there were 33 rent-controlled tenants (this was under the loft law, and rents were frozen until owner obtained residential CofO). There were also two commercial tenants in this building. The landlord made so much money on this building that he earned the entire purchase price back in less than two years. And, after the tenants waited for 12 years for repairs, we stopped paying our rent completely. And guess what? The landlord still made money every year, because of those two commercial tenants.
If rent-stabilized landlords are hurting so much, they should produce just one–just one!–landlord willing to open his/her books and prove it.
Ah, CrownHeightsProwd, if that’s all you got, put your pea shooter away, and go home. The adults are talking here.
Bx2B, good point about the rent stablized tenants in large lux buildings. You are right, giving them the boot may help their landlord, and the person lusting after their apartment, but does absolutely nothing about solving the problems of affordable housing in New York. It just makes good press and anecdotal fodder for right wing commentators.
Ah, an Ann Coulter wannabe without the benefit of plastic surgery and peroxide. I have been a rent stabilized tenant and without it I would probably be living in Podunk right now. Yes there are people who abuse the system, but as far as rent control, Ms. Gelina seems to forget that the biggest complaints are about all those rich people who live in huge 10 room apartments and have no kids. Moving them out (by now most of them are quite elderly) would not be for the sake of opening up more affordable apartments, but rather more luxury housing- so the rich and the landlords have the most benefit. Ms. Gelinas suffers from the “money can buy you anything syndrome.” Alas- it doesn’t buy you a life or brains.
The other side of the coin is that the City pays through the nose for much of its subsidized housing because there are landlords who also abuse the system. And break the law by not keeping buildings up to code and safe. It’s a vicious cycle, but there is no excuse- none- for allowing a building to fall down around its tenants and then complain they don’t pay you enough rent. I doubt Ms. Gelinas has ever set foot in a tenement building and seen first hand the terrible conditions poor people are often forced to live in. No- I think she doesn’t have time between the Institute and the spa. To actually blame tenants for a landlord’s irresponsibility is outrageous. If a landlord is not making money he should get out of the business. If he will not assume the responsibility of being a landlord, he has no right being one. The rent stabilized building I lived in for many years was always well-maintained and the landlady insisted it be so. Because that’s the way she does business. And she holds quite a few properties- all of them kept up. Trust me- she is not starving.
And speaking of dysfunctional, what else can you call the kind of ultra right-wing conservative thinking Gelinas and the Manhattan Institute indulge in? I think we can all agree the system is flawed and that there is enough blame for both sides. But let developers have free rein? That’s a mistake that will create only luxury housing and enormous hi-rises while taking subsidies for and breaking their promises to build affordable housing. It’s already happening. Gelinas makes the mistake of thinking the City will survive and prosper with just the rich. Which tells me she neither understands the mechanisms by which Cities exist, nor the importance of the interrelationships between all sectors.
I think the ultra right would love to make NYC into the world’s largest gated community, where they don’t have to sully their delicate sensibilites by seeing the poor and unfortunate, industry or real life.