The New 421-a Legislation in Graphic Form
On Tuesday, The New York Observer got its hands on (via the Pratt Center) the map of the proposed 421-a expansion that is waiting for Governor Spitzer’s signature. The maroon areas are exclusion zones that have been around since the 1980s; the rust-colored zones include parts of Brownstone and North Brooklyn that were added last…
On Tuesday, The New York Observer got its hands on (via the Pratt Center) the map of the proposed 421-a expansion that is waiting for Governor Spitzer’s signature. The maroon areas are exclusion zones that have been around since the 1980s; the rust-colored zones include parts of Brownstone and North Brooklyn that were added last December; the mustard-colored zones are the ones about to be added. Any surprises?
Introducing the Full-Color, Five-Borough Tax Break [NY Observer]
The 421-a Map Emerges–Shocker? [AY Report]
State Raises Affordable Housing Bar for 421-a Bill [Brownstoner]
Everyone talks about housing the poor, but there are other, cheaper alternatives out there. Remember that old punk tune, “Kill the Poor:”
“The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight”
This is actually not as difficult as it sounds. Leverage the urban warfare experience our troops are gaining in the Bagdad surge and redeploy them in brownstone Brooklyn!
This is probably the best, most realistic solution for getting out of Iraq, too, as it allows the President to save face by pointing out that, while we lost the war on terror, we could quickly claim victory in the war on poverty. Truly a win-win for all involved!
To 1:49 “Do you realize how expensive it would be to manage the planning of luxury apts with low income apts? do you really think it’s only because they assume the rich owners don’t want to live on top of the low income owners/tenants?”
Yes, but that is what Ratner promised and Acorn publicized when it was paid to support him. This was used to sway public opinion towards the project. He got what he wanted so he should live up to his part of the bargain.
Based on what I saw during the summer of 2005 in Paris, I would say your gushing view of “Europe” is unfounded. Putting housing projects (please, don’t say “low income housing” like it means something different, were smart cookies here) in middle class neighborhoods only serves to bring yet more areas down. Sheepshead bay has NYCHA, and from what I can see, being surrounded by middle-class hasn’t changed their views a bit.
How come no one here talks about housing for the middle class? Oh, right, becuase that’s not sexy.
Also, European poverty is different than “American” poverty. Europe has no where near the level of gun crime or drug trafficking. Nor do they have such wonderful concepts like “Stop Snitching”. There’s probably more shootings in one NYPD precenit that in the whole of Paris in a year.
Wanna solve poverty? Give people some good schools, healthcare, and a job. That’s what we should take from Europe.
11:29 … wait a second … so having low income housing as part of a project is not enough? “you” really also need them to be ? Are you going to tell them what color the walls should be, how many windows it has to have? “You” people have gone c r a z y. Do you realize how expensive it would be to manage the planning of luxury apts with low income apts? do you really think it’s only because they assume the rich owners don’t want to live on top of the low income owners/tenants?
Anon 11:31 & crouchback,
Europe is not a monolithic entity. Paris used the same city planing theory as New York did in the Robert Moses era.
Also, the Northern European model would allow for something like Ratner’s plan. The way they build a neighborhood is by placing a k12 school, a supermarket, and any shopping and light industry in the center along with the middle income co-ops and lower income public housing. They then surround that neighborhood core with low density higher income housing. This whole neighborhood falls within a 1km^2 footprint. The idea is that everyone walks to the center so there are always people on the street in the lower income section and the outer ring with the money has an interest in keeping the center safe and clean because their kids walk there every morning and afternoon, and they walk there for their at least some of their shopping. The supermarket has parking, but is still walkable when you just need the ingredients for a cake or whatever.
There is no explicit income balancing within a building+, this is something that makes more sense in NYC simply because the buildings themselves are bigger. But the idea behind the Northern European school of city planning is to balance incomes on the neighborhood level and encourage there to be adults on the street in the higher density core of the neighborhood.
+There is some, simply because unions build most of the co-ops. Unlike the US, both lower and middle management and the workers are in the same union.
This neighborhood plan came about after failed experiments with Robert Moses type planning, and similar neighborhood planning with larger ‘neighborhood’ sizes. They are probably trying different things these days that I’m not aware of. Atlanta might due well to adopt this plan directly (although I think they are not allowed to by a state law.)
In NYC, spreading income levels so that people at different levels interact with each other on an everyday basis as peers is a much tougher nut to crack. We already live in a much more built up environment, and the building code and zoning are already too cumbersome. We will hopefully come up with solutions and these Northern European countries will be taking lessons from us someday when their metro areas contain 20+ million people and extensive existing housing problems.
Well, did you ever think that they could mix the 2 populations and be able to sell ‘luxury condos’ With the cesspool of traffic fumes and congestion at that intersection the whole thing is pretty ridiculous. No one wants to live on top of Madison Square Garden, I think they have their work cut out for them. Doubtless they will connive their way into segregating the ‘affordable’ parts offsite, or just forget about them. Believe me it a ‘done deal’
The 11:29 post was mine.
^^^Indeed, all those ethnic minorities that live in the Paris suburbs are just living it up.
Here is one tidbit from the NY Observer article that had me laughing uncontrollably. I have a feeling the folks at ACORN may not be happy about this:
“One provision permits Atlantic Yards, a 22-acre development in central Brooklyn, to receive tax abatements on all of its residential buildings so long as the overall percentage of low-income apartments in the proposed 6,400-unit complex reaches 20 percent. Steve Spinola, the president of REBNY, said that he advocated in favor of the clause because it was similar to a recent rezoning in Greenpoint-Williamsburg which allowed developers to put the low-income units in a separate but adjacent building and still receive the tax break.”
Basically, Ratner gets to segregate the rich owners from the poor owners and still receive a $100 million dollar tax break. Brilliant!