op-ed: mayor de blasio continues push for zoning reform efforts to increase housing affordability

In New York City, Mayor Bill be Blasio is proposing major city zoning reform as a measure to protect and build affordable housing for Brooklynites. The proposal, the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and Zoning for Quality and Affordability, aims to dismantle the “Tale of Two Cities”, i.e. the availability of affordable housing for lower income New York residence. The policy lays out requirement that developers build 25 to 30% of all new units for affordability in exchange for being allowed to build taller buildings.

While many are supportive of the intention of de Blasio’s proposal, like Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, many fear the measure will only serve to hasten the gentrification processes and further marginalization of minorities who are being pushed to the edges of city limits, or out of the city altogether. President Adams, for example, has expressed specific demands to refine areas of the proposals that, if not smoothed over, could give way to more housing discrimination. Some of these measures include making sure that affordable housing units are permanently affordable, anti-displacement measures, ensuring the hiring of locals for construction, retail, and manufacturing jobs needed to complete the proposal, and placing significant emphasis on creating housing for low and very low income families. In 2011, Chinatown and Lower East Side residence, with help from the Pratt Center for Community Development created a rezoning plan of their own that they now request Mayor de Blasio revisits instead.

The very real crisis of housing affordability in New York in something both residence and the administration agree on, but is it possible to build and preserve affordable housing without there being a trade-off? Is such a compromise tenable? And is taking some measures better than taking none at all? Let us know what you think in the comments.

By Erin White*, AFROPUNK contributor

Caption: Protestors demonstrating outside of Gracie Mansion last December.
Photo: Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News

*Erin White is AFROPUNK’s editorial and social media assistant. You can follow her on Tumblr or friend her on Facebook. Have a pitch or an inquiry? Shoot her an email at erin@afropunk.com.