{"id":323959,"date":"2026-08-18T12:32:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/323959\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T12:32:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:32:57","slug":"a-housing-fight-new-york-doesnt-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/323959\/","title":{"rendered":"A Housing Fight New York Doesn\u2019t Need"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all of New York\u2019s political divisions, there is broad recognition that the city is dealing with a serious housing problem. In the most recent housing survey, the rental vacancy rate fell to just 1.4 percent, its lowest in nearly six decades. New Yorkers who agree on little else increasingly recognize that the city must build more. Last year, voters approved charter changes<\/a> designed to make some forms of housing easier to approve\u2014including measures that removed the council\u2019s vote for certain affordable-housing projects.<\/p>\n

That broad agreement is worth remembering as the city council considers Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s pick to chair a key city land-use board. What should be a straightforward appointment of a veteran housing-policy official, however, has instead become something of a culture war in New York\u2019s long-running fight over housing development. It shouldn\u2019t be. The council and voters have already settled the issues that John Mangin\u2019s opponents are now holding against him. His nomination should be judged based on whether he is qualified to carry out the policies that the city has already chosen. He clearly is.<\/p>\n

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A Yale Law School graduate and current director of the Housing Division at the Department of City Planning, Mangin was nominated<\/a> by Mamdani in June to chair the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA), a five-member body that rules on zoning variances, special permits, and other development-related matters. Mangin has spent more than a decade working on major city housing policies and recently served as director of policy and research for the 2025 Charter Revision Commission.<\/p>\n

Resentment over his work on that commission partly explains why his nomination has drawn resistance. The commission\u2019s ballot measures effectively curtailed \u201cmember deference\u201d\u2014the informal custom by which the council defers to a local member looking to block projects in his or her district\u2014precisely so that one member could no longer stymie housing proposals. These amendments created expedited approval processes that removed the council\u2019s vote. Some members representing low-density districts may also resent \u201cCity of Yes,\u201d the 2024 citywide zoning plan that Mangin helped spearhead at the Department of City Planning\u2014though a council majority approved that plan.<\/p>\n

Mangin\u2019s past academic writing has provided another line of attack<\/a>. Critics have highlighted passages from his law-review articles to characterize him as too dismissive of neighborhood concerns about new development. However, his broader arguments are far more conventional among city planners\u2014and more nuanced\u2014than his critics suggest.<\/p>\n

Mangin\u2019s basic contention in those articles is that when high-demand neighborhoods fail to supply enough housing, wealthier newcomers don\u2019t just go away. Rather, they compete for existing homes, often by bidding up prices in nearby, less expensive neighborhoods. Adding new housing\u2014even market-rate housing\u2014can therefore reduce pressure on older housing and help lower-income residents remain in their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

A growing body of research supports this view. For example, a recent review<\/a> by NYU\u2019s Vicki Been, former deputy mayor for housing under Mayor Bill de Blasio, and her colleagues found that new housing construction does not increase displacement of lower-income households. Instead, it frees up units across the income spectrum and gives higher-income households alternatives to the older housing they might otherwise bid away from lower-income residents. This doesn\u2019t eliminate the need to build housing for low-income New Yorkers, but it does explain how building market-rate apartments can ease pressure elsewhere in the market.<\/p>\n

Mangin\u2019s writing is also more sympathetic to neighborhood concerns than his critics acknowledge. In a 2014 law-review article<\/a>, he argues that preserving buildings does not necessarily preserve the people who live in those buildings. In a desirable neighborhood with a fixed housing supply, increased demand can price out longtime residents. In a 2018 article<\/a>, Mangin urged policymakers to \u201cassuage opposition [to new development], rather than attempting to overpower it,\u201d noting that communities are more likely to accept growth when residents see tangible benefits from it.<\/p>\n

Though council members are entitled to ask how Mangin would interpret the BSA\u2019s legal standards, it is worth noting that the board\u2019s role is narrower than the controversy might suggest. Its commissioners decide<\/a> specific applications under standards established by law; they do not draft the city\u2019s housing policies. The BSA\u2019s voter-approved fast-track process, meantime, applies only to eligible publicly financed affordable-housing projects.<\/p>\n

The council should not use Mangin\u2019s nomination as an opportunity to relitigate or settle scores over zoning changes and charter amendments that both it and voters have already approved. The BSA needs a chair who understands New York\u2019s complicated land-use rules and will exercise good judgment in applying the law. Mangin is a strong fit on both counts.<\/p>\n

New York has plenty of housing fights ahead. John Mangin\u2019s confirmation should not be one of them.<\/p>\n

John Ketcham<\/a> is the director of cities at Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Eric Kober<\/a> is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n

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