dismissal of the issue as a \u201choax\u201d<\/a> and a \u201cDemocrat scam,\u201d although not altogether baseless, missed the larger issue. \u201cAffordable,\u201d as Merriam-Webster defines it, means simply \u201cable to be afforded.\u201d<\/p>\nBy that definition \u2014 the one that matters in the real world \u2014 New York City has objectively enjoyed great success in creating new rental apartments for the kinds of people I want as my neighbors.<\/p>\n
NYU professor of urban policy and planning Mitchell L. Moss notes \u201caffordable\u201d once applied to \u201chousing that middle-income households can afford.\u201d Now the term is in service of the agenda to put up street thugs and lunatics at developers\u2019 and taxpayers\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n
An astounding 331,430 new homes \u2014 the vast majority priced for middle-income tenants \u2014 were created in the five boroughs during three different mayoral administrations from 2010 through 2024, per the Department of City Planning. Rezonings, tax incentives and office-building conversions spurred the trend, which New Yorkers not flush enough for Billionaires\u2019 Row but able to afford normal market rents embraced.<\/p>\n
Many new projects include units that are \u201caffordable\u201d in a different, reasonable sense of the word: that is, priced lower than market-rate for law-abiding working people, some holding more than one job to make ends meet. That\u2019s a laudable aspect of the phenomenon \u2014 although Mamdani\u2019s heart is not with them but with derelicts and lawbreakers he calls merely \u201chomeless.\u201d<\/p>\n
But overlooked in coverage of the relatively few bargain-priced units is that at least 75% of the new units were snatched up at market rates. That\u2019s cause for celebration but entirely elided by leftist housing \u201cadvocates,\u201d for whom no number or percentage of low-priced apartments in any given project is ever enough.<\/p>\n
Whole new skylines have popped up in Long Island City and Hunter\u2019s Point in Queens, in Downtown Brooklyn, in Gowanus and on Coney Island\u2019s Surf Avenue and along the Harlem River in The Bronx.<\/p>\n
Moss tells The Post: \u201cWhat makes New York City different from other cities is the speed with which we have created entirely new residential enclaves in old industrial corridors like Long Island City, Greenpoint, the South Bronx, Bed-Stuy, as well as in what was once Hell\u2019s Kitchen on the west side of Manhattan and in Sunset Park and Red Hook.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new residences sprang up even before the Adams administration\u2019s \u201cCity of Yes\u201d initiatives that will dramatically accelerate residential growth \u2014 up to 100,000 more apartments over the next five years, according to city planners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe we will see a dramatic increase in affordable residential units just by removing needless obstacles to small-scale housing,\u201d Moss says. Among them, Adams\u2019 team managed to reduce the City Council\u2019s leverage in housing affairs, so a single member\u2019s \u201cno\u201d vote can no longer kill a plan that needs even the least city approval.<\/p>\n
Development that suits the needs of middle-income New Yorkers is typified at the Monarch, a 24-story rental building at 163-05 Archer Ave. in Jamaica, Queens. The tower, a short stroll to the LIRR station, has 605 apartments. Some 182 are earmarked for people earning between 80% and 130% of median area income.<\/p>\n
But 70% of the apartments rent at higher market rates \u2014 which multiplied by the hundreds of new buildings with similar rent structures translates into many thousands of new homes for middle-class tenants in all five boroughs.<\/p>\n
But Mamdani, like most leftist ideologues, hates \u201cgentrification,\u201d which they regard as uprooting of lower-income people (which almost never happens) for \u201cthe rich.\u201d An essay in the Harlem View blog, for example, said Jamaica\u2019s ongoing transformation \u201cstirs fear that Jamaica\u2019s longstanding cultural and small-business identity is at risk of fading.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the obverse perception is that it brings job-holding taxpayers and the benefits of family life to neighborhoods previously given over to criminals, drug dealers and empty storefronts.<\/p>\n
The Monarch, developed by black-owned BRP Companies, boasts a fitness center, golf simulators, pickleball courts, rooftop lounge and dog run. A close friend of mine moved there from the Upper East Side. Her French bulldog has room to run, and her windows look down on a neighborhood revitalized beyond anyone\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n
This is what \u201caffordable\u201d housing should mean \u2014 not that Zohran Mamdani is likely to understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met last week with real-estate-industry leaders, he said, to discuss \u201cthe importance of us reducing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[433,9,11,10,299,11831,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-70754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-postscript","14":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}