New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing policy as fuel for gentrification Wednesday, but experts raised questions about his own plan for affordable housing.
“This is a broken system. But instead of fixing it, we keep doubling down because we’re told this is the best we can do,” Stringer said. “I refuse to accept that.”
Stringer called for an expanded affordable housing mandate that would cover all new developments — even those without government subsidy or additional height to build more market-rate units.
Additionally, he demanded an end the state’s controversial 421a policy that provides developers with massive property tax breaks for including affordable units in their developments.
He said the change would provide up to $1.6 billion in new revenue for the city’s affordable housing program.
“The economics of it are challenging,” said Sean Campion, a top analyst with the Citizens Budget Commission.
“The inequities of the property tax system are such that it is nearly impossible to build rental buildings because of the tax rates.”
Rental buildings are taxed at more than twice the rate as individual homeowners, making it difficult to finance projects without assistance, Campion added.
Throughout the speech, Stringer repeatedly ripped de Blasio’s housing plan for focusing too much on preserving and building housing for working-class and middle-class New Yorkers, instead of the city’s poorest residents.
“This is not affordable housing people. It’s a gentrification industrial complex,” Stringer blistered.
“They said that it was already too late to try and make these neighborhoods more affordable — that it was futile to even try.”
Stringer’s missive was aimed at both major planks of de Blasio’s housing platform — controversial upzonings and the city’s massive investment program that partners with developers to directly subsidize the creation and preservation of rent-stabilized housing.
Critics, including Stringer, blame upzonings for fueling gentrification by allowing developers to build larger buildings in neighborhoods, even though a portion of the new facilities must be set for affordable housing.
And Stringer has fiercely criticized the investment program for focusing its resources on preserving housing with rents that working-class and middle New Yorkers can afford, instead of on apartments for poorer New Yorkers.
However, Stringer’s own office found in November 2018 that realigning the program to better reflect the Comptroller’s priorities would cause the program’s price tag to balloon from $2.5 billion to $4 billion.
City Hall fired back late Wednesday in a missive that accused Stringer of hypocrisy on affordable housing, pointing out that he opposed redeveloping the Elizabeth Street Garden into an affordable housing complex for seniors.
“We understand the Comptroller is looking for his next job, but actions speak louder than words: opposing affordable homes for seniors in downtown Manhattan and releasing reports where the math doesn’t add up make it clear his vision is nothing more than talking points,” said top de Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein.
