He also doesn’t believe it’s an accident that the city is targeting specific neighborhoods for IZ, “in areas like Central Harlem, the Lower East Side, and in the Bronx … areas that are diverse, low- and middle-income and low-scale…areas that aren’t yet as gentrified so that they can build much larger buildings, 80 percent of which are high income.”
And DePaolo voiced concern that with all of the city-spurred development and thus extra housing capacity, we “may just hit” a 5 percent vacancy rate. As currently written, rent regulations could be nullified if that five percent threshold were reached.
That’s a concern Lander dismissed. “If the [projected] immigration rates and the growth rates are close to true, the likelihood of meeting the vacancy rate…there’s fundamentally no chance.”
Furthermore, DePaolo expressed skepticism about the permanency of the affordable units and questioned who would be in charge of their oversight. Lander conceded enforcement is “notoriously difficult” and that it would be “incumbent on HPD and involved not-for-profits to maintain the affordability.”
Both men agree, however, that creating affordable units through inclusionary zoning is not enough to fulfill the need for cheaper housing. Said Lander, “We still need rent regulations, that’s fundamental.”
DePaolo insisted the city must adopt a “multilayered” approach that ensures the protection of Section 8 and Mitchell-Lama housing programs; fights for the repeal of the Urstadt Law that cramps the city’s ability to make its own rent regulations; and cracks down on warehousing of low- and middle-income units by landlords. “We need more reforms to be made before rezoning takes place to preserve existing affordable housing,” he said.
Queens native Paul Graziano says his borough does need tools to keep the working and middle classes housed there. “In principle, inclusionary zoning is a great thing,” said Graziano, an independent urban planning consultant who successfully designed many of the recent down-zoning plans in the borough, including in Whitestone, Bayside, and College Point.
“Queens is better off [economically] than some boroughs—it’s traditionally across the board solidly middle-income, with an 8 to 9 percent poverty rate. Even with its revival, Brooklyn has a 25 percent poverty rate…and [is increasingly about] the haves and the have-nots,” he noted.
Of inclusionary zoning, Graziano added, “Is it a first step? Yes. It’s about time the city acknowledged the problem. But is it a correct acknowledgment? The idea that the more you build, the more the market will balance is not correct and it’s never been proved. The off-site [component] is the biggest problem with IZ. Mixed income, economically stratified neighborhoods tend to be the most successful,” he said, and Queens historically has had those in abundance.
