Fluctuations in the New York housing market may have some renters worried about losing their city-subsidized homes. But proposed changes in affordable housing law may soon give them hope.
An amendment proposed in February would allow participants in the city’s Inclusionary Housing Program to purchase the units they live in, making affordable home ownership an option for many for the first time. Currently, the IHP—a New York City program established in 1987 to provide affordable housing to the city’s highest-density districts—applies only to rental units. Allowing low- and middle- income families to own their homes could provide them with more stability in the face of a volatile real estate market. But the amendment is meeting mixed reviews across the city, as some housing experts question the motivation behind the proposal.
“Home ownership is an important stabilizing force in a community,” New York City Planning Commissioner Amanda M. Burden said in a February press release announcing the amendment. “Not only will these changes provide a significant route to stable, affordable home ownership at a critical time but it will encourage broader participation in the Inclusionary Housing Program, assuring that we meet the Mayor’s goal to house 500,000 New Yorkers by 2014.”
The proposed expansion of the IHP to allow ownership was long in the making, “largely dictated by the complexities involved in designing a program that could ensure permanent affordability of the units created,” said Seth Donlin, a spokesman for the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. To ensure that city-subsidized units remain affordable despite increases in property value, the city would limit the price at which owners of IHP properties could sell their homes.
Yet some housing experts believe that this and other provisions in the amendment are restrictive, imposing excess regulation. “I prefer the program the way it is. There are other ways to finance home ownership,” said Carol Lamberg, executive director of the Settlement Housing Fund—an organization focused on creating and maintaining economically and ethnically diverse affordable housing.
She added, “Monitoring home ownership re-sales will be onerous. I like the larger existing benefit that encourages new construction of debt-free rental housing.” The IHP already provides incentives for developers to create affordable housing—such as tax exemptions and public financing—in exchange for increased floor area in homes.
Many locals are skeptical of the city’s motives. “The DCP [Department of City Planning] has never reflected an iota of interest in real, true affordability for people with low income in this city,” said Nellie Bailey, executive director of the Harlem Tenants Council. Bailey worries that some provisions in the amendment would benefit developers rather than residents. She said that the amendment would price purchasable units “far out of reach with respect to the people who are actually targeted in this amendment.”
Despite these concerns, city officials are confident that the amendment would have beneficial effects. “As a program it will incentivize developers to build affordable homeownership units in a way previously unseen,” Donlin said.
Community boards and borough presidents are now reviewing the proposed amendment, preparing to take their comments and concerns to an April DCP hearing.
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