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April 8, 2024
Accountability Comes to Public Housing
With little fanfare, the impossible just happened at the Hope Gardens public housing project in Bushwick: the management got fired. Repairs to the project’s high rises and townhouses had been delayed, and, per an official notice, “cost-saving measures to curb ballooning controllable operating expenses” hadn’t been adopted. Such lack of foresight constitutes a typical day…
March 21, 2024
It’s Not Just Minority Neighborhoods—NYC’s Entire Property-Tax System Needs Reform
There is good reason to conclude, as the state Court of Appeals did Tuesday, that New York City’s property-tax system leads to disproportionately high tax bills for minority homeowners. But those high taxes aren’t the result of discrimination; they’re just one example of a dysfunctional tax-assessment system that burdens homeowners and discourages new housing construction —…
March 14, 2024
A Crucial Fix For Rent Regulation
Housing legislation has moved to center stage in Albany, with proposals to provide aid for everything from granny flats to new, subsidized construction on the table. But one especially surprising, common-sense change in the state’s rent regulation appears to be attracting bipartisan support. A state Senate plan would permit up to 6% rent increases following major capital…
February 23, 2024
After Milton’s MBTA Housing Defeat, The Way Forward Is With Persuasion, Not Mandates
It’s difficult to avoid seeing Milton’s referendum defeat of a proposed zoning law to permit higher-density housing construction as a signal setback for the state’s effort to pressure towns to make housing more affordable. There’s no getting around the importance of that effort. High housing prices not only burden current Bay State residents but act as a…
February 15, 2024
Harvard (Mis)Leading Housing Study
Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies is back with its annual State of the Nation’s Housing report—and once again it reaches a bleak conclusion based on a loaded and leading question designed to sound an alarm for more federal housing subsidies. Its key metric is what it calls “cost-burdened renters”—those spending more than a third…
February 6, 2024
NYCHA Corruption Means It’s Time To Privatize
We already knew the New York City Housing Authority is the city’s biggest slumlord. Now we’re reminded it’s a corrupt slumlord. Just five years after a federal court found its employees had lied about a vital public-health matter — conducting lead-paint inspections of apartments — we learn NYCHA supervisors solicited bribes in exchange for no-bid repair contracts. US Attorney…
December 31, 2023
Forget Eric Adams’ Flawed Housing Plan — Let’s Make ALL NYC Neighborhoods “High-Opportunity”
New York City residents are facing the ill-effects of drastic, across-the-board budget cuts affecting the most basic city services. It would hardly seem to be the right time for the Adams administration to undertake an expensive new housing program with the city’s own funds. Yet that’s exactly what the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced last week….
December 18, 2023
No Excuses Now for NYCHA
Progressives have long claimed that the only problem with New York’s largest collection of slum housing—our public housing projects—has been a lack of federal funding. Former mayor Bill de Blasio liked to blame the decline of what was once the nation’s best-managed public-housing system on someone who left office in 1989: Ronald Reagan. Now, thanks…
December 11, 2023
How Public Housing Encourages Single Parenthood and Penalizes Marriage
The post-pandemic rise in rents has fueled the view that the private housing market inevitably fails those of modest means. The left-leaning Center for Budget Policies and Priorities summarizes the idea that the short-term spike in rents merely dramatizes that essential market failure. It asserts that the “rent burden among families with the lowest incomes is a…
November 27, 2023
Bribing Homeowners To Build Tiny Houses Won’t Solve NYC’s Housing Problem
Those who believe New York City not only needs more housing but more types of housing to serve its many types of households should be cheered by the Adams administration’s support for “granny flats.” These small “accessory dwelling units” built in backyards, converted basements or converted garages can help homeowners pay their mortgages and older adults…