New York City's Affordable Housing Wizard

28 September 2006 - 8:00am

Shaun Donovan, commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, is winning cheers for his innovative thinking as he works to meet the city's ambitious housing goals.

"Mr. Donovan, 40, holds the unenviable job of trying to fulfill Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's multibillion-dollar promise to create or preserve 165,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing by 2013. He took on the assignment, in 2004, at an inauspicious moment: Land values were climbing, construction costs rising, the inventory of city-owned property drying up, landlords opting out of state and federal programs that had kept rents low.

Two and a half years later, Mr. Donovan is seen nationally as a pioneer in finding new ways to create and preserve low-cost housing. Paradoxically, he has tried to do it by capitalizing on the strength of the real estate market itself.

'I would never believe that the private sector, left to its own devices, is the best possible solution,' Mr. Donovan said recently. 'I'm in government because of the role of government in setting rules and working in partnership with the private sector. On the other hand, there's no way you could ever get to a scale that can really affect the housing problems in this country without working with the market.' "

Full Story: A National Housing Innovator Leads Cityâ€™s Effort for the Poor

Source: The New York Times, September 25, 2006

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NewYork City's Affordable Housing Wizard

Submitted by Prakash M Apte on Wed, 10/04/2006 - 19:11.

Inclusionary Zoning

A Concept similar to inclusionary zoning has been in practice in Mumbai,India since the new Development Control Regulations and the revised Development Plan (Reviewed by the D'Soza committee in 1988 of which I was a member) came into effect in 1991.

The downtown of Mumbai in the older parts of the island city ( the city is broadly divided in two, the island comprising the land upto the bridge at Mahim connecting it with the suburbs which is the second part) has housed the oldest residents of the city in rental housing “Chawls”- 2/3 storey old buildings having over 10 one room tenements with common toilet facilities at each floor level-
who paid almost the same amount of rents today as they were paying initially about 65 years back.

The Rent Control Act inforce in Mumbai percluded the landlord from increasing the amount of rent
It acted as a disincentive for him to repair or keep the structure in good condition. A census of these buildings was conducted and a 'cess' imposed on these buildings to create a fund for their repair. The work was entrusted to the 'Repair & Reconstruction Board' under the Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority. However there was little improvement in the situation and many of these buildings collapsed regularly during torrential rains every year. The tenants had to be housed in transit shelters by the government but no reconstruction took place.

The 1991 Regulations therefore tried to 'capitalize on the strength of the real market' itself by allowing the landlord to rebuild the structures with a higher Floor Space Index. If he rebuilt the structure and provided free of cost 225 sq.ft.self contained tenements to each of the old tenent, housing them temporarily at his cost during the reconstruction; he is allowed to build at a density almost 2.5 times the existing one and sell the balance of tenements at the market rate.

Though there has been some abuse of the regulation (to overcome it the High Court of Bombay had appointed a committee of which I was a member), by and large it has helped in reconstruction of a large number of these old dilapidated structures and ameliorate the housing conditions in the city.

Prakash M. Apte