New York Progressives Continue to Block Development

Despite mounting evidence that cities like New York must build more housing to accommodate their growing populations and stem the housing affordability crisis, some of the city's most progressive neighborhoods are resisting new development.

1 minute read

August 17, 2021, 5:00 AM PDT

By Diana Ionescu @aworkoffiction


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In an opinion piece for the New York Daily News, Ryder Kessler asserts that the "New Yorkers most engaged in left-wing politics are often the most opposed to the progressive change they preach," particularly when it comes to housing policy. 

At a meeting considering Haven Green, "an affordable housing development for low-income, formerly homeless, largely LGBTQ seniors proposed for a space now occupied by the Elizabeth Street Garden," Kessler found the majority opinion held that "[a]ffordable housing should be built, board members said, just not here." Yet the facts, Kessler writes, "are undeniable: New York City must build. Between 2009 and 2018, we added only 19 housing units for every 100 new jobs — one for every five new New Yorkers. With demand outstripping supply, prices nearly doubled."

Critics of market-rate development "argue that new market-rate housing doesn’t help and affordable units will still be inaccessible. But research is clearer by the day: New units of all kinds drive all prices down, and those in desirable neighborhoods take pressure off lower-income areas more likely to suffer from displacement." 

To Kessler, "Community Boards’ efforts to block new housing is a symptom of New York progressives’ tendency to abandon expert evidence, racial equity and empowerment of the marginalized — even as they attend rallies to chant 'housing is a human right.'"

Monday, August 9, 2021 in New York Daily News

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