New York Progressives Continue to Block Development

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.'"