But is it a perfect model? Far from it.
Mamdani’s goal is to build 200,000 units in ten years. Don’t hold your breath. Because the city’s processes are so cumbersome, Timbale Terrace took ten years to break ground and won’t open until 2028.
It took five years for the city to choose a developer and another five years for the environmental review, rezoning and financing, “an incredibly slow pace that does not reflect the urgency of this crisis,” said Annemarie Gray of the pro-housing group Open New York.
If all projects had lasted thirteen years, like this case, to meet his deadline Mamdani would have had to start the process for 200,000 units three years ago.
The mayor doesn’t even have a City Planning Director yet, but maybe his new one does head of technology can build him a time machine.
Time is one problem. Another is money. Timbale Terrace will cost $255 million for 341 apartments, which amounts to $750,000 per unit – typical for affordable housing, but 50 percent more than Mamdani wants to spend. (The price tag includes an NYPD garage and a 21,000-square-foot cultural space, but the land was free.)
A third problem is that city agencies are generally reluctant to give up their property for housing, as was the case here. That’s a bigger concern to me than what Alicia Glen, the former deputy mayor, said at a meeting TRD Salon Series interview, stating that the city no longer owns much developable land.
It has something. CUNY has over 80 hectares of the number of surface parking spaces, and every NYCHA campus has underutilized or unusable space. Some public schools have staff parking – a condition, not a condition. Timbale Terrace replaces an NYPD lot.
Placing homes on such land always involves a struggle. The related companies project in the Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan is a good example of this.
The NYPD is already so desperate for its beloved parking spot that police routinely park their personal vehicles and patrol cars on sidewalks. The police don’t even like to give up their confiscated lots.
A fourth shortcoming of Timbale Terrace is something that politicians don’t talk about: the downside of concentration of poverty.
Although Mamdani said in the landmark ruling that “by building highly affordable homes across the five boroughs, we are making New York City a place where families can afford to stay and thrive,” children in such homes typically do not thrive.
When you’re surrounded by poor role models and people without social capital, it’s hard to see paths to success.
As Eva Chan, who helped found the Harlem East Block Association and owns a three-unit rental building across from the Timbale Terrace lot, told the New York Timesthe city consistently places projects for low-income and homeless people in East Harlem. I’m not a fan of NIMBYs, but she has a point.
Mamdani, like Chan, believes that wealthier neighborhoods should have more affordable housing. But they almost never do that.
It is not just because the resistance would be serious. It’s that the economics of building affordable housing in wealthy areas rarely work. Where in Tribeca could Timbale Terrace possibly go?
Unfortunately, project economics cannot take into account the long-term benefits that low-income children reap by growing up in neighborhoods with high opportunity, with peers who have high aspirations and connections.
Harvard economist Raz Chetty just published another one brilliant study about these profits. Check this out for more information Planet Money podcast or this Atlantic story.
I emailed those links to Layla Law-Gisiko, a leading opponent of Related’s mixed-income project in West Chelsea, on February 15 to see if they might change her mind. She didn’t answer. I’m not holding my breath.
Read more
For richer or poorer: the hidden costs of low-income housing
The slowest and most expensive way to build affordable housing
Affordable housing
Chicago
Why units that rent cheaper cost more to build
#inconvenient #facts #Mamdanis #modeling #project