City Council Deal Saves Mayor’s Controversial Zoning Plan: Here’s What You Need to Know

by Barbara Eldridge - March 16, 2016

Mayor de Blasio has won.

He and the City Council have hammered out a compromise on the mayor’s contentious affordable housing plan — the one some Brooklyn residents feared would wreck their neighborhoods with tall buildings and out-of-control rents. Now the City Council is expected to vote yes on it next week, according to the New York Times.

The compromises won by the City Council will make the affordable units more affordable, in addition to lowering the height cap of new buildings in some areas. These and other changes were enough to satisfy the City Council that the plan will be a boon for affordable housing in the city.

The mayor has agreed to alter his zoning proposals:

  • New affordable housing units will be less expensive — the mayor agreed to lower income requirements at both the top and bottom of the required range, with future residents earning between 40 percent and 115 percent of area median income rather an 60 percent to 120 percent.
  • The percentage of affordable units will be smaller. Developers would be required to set aside 20 to 30 percent of developments for affordable units on sites that take advantage of a rezoning — not 25 to 30 percent, as originally proposed.
  • The city will study new ways to create affordable housing units with even lower income requirements, possibly creating new additional programs to work in conjunction with developers.
  • Parking lots in transit-starved neighborhoods and near senior housing will not be made available to developers.
  • New buildings constructed under the regulations will have a lower height cap in some areas.

  • Last year, Brooklyn’s community boards mostly rejected the plans, as did the borough president and Brooklyn Borough Board — many citing issues of affordability and fears that implementing the plans would only speed up gentrification and displacement. The City Planning Commission then approved the proposals, but it’s the City Council’s ULURP vote that makes the official decision whether to implement them.

    Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would require developers to set aside a standard percent of developments for affordable units on sites that take advantage of a rezoning.

    Zoning for Quality and Affordability would alter the zoning code, changing the bulk of buildings by increasing height limitations and easing setback restrictions, among other amendments to the current code.

    Another part of the plan is a proposed rezoning of East New York. The local community boards and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams rejected it. As well, the local City Council members said they opposed it. The Times story about this week’s compromise did not specify if City Council intends to approve that too as part of the deal.

Full article in Brownstoner

Behind Atlantic Yards Housing Deal, Some Big Shifts

By: Norman Oder

Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio took credit for dramatic news announced June 27 regarding the controversial Atlantic Yards project, which, despite the opening of the Barclays Center in 2012, had delivered none of the affordable housing that was a huge selling point when the project was unveiled in 2003, approved in 2006, and re-approved in 2009.

They announced a deal, responding in part to a threatened fair-housing lawsuit by community groups, that promised the 2,250 subsidized apartments (of 6,430 total) would arrive by 2025, ten years before the 2035 “outside date” agreed to in 2009. That’s still slower than the ten-year buildout long touted by developer Forest City Ratner.

"Today we are… expediting the construction of thousands of units of affordable housing in Brooklyn,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This agreement is a win for the state and most importantly for Brooklyn residents.”

“The agreement means two 100-percent affordable buildings will go in the ground starting next year,” said de Blasio, “with units serving a more diverse range of families.”

Those statements, bolstered by endorsements from community groups that pushed for a faster timetable and some local elected officials, obscured some key changes that bolster the developer and satisfy the city’s hunger to count affordable units, as well as one that addresses a flaw in the first tower being built on the site.

First key change: affordability

First, as emerged later that day, 390 of 600 units in the two all-affordable towers will go to households earning more than $100,000, a departure from the long-promised configuration that distributes the units more among low-, moderate-, and lower-middle-income households. Rents for two-bedroom subsidized units might approach $3,000.

The two towers will include 180 low-income units, serving families earning up to $51,540 (as of 2013) for a household of four. But that 30 percent share of total affordable units is less than the 40 percent share long promised in the Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Forest City Ratner signed with ACORN in 2005 and incorporated into the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). The upper middle-income affordable “band” (serving a four-person household, earning up to $141,735) was supposed to represent 20 percent of affordable units, but in these towers will represent 50 percent. The moderate-income band, 20 percent in the MOU, would instead be 5 percent.

Read the full article in the Brooklyn Bureau on (July 3, 2014)