Opinion: The Risky Consequences Of Inclusionary Housing At Brooklyn’s Pfizer Site
The power to zone is a key mechanism New York City has to leverage private financial resources when building much needed affordable housing. To take advantage of that power, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has been pursuing Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) policies, which requires developers to set aside a certain percentage of affordable housing for low and moderate income New Yorkers. That’s the mechanism being used at the Pfizer site in Brooklyn, located in the Broadway Triangle, an area bordering the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvesant. If approved, the proposed rezoning will allow for 1,146 apartments, 25 percent of them set aside as affordable.
At a cursory glance, the plan has some genuine benefits for lower-income families, which is part of the mayor’s broader affordable housing vision of a public-private partnership with the real estate establishment. However, upon closer look, this plan has damaging consequences that the de Blasio administration has overlooked – as is the case with much of its housing plan. . .