No brainer.

there's so much in the way of building normal stuff in our state. some places require building parking lots, others require environmental review. i was raised about as "leftist" as it gets but this is a forest-for-the-trees situation: the people who put onerous restrictions on development imagine they are fighting for "the people" but what "the people" want is $500/mo rent.

We ended SROs, "boarding houses" and most forms of tenements, but offered no replacements. Single people trying to work and save money in the city should have a no-frills place to live -- they did 100 years ago.

Elsewhere in the state, barriers to new construction are often based on local appeals to "character" and environmental issues. The local appeals are almost always made by transplants to rural areas who moved there for the peace and quiet -- those should be ignored.

Environmental review is complicated, as it is very important but also takes WAY too long. A Hochul plan for development that streamlines that bureaucracy would be welcome

>barriers to new construction are often based on local appeals to "character" and environmental issues

I don't know about NYS, but in most places I lived, appeals took that form because its almost part of an unwritten protocol, and are rarely the real reasons.

While there's obviously a lot of NYMBYism for selfish and wrong reasons, developers also tend to be greedy and don't give a fuck about people they impact, and there's almost always something REALLY wrong/illegal/fucked up with every new project proposal. In an attempt to get that shit sorted out, you also open the floor to idiots who will bitch about anything and everything.

I lived somewhere where they builder across the street (in another state) wanted to make a mix used building where the commercial portion would be used by chemical labs. When reading the specs, we realized the fumes from that lab were going to be highly toxic, in large volume, shit on every environmental laws ever written, and we were downwind from it. The only venue we had to appeal was in community reviews. The same meetings where the arguments were being drowned out in NYMBYs bitching about "character" and YIMBYs saying anyone against it was a selfish NYMBY. That was rough.

Just one example, but almost every project review i've been directly or indirectly involved in (which was quite a few) had something like that going on.

>the people who put onerous restrictions on development imagine they are fighting for "the people" but what "the people" want is $500/mo rent.

It's a quagmire. We need more housing, but people who are well below affording market rates know that no matter what is built, the situation is too far gone to help them. So it ends up being in their interest to just avoid more changes in general.

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The Y is correct here

There are some very active NIMBY groups near me that get up in arms whenever a decrepit 120-year-old walkup is "threatened" or "sold."

I’m the end, it almost always comes down to money. If I own a house on a tree lined street with other houses, I’m not going to be very happy seeing those trees come down, a large building goes up that now obscures the view I used to have - and I may have to deal with months or years of construction and the negative things that come with that. During the process and even after it, the value of my home drops substantially.

That’s often why people vote and protest against these things. The money. Even in Manhattan - if I have a view of the River and a sky scraper is built across the street and I now have the view of someone’s window and get less light - obviously the value of the apartment goes down - so I might find reasons to oppose that skyscraper from going up.

That’s not to say it doesn’t need to happen. But development should probably be encouraged in underutilized previously commercial areas (like what DUMBO was 30 years ago, before places where you can expect opposition.

This is fine as long as those people don't have children because those children will have nowhere to live

If you want to fix it up for use by the current occupants, then talk about that. But if you want to just displace the tenants & make the building unaffordable to everybody, then just own up to the fact that you're a gentrifier.

Yep. There’s a parking lot in the Seaport area that’s been locked in lawsuits with neighbors for decades all trying to stop the parking lot from becoming housing.

Why? It would block rich people’s views and lower their condo’s value.

I like what California is doing. Every city must submit a plan for building enough new housing accommodate population growth. And if they fail to do it, the state takes over and rubber stamps housing permits as fast as they come in.

A friend of mine worked at a NIMBY organization years ago.

I followed them on social for a while. It was just endless complaints about new proposed buildings being too tall. Even like a single story taller than the surrounding area had them up in arms… in Manhattan.

> We ended SROs, “boarding houses” and most forms of tenements, but offered no replacements.

This is huge and so often overlooked. SROs used to number in the hundreds of thousands in NYC and most major US cities.

They were cheap and helped keep people off the street. But we banned them slowly and just expected people to find larger, more expensive homes. And without any support.

People like to say “no one should have to live like that” but it’s better than nothing.

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Population in NY is shrinking they’ll be okay

There is truth in your comment, that anyone currently renting at below market rate (which is most new yorkers. I grew up in a $700 rent stabilized apartment on 17th st. Some of my family is still rent stabilized), if forced to move out, will be displaced since they can't afford market rents. So it is their interest to avoid change.

This is the quagmire that our zoning and development laws, of limiting the ability for buildings to be easily built, have gotten us into. NYC has had a housing crisis for two decades, and it seems to only get attention now because it has become a nationwide issue. But ultimately the underlying issue of everything, is that we just absolutely need more housing to be built. There is no way to avoid it.

Bravo!

Don’t cheer just yet. I’ll believe the hype when I see results.

I don’t get those people. If you hate tall buildings, maybe live anywhere on earth other than New York City?

They block housing on lots where there is no housing too. Where no one is getting displaced

Tokyo is the best example of a world class city that does housing the most right. Enough of the city is zoned as high density mixed use, and developers can build by right — as long as they follow the zoning rules, people can’t block it. Rents are $1000. Food is under $10 a meal. There are a ton of interesting small shops and stores because commercial rent is also low. Homeowners can run their own small business out of their houses by right

This is what the poor nimbys want, but poor nimbys are so stupid, really stupid, they constantly push for what landlords want instead. So busy trying to screw developers they screw themselves instead

We shouldn’t need to require parking spots

This is how I see it as well. While I don’t “feel bad” for people losing their property value I 100% understand why those people are NIMBY and fight against development.

Tbh I think we never will. 500k units over a decade wont bring down prices

Yeah, we need to double that to even keep pace.

If they’re that rich why don’t they just buy the parking lot and put it to rest. Other buildings have purchased air rights of neighboring buildings to prevent taller buildings from blocking the view.

Great. Start with nuclear plants.

Japan has had declining population for 13 straight years. If NYC lost 4M people and was falling every year, rents would fall here too