3 ms·

> We're talking thousands of apartments, literally. To add some more concrete numbers, in 2015 there were 14,357 units completed in New York. Permits were issu

> We're talking thousands of apartments, literally. To add some more concrete numbers, in 2015 there were 14,357 units completed in New York. Permits were issued for 56,528 units. (Only 20,000 permits were issued in 2014. They were down 65% in Q1 2016.) For a city of over 8 million people, I would expect 50,000 units/year to be the sustainable level. 20,000/year seems quite low. http://www.nycrgb.org/downloads/research/pdf_reports/16HSR.pdf http://www.nycrgb.org/downloads/research/pdf_reports/16HSR.p...

gozur88 10y ago
In a place like NYC, don't they have to tear down an existing building to put up a new one? That is, what you're really interested in is net adds, and completed units is only half the equation.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Although it's a densely populated city it's not without its surface parking lots. They're just smaller than in other cities where half the downtown core seems to be parking lots. You can squeeze in a bit of development here and there without necessarily having to raze buildings. There's also opportunities to upgrade old industrial space to residential, no net loss in housing.
- billmalarky 10y ago
  In Manhattan they almost never tear down, but rather do extreme gut renovations on the framework of older buildings. As a result additional units don't get added (by building up for example), the existing units are just upgraded. The reason for this is new buildings have to follow modern regulations which drops the usable square footage of properties considerably (for example, having the building X feet back from the street etc). In Manhattan where every square foot counts this is of course unacceptable. Old buildings are grandfathered into older, less restrictive, regulations. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...

gozur88 10y ago

In a place like NYC, don't they have to tear down an existing building to put up a new one? That is, what you're really interested in is net adds, and completed units is only half the equation.

astrodust 10y ago
Although it's a densely populated city it's not without its surface parking lots. They're just smaller than in other cities where half the downtown core seems to be parking lots. You can squeeze in a bit of development here and there without necessarily having to raze buildings. There's also opportunities to upgrade old industrial space to residential, no net loss in housing.
billmalarky 10y ago
In Manhattan they almost never tear down, but rather do extreme gut renovations on the framework of older buildings. As a result additional units don't get added (by building up for example), the existing units are just upgraded. The reason for this is new buildings have to follow modern regulations which drops the usable square footage of properties considerably (for example, having the building X feet back from the street etc). In Manhattan where every square foot counts this is of course unacceptable. Old buildings are grandfathered into older, less restrictive, regulations. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...