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The biggest reason there is not enough affordable housing for middle class, never mind poor, families in New York City is because developers don't want to build
by gorbachev 3y ago
The biggest reason there is not enough affordable housing for middle class, never mind poor, families in New York City is because developers don't want to build that kind of housing.
They'd rather build luxury apartment buildings for the ultra wealthy, because that's where the highest margins are. The regulations don't allow building them without offsetting it with new affordable housing projects, but the developers are skirting the regulations by any means necessary, and the regulations aren't enforced with enough teeth to make them comply.
Funny how that happens when legislators depend on campaign contributors from the very same people/companies they're supposed to regulate.
- Whoppertime 3y agoWhat incentives could be driving developers to building luxury apartment buildings for the ultra wealthy? Surely 100 of those are built in a year and the market is saturated no? The first I would guess would be fixed costs, which is to say regulation and compliance.If you have to jump through the same amount of hoops making affordable housing as you do super premium housing, one turns a profit and another costs you money to do you will make the choice that leads to solvency over bankruptcy Another incentive could be age degrades property over time, so low income housing could just be old housing. As a Middle Class person I would rather use housing that was Upper Class 50 years ago as opposed to a brand new Housing Project that opened yesterday