NY, NJ and Conn. Affordable Housing Leaders Tout Buildouts and Renovations
Maximizing affordable multifamily housing will require new policies and new voluntary practices, according to panelists on a recent Regional Plan Association webinar.
The nonprofit civic organization’s event—Creating Opportunity for All: Building the Housing We Need—brought together development, financial and academic experts to weigh in on expanding options for low- and moderate-income residents. The panel shared thoughts on what they are doing—or would like to see done—for successful multifamily developments.
Hugh Frater, chairman of Vessel Technologies, a modular multifamily housing builder, would like to see the tri-state area adopt Appendix N of the International Building Code.
He said the policy change would allow a single pre-approved building design to be adopted across different municipalities without repeated review. The company is familiar with navigating different review processes, with several developments underway in Connecticut and one six-unit building in Trenton, N.J. He noted how reducing duplicate reviews could lower construction costs.
Organizations looking to build can also find success in engaging with local communities. Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp., a nonprofit dedicated to investing in communities and a real estate holding corporation, is beginning a multi-year update of Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn. The work aims to create about 1,000 housing units, as well as community space, including retail, office and cultural centers on property the organization has owned since 1968.
Restoration is not required to go through New York City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure community engagement. But the team has still met with the local community board and will continue to do so as the project evolves to ensure nearby residents are on board, said Blondel Pinnock, organization president and CEO.
“In neighborhoods like Bed Stuy, there’s been a long history that informs how development is received,” Pinnock said.
Existing affordable housing could be made more accessible by helping landlords who can’t afford repairs. While lower-income homeowners struggle to budget for necessary maintenance, the same is true for smaller, long-term landlords who offer affordable units, said Diana Hernandez, associate professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University. Owners might have to give up those units as a result. Restoration has come to run small apartment buildings for this exact reason—because local landlords could not afford to care for them anymore, said Pinnock.
Finding a way to assist with needed low-income repairs could help keep locally owned buildings in local hands, Hernandez said.
“The preservation of that kind of housing stock is really key to maintaining wealth opportunities from people in those communities,” she added.
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