Michael Schill - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Michael Schill
New York City's zoning resolution is outdated and enormously complicated. Because of this, most n... more New York City's zoning resolution is outdated and enormously complicated. Because of this, most new development of any scale requires discretionary approvals which, in turn, implicate SEQRA review and the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP). Instead of beginning the process of drafting a new zoning resolution to accommodate growth into the 21 st century as was recommended in the 1999 Cost Study, the city has chosen to concentrate on area-wide re-zonings. In 1999, the Cost Study recommended that underutilized portions of the city that were zoned for industrial uses be rezoned for housing. The city has recently achieved this objective in Hudson Yards and appears on the verge of doing so in several other neighborhoods, including Brooklyn's Greenpoint/Williamsburg. More ominously, the city has also pursued a downzoning strategy in response to the political pressure of community residents in other neighborhoods such as Staten Island and Queens. Executive Summary xiii development in New York. It should not allow special interest groups (e.g. city agencies, labor unions, manufacturers) to successfully obtain changes to the law that are unnecessary and that would have the impact of reducing the benefits gained from adoption of the code. • The city should also adopt the International Fire Code. • The city should eliminate its materials and equipment acceptance (MEA) process and promote competition among different types of materials and manufacturers.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2004
One of the enduring puzzles of New York City's housing market is the persistence of the housing c... more One of the enduring puzzles of New York City's housing market is the persistence of the housing cooperative, despite the prevailing wisdom that condominiums are more valuable than cooperatives. In this article, we examine the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of cooperatives and condominiums, and apply these theoretical insights to empirically test whether there is a price premium attributable to condominium housing. We then use our findings to speculate as to why the cooperative form remains dominant in New York City and whether its dominance is likely to continue in the future. The empirical analysis is based on hedonic models of house values and uses rich data on apartments sold in New York City between 1984 and 2002. In most instances, theory suggests several reasons why the condominium may be a more efficient and desirable housing form than the cooperative. Unlike the case of cooperatives, condominium owners do not share liability on mortgage debt, they are free to transfer their apartments to whomever they choose, they are subject to fewer rules than cooperative apartment owners and, correspondingly, they need spend less time in internal governance. Our empirical findings confirm the theoretical prediction that legal form does indeed matter. With one important exception, condominium apartments are significantly more valuable than comparable cooperative apartments. The one exception suggests that for some owners, the benefits of restriction and exclusivity that the cooperative form offers, and which until recently seemed to be impossible to achieve through the condominium form, may be utility-maximizing. We speculate that, except for the segment of the market that seeks a socially exclusive residential environment, the continued dominance of cooperative housing in New York City is probably attributable to transaction costs and collective action problems which make switching to condominium form potentially difficult.
Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2006
Prior research has provided little evidence that subsidized housing investments generate signific... more Prior research has provided little evidence that subsidized housing investments generate significant external benefits to their neighborhoods. This paper revisits the external effects of subsidized housing, exploring the case of New York City. Relying on geocoded administrative data, we estimate a difference-indifference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find significant and sustained external benefits. Spillovers increase with project size, and decrease with distance from the project sites and with the proportion of units in multi-family, rental buildings. Our results are robust to alternative specifications. Some of the benefit appears due to the effect of the replacement of existing disamenity.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2007
Few communities welcome federally subsidized housing, with one of the most commonly voiced fears ... more Few communities welcome federally subsidized housing, with one of the most commonly voiced fears being reductions in property values. Yet there is little empirical evidence that subsidized housing depresses neighborhood property values. This paper estimates and compares the neighborhood impacts of a broad range of federally-subsidized, rental housing programs, using rich data for New York City and a difference-indifference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find that federally-subsidized developments have not typically led to reductions in property values and have in fact led to increases in many cases. Impacts are highly sensitive to scale, though patterns vary across programs. *We are grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for their generous financial support. We are also grateful to Wayne Archer, George Galster, and Ed Olsen for useful comments on an earlier draft.
Housing Policy Debate, 2002
This article examines the impact of New York City's Ten-Year Plan on the sale prices of homes in ... more This article examines the impact of New York City's Ten-Year Plan on the sale prices of homes in surrounding neighborhoods. Beginning in the mid-1980s, New York City invested $5.1 billion in constructing or rehabilitating over 180,000 units of housing in many of the city's most distressed neighborhoods. One of the main purposes was to spur neighborhood revitalization. In this article, we describe the origins of the Ten-Year Plan, as well as the various programs the city used to implement it, and estimate whether housing built or rehabilitated under the Ten-Year Plan affected the prices of nearby homes. The prices of homes within 500 feet of Ten-Year Plan units rose relative to those located beyond 500 feet, but still within the same census tract. These findings are consistent with the proposition that well-planned project-based housing programs can generate positive spillover effects and contribute to efforts to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2004
This analysis considers the extent to which the Community Reinvestment Act has led institutions u... more This analysis considers the extent to which the Community Reinvestment Act has led institutions under its authority to increase the number of home purchase mortgage loans to low-and-moderate-income (LMI) borrowers and neighborhoods. The basis for the analysis is a large sample of loans for the 1993-1999 time period submitted by financial institutions under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) of 1975. The HMDA data for this analysis have been enhanced through linkage to a descriptive file on lenders from the Federal Reserve Board. The paper describes findings that are consistent with the assertion that CRA has had an effect. A statistical analysis of lending patterns in individual MSA’s, which includes economic and demographic controls, demonstrates two relevant facts. First, lenders subject to the requirements of the CRA and their affiliates originate a higher portion of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers and neighborhoods in areas where there is active community organiz...
Journal of Housing Research
This article examines the pattern of housing choice among foreign- and native-born mover househol... more This article examines the pattern of housing choice among foreign- and native-born mover households in New York City, using two panels of individual-level data. We show that turnovers are most likely between households of similar race/ethnicity and that location in ethnically mixed and predominantly nonwhite subareas increases the odds of in-movement by foreign- and native-born black and Hispanic households rather
Journal of Housing Research
The influx of immigrants to New York City increases the demand for housing. Because the city has ... more The influx of immigrants to New York City increases the demand for housing. Because the city has one of the nation's tightest and most complicated housing markets, immigrants may disproportionately occupy the lowest-quality housing. This article examines homeownership, affordability, crowding, and housing quality among foreign-and native-born households. Overall, foreign-born households are more likely to be renters and encounter affordability problems. Multivariate analyses reveal that foreign-born renters are more likely to live in overcrowded and unsound housing but less likely to live in badly maintained dwellings. However, compared with nativeborn white renters, immigrants-especially Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Caribbeans, Africans, and Latin Americans-are more likely to live in badly maintained units. Because this disadvantage is shared by native-born blacks and Hispanics, it strongly suggests that race and ethnicity are more significant than immigrant status per se in determining housing conditions.
Proceedings of the 5th European Real Estate Society Conference - Maastricht, The Netherlands
New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 1997
would like to thank Kammie Gormezano for research assistance. I am also indebted to dozens of com... more would like to thank Kammie Gormezano for research assistance. I am also indebted to dozens of community development professionals who shared their views and experiences with me. The views expressed in this article are my own, however, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center For Real Estate and Urban Policy or its Board of Advisors.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review, Feb 1, 2003
Affordable Housing and Urban Development in the Us Learning from Failure and Success, 1996
The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions... more The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions in the housing community over how to deliver housing assistance. Federal budget cuts in the mid-1990s, for the first time in recent history, essentially froze the number of households that received housing assistance. At roughly the same time, the continuing existence of HUD was itself in doubt, as the New York Times Magazine in 1995 published its lead article proclaiming "The Year That Housing Died.
John Marshall Law Review, 1999
Cityscape a Journal of Policy Development and Research, 2001
The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions... more The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions in the housing community over how to deliver housing assistance. For the first time in recent history, Federal budget cuts in the mid-1990s essentially froze the number of households that received housing assistance. At roughly the same time, the continuing existence of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was itself in doubt, and in 1995 the New York Times Magazine published a lead article with the title "The Year That Housing Died." However, as the new millennium begins, the situation has changed dramatically. Not only is Congress no longer seriously questioning whether to disband HUD, but, in response to a record-setting economic expansion and internal reforms within the agency, Congress also has substantially increased HUD's budget. In marked contrast to the beginning of the past decade, remarkable consensus exists among housing policymakers and analysts about the future direction of housing policy. In this article, we explore this emerging consensus and set forth our views regarding the principles that should guide housing policy over the next decade.
Fragile Rights Within Cities Government Housing and Fairness, 2007
Land Law in Comparative Perspective 101, 2002
Fair Lending Analysis a Compendium of Essays on the Use of Statistics, 1995
New York City's zoning resolution is outdated and enormously complicated. Because of this, most n... more New York City's zoning resolution is outdated and enormously complicated. Because of this, most new development of any scale requires discretionary approvals which, in turn, implicate SEQRA review and the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP). Instead of beginning the process of drafting a new zoning resolution to accommodate growth into the 21 st century as was recommended in the 1999 Cost Study, the city has chosen to concentrate on area-wide re-zonings. In 1999, the Cost Study recommended that underutilized portions of the city that were zoned for industrial uses be rezoned for housing. The city has recently achieved this objective in Hudson Yards and appears on the verge of doing so in several other neighborhoods, including Brooklyn's Greenpoint/Williamsburg. More ominously, the city has also pursued a downzoning strategy in response to the political pressure of community residents in other neighborhoods such as Staten Island and Queens. Executive Summary xiii development in New York. It should not allow special interest groups (e.g. city agencies, labor unions, manufacturers) to successfully obtain changes to the law that are unnecessary and that would have the impact of reducing the benefits gained from adoption of the code. • The city should also adopt the International Fire Code. • The city should eliminate its materials and equipment acceptance (MEA) process and promote competition among different types of materials and manufacturers.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2004
One of the enduring puzzles of New York City's housing market is the persistence of the housing c... more One of the enduring puzzles of New York City's housing market is the persistence of the housing cooperative, despite the prevailing wisdom that condominiums are more valuable than cooperatives. In this article, we examine the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of cooperatives and condominiums, and apply these theoretical insights to empirically test whether there is a price premium attributable to condominium housing. We then use our findings to speculate as to why the cooperative form remains dominant in New York City and whether its dominance is likely to continue in the future. The empirical analysis is based on hedonic models of house values and uses rich data on apartments sold in New York City between 1984 and 2002. In most instances, theory suggests several reasons why the condominium may be a more efficient and desirable housing form than the cooperative. Unlike the case of cooperatives, condominium owners do not share liability on mortgage debt, they are free to transfer their apartments to whomever they choose, they are subject to fewer rules than cooperative apartment owners and, correspondingly, they need spend less time in internal governance. Our empirical findings confirm the theoretical prediction that legal form does indeed matter. With one important exception, condominium apartments are significantly more valuable than comparable cooperative apartments. The one exception suggests that for some owners, the benefits of restriction and exclusivity that the cooperative form offers, and which until recently seemed to be impossible to achieve through the condominium form, may be utility-maximizing. We speculate that, except for the segment of the market that seeks a socially exclusive residential environment, the continued dominance of cooperative housing in New York City is probably attributable to transaction costs and collective action problems which make switching to condominium form potentially difficult.
Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2006
Prior research has provided little evidence that subsidized housing investments generate signific... more Prior research has provided little evidence that subsidized housing investments generate significant external benefits to their neighborhoods. This paper revisits the external effects of subsidized housing, exploring the case of New York City. Relying on geocoded administrative data, we estimate a difference-indifference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find significant and sustained external benefits. Spillovers increase with project size, and decrease with distance from the project sites and with the proportion of units in multi-family, rental buildings. Our results are robust to alternative specifications. Some of the benefit appears due to the effect of the replacement of existing disamenity.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2007
Few communities welcome federally subsidized housing, with one of the most commonly voiced fears ... more Few communities welcome federally subsidized housing, with one of the most commonly voiced fears being reductions in property values. Yet there is little empirical evidence that subsidized housing depresses neighborhood property values. This paper estimates and compares the neighborhood impacts of a broad range of federally-subsidized, rental housing programs, using rich data for New York City and a difference-indifference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find that federally-subsidized developments have not typically led to reductions in property values and have in fact led to increases in many cases. Impacts are highly sensitive to scale, though patterns vary across programs. *We are grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for their generous financial support. We are also grateful to Wayne Archer, George Galster, and Ed Olsen for useful comments on an earlier draft.
Housing Policy Debate, 2002
This article examines the impact of New York City's Ten-Year Plan on the sale prices of homes in ... more This article examines the impact of New York City's Ten-Year Plan on the sale prices of homes in surrounding neighborhoods. Beginning in the mid-1980s, New York City invested $5.1 billion in constructing or rehabilitating over 180,000 units of housing in many of the city's most distressed neighborhoods. One of the main purposes was to spur neighborhood revitalization. In this article, we describe the origins of the Ten-Year Plan, as well as the various programs the city used to implement it, and estimate whether housing built or rehabilitated under the Ten-Year Plan affected the prices of nearby homes. The prices of homes within 500 feet of Ten-Year Plan units rose relative to those located beyond 500 feet, but still within the same census tract. These findings are consistent with the proposition that well-planned project-based housing programs can generate positive spillover effects and contribute to efforts to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2004
This analysis considers the extent to which the Community Reinvestment Act has led institutions u... more This analysis considers the extent to which the Community Reinvestment Act has led institutions under its authority to increase the number of home purchase mortgage loans to low-and-moderate-income (LMI) borrowers and neighborhoods. The basis for the analysis is a large sample of loans for the 1993-1999 time period submitted by financial institutions under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) of 1975. The HMDA data for this analysis have been enhanced through linkage to a descriptive file on lenders from the Federal Reserve Board. The paper describes findings that are consistent with the assertion that CRA has had an effect. A statistical analysis of lending patterns in individual MSA’s, which includes economic and demographic controls, demonstrates two relevant facts. First, lenders subject to the requirements of the CRA and their affiliates originate a higher portion of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers and neighborhoods in areas where there is active community organiz...
Journal of Housing Research
This article examines the pattern of housing choice among foreign- and native-born mover househol... more This article examines the pattern of housing choice among foreign- and native-born mover households in New York City, using two panels of individual-level data. We show that turnovers are most likely between households of similar race/ethnicity and that location in ethnically mixed and predominantly nonwhite subareas increases the odds of in-movement by foreign- and native-born black and Hispanic households rather
Journal of Housing Research
The influx of immigrants to New York City increases the demand for housing. Because the city has ... more The influx of immigrants to New York City increases the demand for housing. Because the city has one of the nation's tightest and most complicated housing markets, immigrants may disproportionately occupy the lowest-quality housing. This article examines homeownership, affordability, crowding, and housing quality among foreign-and native-born households. Overall, foreign-born households are more likely to be renters and encounter affordability problems. Multivariate analyses reveal that foreign-born renters are more likely to live in overcrowded and unsound housing but less likely to live in badly maintained dwellings. However, compared with nativeborn white renters, immigrants-especially Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Caribbeans, Africans, and Latin Americans-are more likely to live in badly maintained units. Because this disadvantage is shared by native-born blacks and Hispanics, it strongly suggests that race and ethnicity are more significant than immigrant status per se in determining housing conditions.
Proceedings of the 5th European Real Estate Society Conference - Maastricht, The Netherlands
New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 1997
would like to thank Kammie Gormezano for research assistance. I am also indebted to dozens of com... more would like to thank Kammie Gormezano for research assistance. I am also indebted to dozens of community development professionals who shared their views and experiences with me. The views expressed in this article are my own, however, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center For Real Estate and Urban Policy or its Board of Advisors.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review, Feb 1, 2003
Affordable Housing and Urban Development in the Us Learning from Failure and Success, 1996
The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions... more The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions in the housing community over how to deliver housing assistance. Federal budget cuts in the mid-1990s, for the first time in recent history, essentially froze the number of households that received housing assistance. At roughly the same time, the continuing existence of HUD was itself in doubt, as the New York Times Magazine in 1995 published its lead article proclaiming "The Year That Housing Died.
John Marshall Law Review, 1999
Cityscape a Journal of Policy Development and Research, 2001
The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions... more The 1990s were a tumultuous time for Federal housing policy. The decade began with deep divisions in the housing community over how to deliver housing assistance. For the first time in recent history, Federal budget cuts in the mid-1990s essentially froze the number of households that received housing assistance. At roughly the same time, the continuing existence of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was itself in doubt, and in 1995 the New York Times Magazine published a lead article with the title "The Year That Housing Died." However, as the new millennium begins, the situation has changed dramatically. Not only is Congress no longer seriously questioning whether to disband HUD, but, in response to a record-setting economic expansion and internal reforms within the agency, Congress also has substantially increased HUD's budget. In marked contrast to the beginning of the past decade, remarkable consensus exists among housing policymakers and analysts about the future direction of housing policy. In this article, we explore this emerging consensus and set forth our views regarding the principles that should guide housing policy over the next decade.
Fragile Rights Within Cities Government Housing and Fairness, 2007
Land Law in Comparative Perspective 101, 2002
Fair Lending Analysis a Compendium of Essays on the Use of Statistics, 1995