Reducing the Cost of New Housing Construction in New York City: 2005 Update (original) (raw)
Related papers
1999
Building codes and code enforcement have been criticized by governmental commissions and academic experts for unnecessarily increasing the costs of new construction in central cities, thereby reducing the ability of builders and developers to provide affordable housing and compete successfully with suburban areas. In this paper, we examine empirically the effects of the stringency of code enforcement on central city housing construction. We show that the code enforcement choices central cities make can limit their ability to compete with suburban areas for new single-family-detached and multi-family housing. We also show that minor changes in strategy will not alter this effect. Analyses presented are based on data on code enforcement practices and housing construction activity between 1985 and 1995 assembled from a nationally representative sample of 155 central cities and their metropolitan areas.
Industrial zoning changes in New York City: A case study of expulsive zoning
Projections 3: The MIT Journal of Planning: Planning …, 2002
Using New York City as a case study, this paper examines how zoning and the legal mechanism of zoning changes can contribute toward environmental injustice, and offers recommendations for achieving justice through planning. Noxious uses tend to concentrate in poor and minority industrial neighborhoods due to re-zoning more affluent and less minority industrial areas to other uses, and expanding industrial zones in poorer neighborhoods and communities of color. This set of practices has been termed "expulsive" zoning, and is characterized by displacement of poor and minority people (and industry) from gentrifying industrial zones, the intrusion of additional noxious land uses into predominantly poor and minority industrial areas, and the concomitant reduction of environmental quality there. Zoning policy, it will be argued, can have adverse impacts on public health and equity, by disproportionately burdening poorer and more minority populations with noxious or environmentally risky land uses.
Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History, 2018
The main tool city planners use for such regulation is zoning—the set of rules that regulate what can be built where, and at what size. New York City has one of the world’s most elaborate zoning codes, with nearly 4,000 pages of maps and text delineating over 150 different zoning types. Given the code’s power and complexity, one might think that the city would use zoning to prevent property owners from running roughshod over neighborhoods and communities. Instead, however, contemporary planners and politicians use zoning to protect the real estate industry from the people, rather than to protect the people from the real estate industry. Isn’t this precisely the opposite of what zoning is supposed to do? Isn’t the whole point of zoning to prevent market chaos and create a more orderly, predictable, healthy and harmonious urban landscape? To answer these questions, we must return to the roots of the city’s zoning code.
This study gauges the impacts of subdivision regulations on the design of residential developments and the practices of developers in rapidly growing regions of the country. Through a nationwide survey of jurisdictions which are experiencing rapid development and growth and developers who are working in these areas, the study assesses attitudes and perceptions and identifies the issues within subdivision regulations that members of the housing industry and the regulatory agencies feel are affecting housing development. The study also partially replicates similar research done in 1976 to gain an understanding of changing practices within the last 25 years.
URBAN AREAS Policy, Planning, and Zoning Recommendations
Our urban areas represent the greatest challenge for the future of Smart Growth. There is an abundance of land and deteriorated buildings for redevelopment. The market drive for these locations will be dependent on a larger regional strategy as well as high quality urban design, streetscapes, green spaces and transit. It is critical that redevelopment efforts be focused into specific urban neighborhoods and districts rather than diluted effort in all neighborhoods.
Journal of the American Planning Association
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Regulations and Housing Development: What We Know
Informed public debate on the issue of regulatory barriers to housing development is impeded both by the lack of precision concerning the concept of regulatory barriers and the absence of sophisticated research on the impact of regulations on the supply and cost of housing. Existing research suggests that a wide range of federal, state, and local regulations, including building codes, environmental laws, land use regula tions, and impact fees, as well as the government procedures to administer these reg ulations, reduces the supply of housing and generates substantial costs. Nevertheless, not all of these regulations can be fairly condemned as " barriers. " To the contrary, some costly regulations can be justified because they promote public health or safety. Others increase price because they generate amenities and, thereby, increase the demand for housing. Many forms of federal, state, and local regulation, however, are neither necessary nor efficient. Others may be efficient, but still generate unacceptable affordability problems for low-and moderate-income households. Existing research on the effects of government regulation on the supply and cost of housing is insufficient to guide public policy. Current studies either ignore entire categories of relevant rules or employ poorly designed methodologies that cannot separate the independent effects of demand and supply. Along with political con straints, this lack of research has contributed to insufficient efforts at all levels of government to remove regulatory barriers.