NEW YORK : De Blasio Unveils Affordable Housing Initiative

[chris08876]

I could see micro units as the cheapest way to get 1000's of units in a short amount of time and in a small area. I'm thinking the way things are going in Manhattan with respect to lack of space, Hong Kong style housing may start appearing. 700 sq ft units are considered big in HK. Many though for a slice of the Big Apple life would happily live in a 400 sq ft unit. Bed, toilet, small kitchen, microwave!, and a small window is all a young person needs.

We could say that these units will appear in the outer boroughs, and they are, but many will pay a premium for Manhattan, even if its 50-60% of their income after taxes. What better way to cram 1000's of units in 2 or 3 towers and still make a profit.

[lio45]

I agree, but we have to keep in mind that the type of person who considers, like you pretty much just spelled out, that basic housing = private [bed + toilet + bath + small kitchen] in a super-small unit...

... might not accept to settle for SRO (a.k.a. random unknown old drunkards as your roommates, and you have no say in choosing them).


So, yes, the free market is very likely to build smaller and smaller and smaller units.

But the free market is absolutely unlikely to start to build SRO-setup buildings.

[chris08876]

Illegal Conversions Interactive Data Map:

1) Click on each bubble to reveal more illegal units
2) Most of it is in some form affordable housing
3) Zooming in and scrolling out reveals hotspots and the number of units per neighborhood

Map: https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housin...-Map/vvfi-e62b

[Randomguy34]

Although not specifically related to de Blasio's affordable housing initiative, we finally have hard data as to why affordable housing is necessary for cities.

The Urban Housing Crunch Costs the U.S. Economy About $1.6 Trillion a Year
Richard Florida | May 18,2015

The dearth of affordable housing options in superstar cities like New York, San Francisco and San Jose (home of Silicon Valley) costs the U.S. economy about $1.6 trillion a year in lost wages and productivity, according to a new analysis from economists Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of the University of California at Berkeley. The study, which journalists like The Economist’s Ryan Avent and Vox’s Tim Lee have written about, was made publicly available as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper earlier this month.

While we know that cities and metro areas contribute massively to economic growth—the nation’s 380 plus metro areas generated $14.6 trillion in GDP in 2012, about 90 percent of the total—we know a great deal less about which factors limit the growth of cities and metros. Economists such as Edward Glaeser have raised important questions about how antiquated zoning, building codes and NIMBYism restrict development and therefore damage the economy, but until this study no one had developed defensible estimates of the costs of such constrained development on the U.S. economy broadly. The title of the study, “Why Cities Matter: Local Growth and Aggregate Growth,” reflects Hsieh and Moretti’s focus on ferreting out the contributions cities and metros do—or don’t—make to overall U.S. economic growth....

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/...a-year/393515/

[chris08876]

Mayor Bill de Blasio reintroduced and changed the Bloomberg administration's idea to allow market-rate apartments on New York City Housing Authority property enough to please mostly everyone

In the business world, it's hard to keep good ideas down, but in the public sphere, politics often intrude. That's why we were especially gratified last week when Mayor Bill de Blasio revived a Bloomberg administration plan to allow market-rate apartments on New York City Housing Authority property.

The mayor modified the plan enough to head off cries of betrayal, given that he had opposed his predecessor's attempt to break the taboo of for-profit homes on public-housing land. Rather than let developers build towers with 80% market-rate and 20% affordable apartments, Mr. de Blasio will require a 50-50 split.

What's important, though, is that the new plan will generate $400 million to $800 million over the first 10 years for public housing from private development. Some of the revenue will recur. And because the plan is championed by a nonbillionaire mayor whose cause célèbre is reducing income inequality, it will be an easier sell to public-housing advocates and residents. Mr. de Blasio won't relish this comparison, but the Nixon-in-China dynamic is unmistakable.

The money is crucial because cost-cutting, efficiency gains and innovation alone won't get the Housing Authority out of its immense financial hole—$17 billion in capital needs and red ink as far as the eye can see. It would be foolhardy not to leverage the authority's most valuable asset: developable Manhattan land. To call this blasphemy is to ignore that the agency's fiscal problems (attributable mostly to federal funding cuts) are compromising its mission more than market-rate units would.

There's much more to like about the de Blasio plan, including that it will facilitate moving tenants into smaller apartments, freeing up larger units for families that desperately need them. The authority will also modernize its rent-payment system, which collects only 74% of what it's owed and is so clunky that many tenants venture to check-cashing stores every month to pay. It will enter into more partnerships with private owners to make properties eligible for federal rent subsidies without giving up authority control of the apartments. It will hike the average outer-borough parking-spot fee to $86 a month from an absurdly low $26. Its duplicative units will be folded into other city agencies.

Finally, the city's public-housing system has a road map to sustainability. Nearly 500,000 New Yorkers stand to benefit directly. There should always be room for good ideas. We applaud the mayor for his embrace of many of them.

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...lan-that-works

[chris08876]

Neat article in The Atlantic whick talks about the public housing crisis.

Article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...crisis/393644/

[chris08876]

Interactive map.
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MAP: https://newyork.placeilive.com/map#4...93621826172/11

Place I Live is a location based platform giving more insights about neighborhoods. The website provides information about safety, transportation and more through Life Quality Index rating and maps with street view, coordinates and zip codes. Here you can see the comprehensive accumulated data about New York City which helps making smart decisions not only about everyday life (locating supermarkets, restaurants and more), but also deciding about real estate lease, rent or sale. In the website you can not only find the New York map with zip codes, but you can also see what the tourist attractions are that you can visit or recommend to your friends. New York map is also equipped with districts, directions and complete address lists.

[chris08876]

De Blasio mansion-tax hike may keep home prices below $1.75M, IBO says

Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposed "mansion tax" increase might induce sellers to offer apartments at $1.75 million or less, the city's Independent Budget Office reported.

Mr. de Blasio proposed the measure last month, saying it would raise about $200 million annually to finance about 37,000 affordable apartments. The mayor has a goal of building or creating 200,000 such units by 2025.

New York state and the city already have mansion taxes. A residential property selling for more than $1 million and up to $1.75 million is subject to a combined surcharge of 2.825%, said the IBO, a public fiscal monitor.

Under Mr. de Blasio's plan, once a price exceeds $1.75 million, the city would assess an additional 1% on the entire purchase price and 1.5% on any amount over $5 million.

For example, a property that sold for $1.75 million would be charged $49,437.50, while owners of a property that closed for $1.76 million would pay $67,320. So, an added $10,000 in the price would result in an increase of $17,882 in the tax—an inducement to keep the price at or below $1.75 million, the IBO said.

Properties priced just above $5 million wouldn't be similarly affected because the higher 1.5% rate that kicks in at that level is marginal, meaning it applies only to the amount above $5 million, the IBO said.

The measure must overcome opposition from tax-averse Republicans who control the state Senate. It won support from the Real Estate Board of New York. That group also backed a plan, opposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to grant property-tax abatements to developers who reserve at least 30% of a project's units at below-market prices.

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...1-75m-ibo-says

[C.]

Must read: http://www.ibtimes.com/andrew-cuomos...dustry-1947043

A top executive at Glenwood is thought to be cooperating with Bharara’s investigation. As that probe has intensified, Cuomo has in recent weeks tried to publicly depict himself as a populist opponent of the same real estate industry that gave so lavishly to his election campaigns. After repeatedly backing legislative initiatives to give special tax breaks to real estate developers, the governor has suddenly slammed New York City mayor Bill de Blasio for supporting some of the same tax breaks. Cuomo now calls de Blasio’s tax break plan a “sweetheart deal to large real estate developers in the city."

[chris08876]

Harlem Rents Jump 90 Percent over the Past 12 Years, Bed-Stuy Not Much Better at 63 Percent

Take everything you think you know about “affordable” alternatives to pricey neighborhoods and throw it out the window. This map from the Community Service Society (first shared by the Daily News) analyzes newly released census data that compares median rents between 2002 and 2014. The data is drawn from a New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Urban Development survey of 18,000 New Yorkers every three years who had recently moved, which “eliminates the tendency of lower rents paid by long-time tenants to smooth out market changes and mask the changes that affect tenants who are looking for a place to live,” according to CSS.

The report shows that rents citywide have increased 32 percent over the past 12 years, not a new or surprising figure. But it also shows drastic increases in neighborhoods that have been traditionally thought of as more affordable. Central Harlem saw the biggest jump at 90 percent; the average rent in 2002 for new residents was $821 and now it’s skyrocketed to $1,560. Other no-longer-affordable neighborhoods are Bed-Stuy at a 63 percent increase and Washington Heights/Inwood at 55 percent. The other ‘hoods topping the list include less surprising areas like Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO/Fort Greene at 59 percent and Williamsburg/Greenpoint at 53 percent.

What led to this sharp jump? According to CSS:

The loss of rent-regulated housing to vacancy deregulation is combining with the loss of subsidized housing and with rising rents overall to dramatically shrink the city’s supply of housing affordable to low-income households. Between 2002 and 2014, the city lost nearly 440,000 units of housing affordable to households with incomes below twice the federal poverty threshold.

The report was released just as the city’s controversial 421-a tax incentive program is set to expire along with rent stabilization laws, which Mayor de Blasio has said he seeks to strengthen.

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http://www.6sqft.com/harlem-rents-ju...-better-at-63/

[chris08876]

City promises 1,200 affordable apartments in East New York in the next two years

The de Blasio administration pledged to build 1,200 affordable apartments in East New York over the next two years, city officials said at a planning meeting in the Brooklyn neighborhood Wednesday night.

"This is affordable housing targeted to what we've seen and heard from this community," a mayoral spokesman said. "And delivered in real time so that families will feel it benefits [them] in the here and now."

The units will be built on private and public sites, and financed through various city and state programs. More than three-quarters of the units will be rentals geared toward families making at or below 60% of a metric called the area median income. So, for example, monthly rents for a two-bedroom apartment would top out at $1,748, but would be hundreds of dollars cheaper for most of the other similarly sized units.

The pledge, along with plans to create a new 1,000-seat school, was the city's response to community feedback that has been collected in numerous meetings in the transit-rich neighborhood. Wednesday night's gathering was the latest effort in coming up with a preliminary plan before the city formally applies to rezone a more than 100-block area of East New York.

The plan will be designed to allow for the creation of more housing and improved streetscapes, unlocking value for property owners in the process.

In exchange, the administration will require that any new apartment building in the area include a percentage of affordable apartments, in a policy known as mandatory inclusionary housing. The details of just how many units developers will need to set aside have not yet been hammered out, but are expected before the formal rezoning process begins by September.

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...ew-york-in-the

[chris08876]

I.B.O. estimates 421-a to cost $3.3 B. in revenue

The recently-revised 421-a tax break will cost New York City $3.3 billion over 10 years in foregone revenue, according to a new estimate.

The city's Independent Budget Office, a nonpartisan organization, provided the analysis to Capital upon request.

The cost will take effect when construction gets underway, not necessarily in January of 2016, when the revised law takes effect, I.B.O. spokesman Doug Turetsky said. Developers then receive the tax break for 35 years under the new program.

The tax expenditure will be in addition to the current lost revenue from buildings already receiving 421-a, which exceeded $1.1 billion in Fiscal Year 2015, according to city documents.

The I.B.O., a nonpartisan budget watchdog group, based the estimate on recent history and adjusted to account for new rules regarding high-end condos, which will no longer receive the abatement come January. (All existing buildings receiving 421-a will continue to; the bill only applies to new construction.)

"We assume you won't have activity under the new program for a couple of years, certainly not see foregone revenue from it in F.Y. 2016 or even F.Y. 2017," Turetsky said. "So the 10-year look is the first 10 years of activity under the revised terms of the program."

Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said in June that the 421-a program Mayor Bill de Blasio was proposing at the time would have cost $9.9 billion over 45 years. The final plan, approved in Albany last month, largely resembled City Hall's proposal but left some condos eligible to receive the tax break. The mayor had proposed eliminating all condos from the program.

Wiley Norvell, a mayoral spokesman, said that change accounts for some of the cost.

"The final package includes mid-market condos, which carry additional costs over the 45-year life cycle of the program," he told Capital.

He did not dispute the estimate from I.B.O.

The lost tax revenue has been a point of controversy in the debate over 421-a: affordable housing advocates argue that revenue should be collected and used to pay for low-income housing, while developers insist fewer buildings would be constructed without the tax break. The abatement began in the 1970s to spur growth during economic turmoil in New York City.

When it expired in June, the State Legislature voted to revise it to require developers build more affordable units and eliminate any exemption based on location. In exchange, the break was extended to 35 years, from 25 years currently.

The mayor was unable to secure permission to impose a "mansion tax" on high-end sales that would have accounted for an estimated $2 billion in tax revenue over 10 years. He has said he will look for alternate sources of income for the program.

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http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...t-33-b-revenue

[chris08876]

Next phase of de Blasio's affordable-housing plan is out—and for one advocate, the devil's in the details

The forthcoming mandatory inclusionary zoning proposal will require developers to set aside either 25% or 30% of the units in new condo and rental buildings for affordable housing.

One advocacy group supported the premise of Mayor Bill de Blasio's new affordable-housing policy revealed on Friday, but questioned whether the people it will end up benefiting are actually those most in need of cheap rent. The de Blasio administration's forthcoming mandatory inclusionary zoning proposal will require developers to set aside either 25% or 30% of the units in new condo and rental buildings for affordable housing.

"This affordable housing will be mandatory, and it will be permanent," Mr. de Blasio said in a statement. "These are hard new requirements that, for the very first time, set a floor for the affordable housing that communities are owed in new development.”

The proposed changes would apply to any buildings topping 10 units that fall under a rezoning—either a neighborhood-wide plan that seeks to boost the development potential of a large swath of properties at once, or a spot rezoning applied for by an individual property owner. The details were first reported by Capital New York.

The nonprofit Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development lauded the overall aim, but questioned what sort of incomes the apartments would be designed to serve.

"Requiring permanently affordable housing in all future upzonings is a huge step forward for creating the inclusive neighborhoods we need in this city, but we need to ask who will be included and who will be left out," said Moses Gates, director of planning and community development for the nonprofit. "The fact is the rent levels proposed are too high to meet the needs of the New Yorkers who are most desperate for affordable housing."

Mr. Gates is referring in part to the way the affordability levels are calculated in the proposal. Essentially, whenever a neighborhood or an individual parcel is set to be rezoned, the Department of City Planning and the local member of the City Council will decide which of the two options will apply. If they choose to require 25% of the project's units be dedicated to affordable housing, then rents for the affordable units will have to average out to serve a household making 60% of a metric called the area median income. For a family of three, that equals $1,165 a month in rent. If they pick the 30% option, affordable units will have to average out to 80% of AMI.

But those numbers are just an average. And while Mr. Gates supports the concept of income averaging, he believes the average should be lower, since developers can hit those marks without including units for very low-income New Yorkers. The city, on the other hand, contends that its mix of incomes allows for a more diverse program, and for developers to reach lower income levels on the other end of the spectrum.

"We wanted to expand the range of families who can be served by the program," said Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development. "We expect the averaging to be taken very seriously."

Of even greater concern to the nonprofit is a third option available in select situations, where a developer could provide 30% of the units to a household making 120% of AMI, or a family of three making more than $93,000 annually. According to the plan, this option could only be authorized by the City Council.

A group of key City Council members lauded the policy, an important note since the legislative body will have the final say over whether the proposal becomes law at the end of a lengthy public-review process, likely to begin with the plan's formal introduction in September.

"We have a long process ahead of us before the council has to act, and we will be listening very carefully," council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement. "But after years of work on the part of many, this proposal is truly a defining moment in how we grow and develop as a city."

Notably, Jimmy Van Bramer, the council's majority leader and the newly minted head of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, through which the proposal will pass, also provided statements in support of the policy.

In neighborhoods where real estate values do not support market-rate construction, the administration envisions the use of affordable-housing subsidies to help developers hit the new mandatory marks.

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...ut-and-for-one

[C.]

Not bad. Let the rezonings begin and let those seeking affordable housing, their advocates, and trade unions counteract any NIMBY bullshit.

[chris08876]

Millions applied for 4K affordable units over a 2-year period

Chances of getting an affordable apartment in the city is roughly one in 696.

That’s the number of applications for every affordable apartment offered in city lotteries since July 2013, according to the New York Daily News. “The affordability crisis is getting worse every day, and we’re in danger of losing our city,” Maritza Silva-Farrell, a spokesperson for Real Affordability for All, told the newspaper. “Too many neighborhoods are being handed over to wealthy developers.”

In total, 2.9 million people applied for a 4,174 available units across 72 Department of Housing Preservation and Development lotteries. And while these units might qualify as affordable, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re cheap. At City Point in Brooklyn — where the lottery for affordable units opened last week — three quarters of the building’s 200 units will be reserved for those making up to 165 percent of the median income in the area or $142,395 annually for a family of four.

At 382 Lefferts Avenue in the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens area of Brooklyn, the affordable studios will rent for $1,900 a month and one-bedroom units will be more than $2,000. In May, a market-rate studio in the area averaged $1,334 per month.

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http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/08/....y3hleEh0.dpuf

[chris08876]

Mayor backs off estimate for mandatory inclusionary zoning

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday backed off his campaign estimate that mandatory inclusionary zoning would create 50,000 units of affordable housing.

Speaking at an unrelated press conference, the mayor simply said the policy — which he recently unveiled and will officially introduce for consideration next month — would be a "crucial building block" in his overall goal of building 80,000 affordable units and preserving another 120,000 over a decade.

"We are going to get to 200,000 units," he said. "Mandatory inclusionary zoning, if passed as we hope it will be, will be an important contributing figure. We'll be able to better hone that number in the process — the legislative process and the city planning process. But either way you slice it, we're getting to the grand total."

When he was running for mayor in 2013, he said such a policy would spur development of 50,000 units of affordable housing in eight years — a figure that was met with skepticism at the time.

Administration officials recently rolled out their proposal, which is also called mandatory inclusionary housing. In it, developers who take advantage of building on rezoned city land would have to devote 25 percent of their overall units to tenants making an average of 60 percent of the area median income, which is $46,620 for a family of three, by federal standards. Another option would require builders to set aside 30 percent of the apartments for those making, on average, 80 percent of the AMI, or $62,150 for a family of three.

A third, more controversial option, which could be used only in conjunction with one of the other two, would let developers reserve 30 percent of the units for a higher-income threshold — 130 percent of the A.M.I., which equals $100,994 for a family of three.

The policy will be certified in September and must undergo a standard city land use review process, which entails non-binding input from community boards, borough presidents and borough boards and ends with a vote in the City Council.

Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and a number of Council members have already endorsed the proposal, as has ANHD. Developers are skeptical and generally say they are more concerned with the fate of the 421-a development tax break, which must be decided by January.

======================
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...sionary-zoning

[chris08876]

Credit: http://www.6sqft.com/neighborhoodxs-...s-are-soaring/

[chris08876]

Credit: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/08/...-in-one-chart/

[chris08876]

City is cracking down on 421a violations.
======================

Nearly 200 Buildings in New York City Flouted Tax Rules, Officials Say

Developers of nearly 200 small buildings in New York City have flouted the terms of tax breaks they received by failing to place their apartments on the rent-stabilization rolls, state and city officials said.

In letters that went out Tuesday, officials from three agencies told the owners to register their units as rent-stabilized or risk a range of penalties, including being required to return the value of their tax incentives. The action affects 2,472 apartments in 194 buildings scattered across the city, but mostly in Brooklyn.

The developers received discounts on property taxes under a state program known as 421-a, which is meant to spur construction. Advocates for affordable housing and Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, had criticized the program, which led to $1 billion in forgiven taxes in New York City last year, for not producing enough low-cost housing. They persuaded the Legislature this year to modify the rules to require more units for low-income tenants in exchange for the tax breaks.

The buildings in question did not necessarily have to offer below-market rents, but if the apartments were rentals, the 421-a program required the owners to register them with the state as rent-stabilized apartments. That would entitle tenants to leases whose rents are regulated by the city and the guarantee to renew their leases every year.

The 421-a program also benefits condominiums, and in each of the 194 buildings in question, the owners had originally intended to build condos, but changed their mind, possibly because of market conditions, and decided to rent the apartments rather than sell them, officials said.

Regardless of motivation, the officials said, by avoiding rent-regulated leases the owners could give themselves flexibility to clear out tenants when they decided to go through with the sales.

The letters, sent by the state attorney general’s office, the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal’s Tenant Protection Unit and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, offer an amnesty of sorts. If the building owners properly register their apartments, tenants will receive stabilized leases at or below what they are presently paying, and the owners will not face penalties. Tenants can file claims for reimbursement if they believe they were overcharged.

The nine-page letter tells owners that they have “a one-time, nonnegotiable opportunity to cure these violations” by meeting a series of deadlines to register the apartments and by notifying tenants of the new status of their units. Failure to comply, the letter said, may result in penalties of up to repayment of past tax benefits.

“This is a fair approach that will protect tenants and keep their rents at current or lower levels, while also bringing landlords into compliance with the law,” the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, a Democrat,said in a statement.

[...]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/ny...cials-say.html

[chris08876]

The Past And Future Of New York City’s Affordable Housing

As the city edges towards its 2020 population forecast, the Museum of the City of New York is delving into our decades-long struggle to shelter the poorest residents with a new exhibit on the history of affordable housing. To celebrate the exhibit’s opening, the museum hosted a panel Thursday night, where a collection of real estate executives debated whether de Blasio’s ambitious plan to build or preserve 200,000 units would make a dent in the city’s affordable housing crisis.

“At the moment, there are more [rent-regulated] units being lost or converted to market-rate than any [housing] program can meet,” said Saky Yakas, a partner at SLCE Architects. “And I haven’t heard any legislation to stop this bleeding from the inventory that exists.”

The other speakers pointed out that the mayor’s housing initiative aims to extend the regulatory agreements that keep certain kinds of subsidized units at below-market rates—like Mitchell-Lama, Section 8, and income-restricted rentals.

“It costs a building owner $500 or $600 a month to keep the lights and the heat on in a unit,” explained Rafael Cestero, president of the Community Preservation Corporation. “So if you make $20,000 a year as a family of four, you can’t even afford the basic cost of water, electric and heat. There is a fundamental challenge that we face as a city around the fundamental cost of operating and building property. This isn’t a philosophical debate.”

Cestero explained that we need better income-based rental subsidies to fill the gap and help keep building owners in the black. But as former Rep. Barney Frank noted during his keynote earlier in the evening, Congress has consistently cut funding for federal housing programs like Section 8, and the city and state have fewer resources to heavily subsidize rents.

But last year, Mayor de Blasio crafted a new rent voucher program called LINC, which gives formerly homeless families $1,200 to $1,900 a month to leave the shelter system. Ismene Speliotis, executive director of the Mutual Housing Association of New York, blamed landlords and developers for not accepting the vouchers. Thousands of families aren’t able to use them, possibly because landlords are worried LINC will meet the same fate as its predecessor, Advantage. The state gutted that subsidy program in 2011.

And one developer wondered whether the New York City could partner with nearby cities where land and construction costs are cheaper in order to build affordable housing for less. Former HPD Commissioner Richard Roberts, who now works for Red Stone Equity Partners, suggested Yonkers or Mount Vernon. Westchester and Long Island don’t carry their weight in terms of housing development, but the state could push for better zoning or tax abatements to encourage more construction in those counties.

Others highlighted the need for more market-rate development in the city’s cheapest neighborhoods—like eastern Queens, southern Brooklyn and the upper Bronx. The Department of City Planning downzoned many of these areas during the Bloomberg years, stunting construction where new immigrants and working class New Yorkers could most easily afford to rent.

“At some level, there’s the ability to do what I’d call workforce housing, which we don’t call affordable housing, in neighborhoods that aren’t as expensive,” added Ron Molelis, CEO of L+M Development Partners. “If you create neighborhoods where people want to live and don’t force people out, they will be more affordable than other places.”

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REBECCA BAIRD-REMBA