> Back to Policy Demand: Inclusionary Zoning

Mayor's 10/14/04 Announcement
Lack of Affordable Housing in the Rezonings

October 24, 2004

In a speech to the Enterprise Foundation conference on October 14, the Mayor acknowledged that the rezonings as originally proposed will NOT produce affordable housing and also acknowledges that the Administration is looking at inclusionary zoning as a way to leverage market-rate housing to create housing for low- and moderate-income people. Full excerpt below.

"It's our plan to fund the creation, or preservation, of 65,000 units of
housing - affordable homes for 200,000 New Yorkers - by the end of 2008.

And to do that, we're using innovative methods to stimulate the development
of affordable housing - by creating incentives and removing barriers to
development.

We are, for example, engaged in the most ambitious re-zoning of the city in
a generation.

It's targeting abandoned waterfronts, underutilized manufacturing areas, and
brownfields.

And we expect it to create the conditions for developing 25,000 units of new
housing for New Yorkers.

To make sure a large share of these units are affordable, we are inventing
new "inclusionary" zoning policies that allow developers to build more
apartments in exchange for keeping some affordable.

These policies harness the vitality of our housing market - turning the
challenge of today's high prices for market-rate units into an opportunity
to create low-priced homes as well."