Affordable Housing in New York City

In the city where there is an eight year waiting list for housing benefit (Section 8) at the best of times, and where the list is currently closed because the budget has run out, housing and its affordability is a big issue. This is an issue that I am very familiar with, and one that took up a lot of my time when I was a local politician in London.

It's all about the split

The New York scheme for affordable new build housing is described on the NYC Housing Development Corporation Webside: "Under the so called "80/20" program, 20% of the units in certain newly constructed buildings are set aside for low and moderate income households. The rest (the 80%) of the units are rented at market (usually "luxury") rates. Developers of new housing are not required to participate in this program, but if a developer does, he receives low interest bond financing, tax credits and other benefits which make the 80/20 program worthwhile"

20% affordable! 20% is a very low percentage in the UK, with most Conservative councils having higher requirements than this. And developers are, on the whole, required to stick to the percentage of affordable housing that is agreed when planning permission is granted.

The argument in Islington was not around the percentage of new private housing that should be affordable, as all parties agreed that this should be 50%, but it came down to the split within the 50% of how much should be social rented (to people on the council housing waiting list) and how much should be affortable rent / buy open to people (including key workers) on low and moderate incomes. Labour wanted 70/30 and the Liberal Democrats and Green supported 60/40.

I don't know much, and would be interested to learn more, about how the afforable housing requirement in New York was set, and would be interested to learn more.