Tag Archives: housing

Floodproofing Communities

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Gordon Tarpley

NYU’s Furman Center has released a Research Brief, Planning for Resilience: The Challenge of Floodproofing Multifamily Housing. The Brief opens,

As sea levels rise and storms become more frequent and severe due to climate change, many urban areas along the coasts and rivers of the United States are facing a flood-prone future. Especially in the older urban areas along the eastern seaboard, there is a significant stock of multifamily housing that will be increasingly at risk. Much of this housing is out of compliance with federal flood-resistant design and construction standards. Some of these buildings have housing units that are out of compliance because, regardless of their age, they were only recently mapped into the floodplain. And, even buildings that have been in the floodplain for longer may be out of compliance with the rules because their construction predated their jurisdiction’s adoption of the standards. (2)

And it concludes,

As the nation’s floodplains expand, the number and types of housing units at risk of flooding also grows. Multifamily housing makes up a larger share of the at-risk housing in the floodplain than was previously understood, and mitigating the risk to this housing and its residents presents unique challenges that local governments must be prepared to face. While there is no easy answer to how to fund the often costly and disruptive retrofit measures needed in these buildings, there are steps that local governments can take to make it easier for buildings to adapt, such as educating owners about risks, providing them with information about retrofit strategies, and helping them finance improvements. Including strategies like these in a long-term resilience plan will make communities stronger and will ensure that multifamily buildings and their residents are not left behind as flood-prone areas adapt. (10)

There is no doubt that this is right. New York City under both Mayors Bloomberg and De Blasio have taken this issue very seriously, but a lot of work remains to be done. And the odds are that the amount of work will only increase with time as sea levels rise higher and higher. Because many other local governments do not have the resources of NYC, they will get their wake up calls the hard way.

Given the broad effects of climate change, resiliency efforts would ideally be led by the federal government. But I don’t see that happening for a long time, probably after an avoidable tragedy on a large scale spurs Congress to action, notwithstanding its ideological commitments.

Friday’s Government Reports Roundup

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Wednesday’s Academic Roundup

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Wednesday’s Academic Roundup

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Friday’s Government Reports Roundup

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Wednesday’s Academic Roundup

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Rapidly Rising Rents

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The Community Service Society has released its Fast Analysis of the 2014 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey which “analyzed just-released U.S. Census Bureau data from the 2014 version of its New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, a survey of 18,000 New Yorkers conducted every three years under contract with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.” The analysis

reveals that rents have risen rapidly, especially in the city’s inner-ring neighborhoods. Rents rose by 32 percent citywide since 2002, even after removing the effect of inflation. The sharpest increases occurred in neighborhoods surrounding the traditionally high-rent area of Manhattan below Harlem. Central Harlem led the way with a shocking 90 percent increase, with Bedford-Stuyvesant second at 63 percent.

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 study “focused on the rents being paid by tenants who have recently moved. This 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.” (Slide 3)

This focus somewhat undercuts CSS’ claim that rents in general are rising rapidly because rents for vacancies typically rise much faster than those for existing tenancies. That being said, the study confirms the sense of many that outer-borough neighborhoods are rapidly gentrifying and becoming unaffordable to the households who had historically made their homes there. As CSS indicates, their analysis will certainly be relevant to the debates raging over how to regulate NYC’s housing stock.

It is also relevant to debates over zoning. New York City’s population has grown by almost a million and a half people since 1980. That increase puts a lot of pressure on the cost of housing. Unless, the City comes up with a plan to increase the supply of housing, market pressures will just keep pushing rents higher and higher. Mayor de Blasio is well aware of this, so it will be interesting to see whether the City Council will be on board with plans to increase density throughout the City. Greater density is a necessary component of any affordable housing strategy for NYC.