Downtown Boosters Wary of Credit Crunch, 421-a Revamp

big problem i had with this article, is that it spends the first 2 pages in pure conjecture and assumption of how the market is doomed but provides no actual facts to support its end of the world headline, then goes on to fill the remaining half with fact after fact that exhibit the reality of a booming market.

this article comes off to me as just another rag using doom and gloom supposition to attract readers. so tiring. especially when it comes at the expense of the place where we live.

Ooo…that Polemicist macho man is getting us all excited!!! Hasn’t done it for me this way in weeks!!!

(Oh…and BTW, I’ll have what she’s having…)

But seriously Folks,

Yes, Polemicist makes some good points…I guess…unfortunately a bit toward the rah-rah build-build-build pole. Kind of explains the “guy-thingishness” of his posts. Too many vulgarities as well…but whatever.

Listen, I’ve lived in cities that have very old housing stock. So, what’s the big ordeal that we have older housing in Brooklyn. What? Are we going around peeling lead paint off walls as snacks? Are these houses all that ugly? Well…some are, okay…but many aren’t. I’m sorry but I don’t think hi-rises that you seem to fancy so much (or at least excuse) help foster a sense of community or will eventually be that easily maintainable/sustainable. As you and I have argued before, more-or-less, the real “footprint” for a hi-rise dweller may end up just as large as that of a dweller of a lower-density urban neighborhood.

And on the subject of older housing stock:
One apartment building I lived in in a world capital was built right around the same time as our current house (in Brooklyn): the mid-1800’s. I consider kind of old (sloping floors…you name it!). And, I have also lived in housing that was/still is centuries old (and on a boat…but that’s another story). That “world capital” remains much as it was at the close of the 1870’s with some corridors of additions afterward. Sure, depressingly large numbers of buildings (some of historical and architectural significance) were still ripped out to make way for (usually) low-scale “mod” apartment buildings up through, shockingly, the 80’s, but basically the building stock is “old”. In fact, over the last 20 or so years there has been a real push to restore buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries, buildings that had become warehouses and workshops.

The city is highly urban-planned and has a LOT of government intervention and voilà, it has done rather well.

BTW, Mr. Polemicist, what do you think of Mitchell-Lama? I’m almost afraid to ask!!!

Most sincerely,
FG/LaGrandeDameDeLaGrammaire

My god, what do you people want? An entire market analysis in a single post? I think we are straying a bit from the focus of this article… but what the hell.

It should be common knowledge the population of the city declined in the 1970s and 1980s. What relevance does that have today? None.

Residential real estate is only partly driven by pure population growth. It’s not like you build a house and it lasts 1000 years. Real estate improvements have a finite life, and new technology and improvements in living standards demand new construction. Why aren’t we all just living in tents?

But my argument isn’t really the issue – the actions of politicians who enacted these laws should stand on their own. Why was public housing developed? Why was the 421(a) tax abatement enacted? Public Housing was implemented to give quality housing to people who couldn’t otherwise afford it as so much of the existing housing stock was obsolete. It had nothing to do with population growth. The program ultimately was a failure. Most responsible advocates for the poor realize that “place based” aid is pointless and does nothing but create substandard housing and isolate the poor from society. It enhances blight rather than prevent it.

The 421(a) abatement was enacted for the same reason – to make it more affordable for developers to build new housing and to replace obsolete housing – not accommodate a growing population, which obviously was not an issue in the 1970s. To an extent it did that initially, but has that benefit trickled down to the tenants in this city? Or to the buyers of condominiums? No. It has done nothing but raise prices of land and condominiums. If condo buyers had to pay full real estate taxes, the amount of their household income they could spend on their mortgage would decline and then so too would the price of condos.

You can shift the money around all you want, but the end result is the same to the buyer. Some developers who bought land under the assumption the abatement could be used would be screwed, as such benefits directly affect land value – but in time, things would work out.

Let me ask all my detractors a simple question. You believe it’s ok that 80% of the housing in this city is at least almost 50 years old. Is this a trend that should continue ad infinitum? Are we going to be sitting here in 50 years having people say is 100% ok that 80% of the housing units in Brooklyn are a century old at least? When does it end?

To me, that seems crazy. It seems just as crazy as arguing that the 421(a) abatement is 1) necessary for development and 2) doesn’t skew prices.

5:14: You know nothing of the methodology of valuing real estate, so stfu.

Polemicist

“If we are just going to pull numbers out of our ass, rather than my general comments, at least let it be known that in fact the majority of housing units in Brookly date from before 1940. What is worse is nearly 80% of the housing units were built prior to 1960”

Which ass are you pulling numbers out of? Looking at population numbers for Brooklyn (which comes from the Census Bureau’s ass) we
have not gotten back to 1960 levels.
1930 – 2,560,400
1940 – 2,698,300
1950 – 2,738,200
1960 – 2,627,000
1970 – 2,602,000
1980 – 2,310,000
1990 – 2,300,700
2000 – 2,465,326

Based on the population decline, we should have stopped building in 1960 as there would have been no need for housing. The new construction since then allowed a smaller population to have more housing. There was supposed to be a slow down in new construction as population growth wouldn’t drive it. I don’t understand what your perspective is when fewer people have more housing choices available.