de Blasio's victory lap, a mixed legacy, and overblown claims of meeting affordable housing targets (+no mention of his Atlantic Yards pledge)

As I wrote in August, incoming Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2013 unwisely predicted that, with Atlantic Yards, "On my watch, [the affordable housing] will happen." 

But it's not close to complete (or at income levels promised), setting up a challenge for new mayor Eric Adams, newly elevated governor Kathy Hochul, and developer Greenland Forest City Partners, which faces looming $2,000/month fines by May 2025 for each missing unit, unless that is adjusted or extended.

None of de Blasio's recent victory laps, or even the more balanced journalistic assessments of his term, mention Atlantic Yards, since renamed Pacific Park. So be it, in the era of journalistic retrenchment and short memories. 

But Atlantic Yards should shadow all those accounts.

A press release

Mayor de Blasio Announces 200,000 Affordable Homes Built or Preserved During This Administration, his administration announced 12/22/21, stating, "Administration sets record for affordable housing production and meets its 10-year goal in just eight years."

However impressive, it doesn't come close to meeting the need:

Making good on the Mayor’s commitment to reach deeper affordability, 46 percent of the homes serve New Yorkers earning less than $42,000 per year or $54,000 for a family of three. The Mayor’s signature housing plan remains on pace to reach its ambitious goal of creating or preserving 300,000 affordable homes by 2026.

Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Vicki Been., stated, "I am proud to say that we delivered on what was first heralded as impossible: the promise to create and preserve 200,000 affordable homes."

From the press release:

By revising existing housing financing programs, introducing new ones, and infusing even more capital, 46% of our total production – more than 90,200 affordable homes – serve New Yorkers earning less than $42,000 (or 50% AMI), far exceeding the original 25% target.

As of FY 2017

What's missing from the announcement is how many new homes were built versus preserved, because the latter, however welcome, is merely a holding action.

Well, according to the most recent statistics from the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, as of mid-year, new construction was, cumulatively, 32%.

However, de Blasio's goal, as stated in the first and second iteration of his plan, was 40% new construction, as shown at right.

Also, while the page lists affordability levels, it does not separate out new construction from preservation. My informed speculation is that preservation focuses on the more affordable apartments. After all, there's less reason for the city to invest in preserving middle-income units.

Another victory lap

A new Wealth Transfer Report (also below) from the city cites "transformative progress in turning the tide and supporting working people," noting that the poverty rate in New York City declined from 2013 to 2019 by a rate of 12.7%. (What about the past two years?)

The document cites the Housing New York plan, initially aiming to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable homes by 2025, then expanded to 300,000 affordable homes by 2026, with close to 50% of the housing reserved for low and extremely low-income families. (Again, no mention of the split between preservation and new construction.

Other achievements: paid sick leave, a $15 minimum wage, and IDNYC.

It also cites improvement in  the affordable housing lottery application to make it more accessible, and requirements that developers of rental housing over 40 units to set aside 15 percent for homeless New Yorkers (if they qualify under the AMI?)

In the press: The City

A 12/20/21 article in The City,  Checking Bill de Blasio’s Big Promises: THE CITY’s Scorecard on Eight Years of Ambitious Pledges, assessed eight major announcements, including affordable housing:

In his first State of the City in 2014, de Blasio filled in details on his signature campaign promise to tackle the city’s long-standing shortage of affordable housing.

He pledged to “preserve or construct” 200,000 affordable units in 10 years — a number he would later expand to 300,000. But he built in a safety valve for himself: setting a deadline of 2026, well beyond his tenure.

In his second State of the City the following year, de Blasio unveiled “mandatory inclusionary zoning,” requiring that all developers seeking increased housing development rights make 20% to 30% of their units “affordable.”

He also pledged to rezone entire neighborhoods to ensure affordable apartments in new development. In neighborhoods such as Inwood and SoHo in Manhattan and Gowanus in Brooklyn, he had to overcome opposition from locals worried that a wave of new buildings would alter their neighborhoods’ character — and he ultimately prevailed.

But de Blasio never obtained approval from the state or Amtrak for his 2015 State of the City proposal for 2,600 affordable units atop train yards in Sunnyside, Queens. The city housing department claims the city “remains on track” to “finance” 300,000 affordable units by 2026, including 200,000 “by the end of the administration.”

But the fine print is more complicated: as of June 2021, only 62,557 of the 80,000 “new construction” apartments he promised as part of the original 200,000 have been built.

That's important fine print, as is the distribution of lower-income units.

Other issues include waste reduction, LinkNYC Kiosks, the BQX Streetcar, "100,000 ‘Good-Paying’ Jobs," Paid Vacation for All, and commercial rent control, all of which fell short or died, and Car-Free Central Park, which did come through. (Unmentioned: property tax reform.)

In the press: Gothamist

On 12/7/21, Gothamist published Grading De Blasio: Assessing The Mayor’s Performance On Education, Housing, & Transportation:

De Blasio announced an ambitious plan in 2014 to address the city’s ongoing affordable housing crisis with the creation of hundreds of thousands of below-market rate units spearheaded through rezonings and developer deals. He successfully passed mandatory inclusionary housing, which required private developers to build a certain number of affordable housing units in newly rezoned areas.

His 2017 Housing New York 2.0 plan targeted the creation or preservation of 300,000 affordable units by 2026 using roughly $17 billion in public financing and $83 billion in private investment.

By the end of 2021, de Blasio will likely have reached 200,000 affordable units, outstripping Mayor Ed Koch’s record of 190,000 which occurred over three terms.
But the plan, premised on a mixed-income model that privileged for-profit developers, came under scrutiny for not building enough units for the city’s neediest. A Community Service Society (CSS) report released early this year [bottom] showed that de Blasio’s housing plan met less than 15% of the needs of New Yorkers who were most at risk of becoming homeless, those defined as extremely low-income, or a family of four making less than $36,000.

The articlew still doesn't address the distribution of new construction and preservation. 

In the press: the Times

A 12/22/21 New York Times article, Is New York Still a ‘Tale of Two Cities’?, came up with a mixed verdict on "de Blasio’s pledge to improve inequality, eight years later."

The main achivement was pre-K for all, expanded to “3K-for-all” in 2017, with others including free meals during the pandemic. Note that the improvement in the poverty rate was "to roughly 18 percent in 2019, from 20.5 percent in 2013," less than the way de Blasio framed it.

From the Times:

Mr. de Blasio, who is considering running for governor in 2022 and declined a request for an interview, made progress on key issues like bringing down the poverty level and building affordable housing, but the pandemic was catastrophic for poor New Yorkers.

When the virus was at its worst in New York, Black and Latino people were dying from it at twice the rate as white people — a disparity that the mayor acknowledged was a reflection of long-held inequities in access to health care. The unemployment rate soared to 20 percent, and the poverty level likely rose again.

The mayor also failed to address longstanding inequities facing the transit system and segregated schools, and said that his greatest failure was his response to the homelessness crisis.

(Emphasis added)

Note the lack of details about "building affordable housing," as well as the absence of the word "preserving."

Some criticism:

But the mayor had to be pushed by city leaders when it came to other initiatives, including closing the Rikers Island jail complex, offering half-price MetroCards to poor New Yorkers, and providing deeper levels of affordability in his housing plan. 

....Bertha Lewis, president of the Black Institute, who helped Mr. de Blasio win over progressives during the 2013 Democratic primary for mayor, said it became difficult to defend Mr. de Blasio because he failed to act on key issues.

As David Jones of the Community Service Society pointed out, the city subsidized ferry service "used mostly by affluent, white New Yorkers" more readily than half-price MetroCards, known as "Fair Fares."

In the press: New York magazine

Note: a similarly casual reference in New York magazine's 12/16/21 article, Bill de Blasio Did What New Yorkers Wanted, subtitled "Yet as the mayor prepares to leave office, he remains stubbornly unpopular.":

He had created early-childhood-education programs that served more than 100,000 children under 5 each year, given paid family leave and higher wages to city workers, added or preserved 165,000 units of affordable housing,

In the press: City & State's experts

How will de Blasio be remembered? We asked some experts., City and State wrote 12/20/21, noting:

We know how he feels about his own tenure – at least, what he’ll say publicly. His greatest achievements, he said at a December event at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute in Manhattan, were neighborhood policing, the mental health initiatives branded under ThriveNYC and introducing universal pre-K. The fact that de Blasio has been relentlessly criticized for his handling of the New York City Police Department and that his mental health initiatives are regarded as at least hard to measure and at most a boondoggle, did not go unnoticed.

...He built affordable housing, but affordable for who?

The latter links to a 2/5/21 City Limits article, De Blasio Housing Plan Created More Affordable Units, But Left Out City’s Most Vulnerable: Report (with the report at bottom):

While the city pumped out new affordable units, the Area Median Income (AMI) eligibility for those apartments did not meet the reality of needs in most neighborhoods, the report argues. The city’s homeless shelter population remained stubbornly high, and rental assistance programs did not do enough to help shelter residents secure permanent housing. The New York City Housing Authority, meanwhile, fell through the cracks again

City & States article notes that the mayor was easy to ridicule:

His adherence to Prospect Park YMCA trips was the perfect symbol of the stubbornness behind so many of his political decisions – and nondecisions. He walked a narrow ethical line with political fundraising, and the subsequent investigations left him deeply in debt. And many New Yorkers will never forgive him for running for president when he already had the greatest job in the world – which, for years, he never really seemed to enjoy.

(And now he seems to be running for Governor. At least he wasn't Andrew Cuomo, who stymied him, including regarding the pandemic.)

The citations include his universal pre-K, his "futile, distracting feud with" Cuomo (less BdB's fault), his failures at Vision Zero, some education gains, poor management, homelessness.

In the press: The Daily News editoral

Goodbye, de Blasio: The legacy, good and bad, of NYC’s 109th mayor, the Daily News editorial board wrote 12/20/21:

No, de Blasio isn’t handing incoming Mayor Eric Adams a pile of wreckage; he’s notched some significant accomplishments that will need to be safeguarded by future occupants of the office. But he has fallen far short of his promise, and consistent elevation of his own ideological agenda paired with consistent and arrogant inattention to what matters most to many ordinary New Yorkers mar his legacy.

The editorial praises universial pre-K, municipal IDs for all New Yorkers, "choosing Bill Bratton as his police commissioner and giving him sufficient autonomy," and requiring municipal employees to get  vaccinated.

Criticism include allowing crime to rise as well as allowing cops to manhandle protesters, failing to challenge "a hidebound bureaucracy and union to better serve students," and making little progress with Vision Zero.

Regarding housing:

De Blasio made some meaningful gains in preserving and producing housing, hitting numeric targets he set at the start of his term, but New York City remains far behind the pace of other urban centers in generating new places for its people to live. It ought not be lost on New Yorkers that some of the most significant upzonings of his tenure, in the Gowanus and SoHo, were approved in his final weeks in power.

A related side effect has been a sharp rise in homelessness, continuing trends begun under Bloomberg.... The most glaring housing failure has been de Blasio’s lame stewardship of NYCHA

No, he didn't hit the target for new construction. 

In the press: The Daily News 

After eight years, NYC Mayor de Blasio’s record is a mix of municipal ‘sleaze’ and ‘impactful’ policies.the Daily News wrote 12/25/21, citing universal pre-K, which also led to a"simmering power struggle between the mayor and then-Gov. Cuomo" over how to fund it, and more conflict.

The summary:

Over his eight years as mayor, de Blasio successfully pushed to freeze rents on rent-regulated apartments, provided free legal representation to tenants against landlords, afforded paid sick leave to workers and created a municipal identification card, IDNYC.

While the first action mention certainly aids affordability, and the article does mention NYCHA, there's no mention of the administration's record on building and preserving "affordable housing."