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Is the City building the right-sized apartments?
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A New York Times article on Friday, October 19th criticized the Bloomberg affordable housing plan for its lack of large units for poor families. This critique is echoed by many community residents - and it certainly is true that finding a 4-bedroom apartment anywhere in the City, let alone a subsidized unit, is not an easy task.
But an ANHD analysis of the Bloomberg affordable housing plan suggests that the City has generally got it right and has built apartment sizes to match City need. The average household size for New Yorkers is 2.6 people, and almost 90% of NYC households have 4 people or less. It's fitting then, that under the Mayor's affordable housing plan about 80% of units have been studios, or 1- or 2-bedroom units - this is usually sufficient meet the needs of 1-3 person households, and many 4-person households as well. Overall, the distribution of unit sizes in the Mayor's plan largely mirrors the distribution of NYC household sizes. But families of 5 or more people need a 3-bedroom apartment or larger. And New Yorkers are also increasingly living in non-traditional households, including many with multiple generational family members. These households usually require more bedrooms per person than those built for nuclear families. And these households need affordable housing options, too. We have to recognize, however, that building these units costs more money. Building a 4+bedroom apartment is more expensive than building a studio or 1-bedroom apartment. Currently, subsidies are provided on a per unit basis, so that a studio apartment and 3-bedroom apartment both receive the same amount of subsidy from the City. The City could vary subsidy levels by unit size, but it must do so in a way that doesn't create an incentive for overbuilding larger units. The challenge going forward is how to help our larger, lower-income families, while continuing to build the right mix of City families overall. ANHD will release a new report next month using original data provided by the City to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Bloomberg housing plan. The Bloomberg housing plan is, overall, a remarkable achievement in its scope and scale. But our upcoming report goes beyond looking at the number of units built and examines unit size distribution, the geographic distribution, depth of affordability, and length of affordability of the units at the community level for a more comprehensive assessment of New Housing Marketplace. We drill down to ask. has this housing plan met the Real Affordability needs of local communities?