Keeping Housing Affordable for New Yorkers

"I'm proud of my work to preserve and create affordable homes for New Yorkers. I can't wait to get to the City Council to do even more."

Brad Lander is one of New York's leading housing advocates, with a track record of building and saving thousands of units of affordable housing.

• As director of Fifth Avenue Committee, he oversaw development of 500 units of affordable housing, in contextual and attractive buildings in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and Sunset Park, including housing for low-income families, supportive housing for the homeless and for people with AIDS, mixed-income cooperatives, and first-time homebuying opportunities. During Brad's tenure, FAC helped preserve affordable housing for several thousand tenants through tenant organizing and assistance.
• At Pratt Center for Community Development, Brad led advocacy efforts that resulted in NYC's adoption of a new "inclusionary zoning" program in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and the West Side of Manhattan, as well as a citywide reform of the City's outdated 421-a property tax program. Together these two laws are expected to create over 20,000 units of affordable housing and save taxpayers $1 billion.
• As one of the founders (and now the policy co-chair) of Housing First! - a broad coalition of housing advocates - Brad helped to create and guide an organizing effort that has won several billion dollars from New York City and New York State for affordable housing. Brad is also the Housing Chair of Community Board 6, and has served on an array of public task forces at the invitation of the Mayor, the Governor and the City Council Speaker.

Making sure that New Yorkers can afford to stay in their homes, and creating new, appropriate affordable housing may be the greatest challenge confronting our city. Brad has developed a far-reaching plan that will help low-income, working-class, and middle-income families thrive in the city we love:

Save the Affordable Housing We Have

• Strengthen NYC's Rent Laws: Making New York's rent regulation laws stronger is the single most important thing we can do to preserve affordable housing in New York City for over 1 million families. The starting point is repealing the Urstadt Law to restore control to New York City and repealing vacancy decontrol, so rent-stabilized housing does not continue to disappear. We must shut down the "predatory equity" buyers who are purchasing stabilized units with the goal of profiteering through evictions. And we should modernize the program by putting key information on line to help people find stabilized apartments, and help owners access resources like green-building and renovation loans.
• Preserve Affordable Units: Preservation costs much less than new construction - and enables existing residents to stay in their homes. Wherever possible, housing in existing public programs (like Mitchell Lama and Section 8) should be required to remain affordable. The City and State have more power to keep existing subsidized housing affordable, and to require that new housing programs secure permanent affordability.
• Combat Predatory Lending and Help Neighborhoods Facing Foreclosures: For more than a decade, Brad has fought against the kind of irresponsible lending that has so many of our neighbors at risk of losing their homes, and financial markets worldwide at risk of recession. The City should not business with financial institutions who support this type of lending. The State should declare a moratorium on foreclosures. And the Federal government should adopt the Dodd/Frank mortgage rescue plan. At the same time, the City should take full advantage of new federal resources to help homeowners, and to invest rapidly in saving affected neighborhoods from wide abandonment.
• Good Landlord, Good Neighbor Tax Credit: Many small building owners in our community rent apartments at below-market rents, even if they aren't rent stabilized. We should encourage and reward the good neighborliness. At the Fifth Avenue Committee, Brad helped design a property tax credit that would help owners who offer affordable units.

Create New Affordable Housing

• Mandate inclusionary zoning: While the program adopted for Greenpoint-Williamsburg and other neighborhoods will create thousands of new affordable units, many developers are not using the program. Like hundreds of other cities around the country, all new buildings over 10 units in NYC should be required to include some affordable housing (or else to pay significantly into a fund used both to create affordable housing and provide the neighborhood infrastructure needed to sustain growth).
• Continue to Invest in Affordable Housing: Brad is proud of the work of Housing First!, which helped prompt Mayor Bloomberg to invest over $7 billion in affordable housing, and this year won the largest commitment of resources for housing from Albany in a generation. The City must build upon this leadership in the years to come, with smart and well-planned investments in affordable rental, cooperative, and homeownership housing.

Open Up Opportunities

• Prevent Housing Discrimination: Brad helped encourage passage by the City Council of a recent law that prevents discrimination against families with Section 8 rent vouchers. The City should work aggressively to make this program work, and aggressively step up efforts against all housing discrimination.
• Encourage Good Jobs Building Affordable Housing: In too many cases, affordable housing is built by workers who are paid off-the-books, have no health insurance, and can't afford to live in the housing they are building. New York City has an opportunity to leverage its affordable housing programs to create good jobs. In all cases, the City should require "responsible contractors" - those who have a track record of labor and safety violations should not be allowed to participate in subsidy programs. And we should create (and evaluate) a pilot program in which developers build affordable housing with union labor, at an appropriate affordable housing rate, and hire locally for new jobs that are created.