CB 8 grills City Planning on rezoning

Members of Community Board (CB) 8’s Land Use Committee grilled officials from the Department of City Planning (DCP) about the mayor’s effort to encourage affordable housing in large swaths of the neighborhood last week. Land Use Committee Chairman Charles Moerdler and other members suggested the plan is an unnecessary one that will damage the character of the community while creating segregation in the city. DCP officials replied that without prompting from the city, developers will not build 80,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade, one of the top goals of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.

“In creating this proposal… you don’t give a damn about the character of the neighborhood,” Mr. Moerdler told Carol Samol, the director of DCP’s Bronx office, during a heated moment that drew applause from dozens of audience members.

A roughly 30-minute presentation by Ms. Samol preceded the stinging statements and questions from CB 8 members. She argued that her department’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) proposal — one of several components of the ambitious plan to encourage affordable housing — will help reverse a trend in which population growth is outpacing the city’s affordable housing stock.

“The main focus is also on providing and fostering — to continue to foster — very vibrant and economically diverse neighborhoods. That is the goal,” Ms. Samol said of the mayor’s “Housing New York” program, which consists of MIH, a rezoning plan called Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) and lobbying for the state to strengthen the 421-a program, which gives developers tax breaks in exchange for building affordable housing.

MIH, the focus of the Oct. 18 presentation, would require developments, enlargements and residential conversions of more than 10 units in “medium or high-density areas” to include 25 to 30 percent affordable housing. Buildings of 11 to 25 units would have an option to pay into a fund for affordable housing elsewhere in the same community district where a developer wants to build.