Opinion: NYC Needs Land and Housing for People, Not Profit

As the city and state pour subsidies into for-profit rise that fails to serve those the greater part in need Society Land Trusts CLTs offer a proven and powerful way to ensure lasting affordability protect tenants and begin to repair longstanding racial and economic injustices Housing advocates rallying Tuesday in lower Manhattan for passage of the Society Land Act in the City Council Photo by Adi Talwar From the South Bronx to East New York and beyond communities are working to reclaim land for population good take housing off the speculative sphere and ensure permanent affordability through population land trusts CLTs and neighborhood-led improvement On Tuesday the City Council held a historic hearing on the Locality Land Act a groundbreaking slate of bills backed by -plus groups that would enable CLTs and other nonprofits to dramatically expand the supply of deeply and permanently affordable housing in low-income and Black and brown neighborhoods RELATED READING Social Housing Supporters Revive Push to Boost Nonprofit Society Ownership More than tenants and population groups testified in assistance of the bills which include the Population Opportunity to Purchase Act Intro giving CLTs and other qualified nonprofits a first right to purchase multifamily buildings when landlords sell as well as Society Land for Inhabitants Good Intro requiring the city to prioritize CLTs and other nonprofits in citizens land dispositions The package also includes a resolution calling on New York State to enact the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act Together these bills represent a bold shift toward neighborhood stewardship equity and long-term housing stability The need for such a shift couldn t be clearer or more urgent This day more than half of Black and Latino New Yorkers face housing insecurity the end of decades of disinvestment displacement and speculative evolution As the city and state pour subsidies into for-profit advancement that fails to serve those largest part in need CLTs offer a proven and powerful way to ensure lasting affordability protect tenants and begin to repair longstanding racial and economic injustices Public land trusts are nonprofit community-governed organizations that own and steward land for the citizens good Rooted in civil rights movements CLTs represent a powerful approach to taking land and housing off the speculative sphere preventing displacement and advancing society self-determination In fresh years the CLT movement has grown by leaps and bounds from just two CLTs a decade ago to more than this day operating in every borough New York City s CLTs now steward more than permanently affordable rentals and shared equity cooperatives as well as green spaces affordable retail storefronts region and commercial hubs and more Among the movement s latest wins Last year the East New York CLT worked with organized tenants to purchase their -unit apartment building from a neglectful landlord the first purchase of its kind by a CLT in New York City The CLT is now coordinating with tenants to make long-overdue repairs and convert the building into a tenant-owned affordable cooperative After a decade of sustained advocacy in the South Bronx the Mott Haven Port Morris Locality Land Stewards secured rights in to transform an abandoned city-owned property into a Fitness Instruction and Arts HEArts Center The CLT is also waging a campaign to ensure an accessible waterfront in an environmental justice locality that lacks healthy green spaces and where one in five children suffers from asthma On a Queens peninsula devastated by Hurricane Sandy the ReAL Edgemere CLT was selected to redevelop vacant city lots for climate-resilient affordable homeownership and open space The grassroots CLT is engaging district residents various of whom live in residents housing through a robust and inclusive neighborhood planning process Cooper Square CLT New York s veteran CLT formed in has long stewarded more than deeply affordable apartments on Manhattan s Lower East Side Now the CLT is organizing tenants in two rent-stabilized buildings it rescued from tax foreclosure Northwest Bronx Locality and Clergy Coalition launched the Bronx CLT in to build shared wealth and collective governance over Bronx land In addition to other region ownership wins NWBCCC has secured commitments for four sites in the Belmont neighborhood that the CLT will preserve as permanently affordable cooperative housing Borne out of activist opposition to Amazon s planned headquarters in Long Island City Queens the Western Queens CLT is at this time focused on securing rights to the same site a square foot publicly owned Dept of Guidance building in Long Island City to create manufacturing jobs an immigrant street vendor commissary and artist and district spaces This Land Is Ours CLT formed in contributed to a achieving bid to the NY Archdiocese that will develop a decommissioned religious property into more than newly constructed affordable apartments The CLT also is working to acquire and convert two city-owned parking lots to permanently affordable low-income apartments for families and seniors Even with these and other gains the city s CLTs face steep blockades to scaling up chief among them access to land and capital The Society Land Act would begin to change that By giving CLTs a first right to purchase buildings when landlords sell COPA would enable communities to intervene before speculators swoop in Meanwhile General Land for Population Good would empower CLTs to transform vacant population land- a precious stock into truly affordable housing vibrant locality and green spaces and more The City Council has taken initial procedures to foster the rise of New York s CLT movement including by funding CLT mentoring organizing and technical assistance in the city budget since Groups have leveraged modest funding awards to deliver outsized results building deep bases of sponsorship in their communities acquiring and rehabilitating their first properties partnering with mission-aligned developers and much more We now need New York City to go all in on its sponsorship for CLTs through robust funding and procedures promotion that enables them to seize opportunities to bring land and housing into population control The District Land Act is an essential step forward The city s deepening housing predicament demands bold systemic solutions CLTs are already showing what s doable ensuring real affordability preventing displacement and putting land in population hands Beyond exclusively building more communities are organizing through CLTs to ensure land and housing are developed and stewarded over generations for the general good Deyanira Del R o is executive director of New Financial market Project Matthew Shore is senior organizer at South Bronx Unite and a member of the Mott Haven-Port Morris Neighborhood Land Stewards Brianna Soleyn is a board member of the East New York Population Land Trust The post Opinion NYC Necessities Land and Housing for People Not Profit appeared first on City Limits