YIMBY used the city’s Open Data portal to map the last five years of 311 complaints about illegal conversions, and the numbers illustrate what longtime New Yorkers already know: the majority of illegal apartments occupy homes in densely populated, working class areas with growing numbers of recent immigrants.
Mayor de Blasio unveiled his grand plan to fix 421-a this week, and his proposal requires any developer who wants to take advantage of the property tax exemption to set aside 25 to 30 percent of their units as affordable housing. And the abatement would be extended from 25 to 30 years, in an attempt to make the measure more palatable to developers.
Building attractive affordable housing on a limited budget is an issue developers and designers throughout the city wrestle with on a daily basis. So YIMBY talked to a few architects behind innovative affordable and supportive projects about what works—materials, layouts, green features—and how proposed zoning changes might shape new buildings.
Last July, YIMBY obtained construction documents for the future Nordstrom Tower at 217 West 57th Street, and we translated the diagrams into renderings. And now, we have obtained official renderings created by the architect, depicting Midtown (and potentially, the Western Hemisphere’s) future tallest tower.
If there’s one thing that community boards, developers and architects can agree on, it’s that the city’s zoning code is outdated, restrictive and unclear. So the Department of City Planning is trying to get feedback from architects, planners and communities on its proposed zoning changes, which are meant to spur the construction of affordable and senior housing.
