By Jared Gans
Mayor Bill de Blasio has voiced concern over the affordable housing dilemma and has announced his plan for 200,000 subsidized units to be built or preserved over the next decade. However, he has yet to explain how this will happen. Miriam Peterson, Sagi Golan, and Nathan Rich, three young architects and fellows from the Institute for Public Architecture, have come up with a plan to effectively eat away at this seemingly arbitrary and impossible target number.
Their proposal, “9 x 18” (named after the space allocated to a typical sparking spot), plans to reorganize zoning regulations to create more efficiency by allocating the space that would satisfy parking requirements to living space instead. 162 square feet (9×18) is the space allocated to a typical parking space, and the housing authority’s required street level parking equals more than 20.3 million square feet. “This outdated and onerous zoning mandate,” as Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times refers to it, mandates that private developers must build parking spaces for new apartments in certain areas of the city. According to the New York Times, the Furman Center of New York University estimated that this might cost developers up to $50,000 per parking space. “9×18” “recommends setting parking requirements for each zone not just by the number of units, but the unit’s size, cost, and proximity to transit.” At the core of the proposal is the plan to build parking garages with stores and other services located on the street level to provide parking.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time parking space has been brought up as an opportunity to building affordable housing. Mayor Bloomberg endorsed a proposal to let private developers build market-rate towers on some of this under-utilized space, but was met with incredible opposition by residents. However, unlike the proposal under Mayor Bloomberg’s administration, the 9×18 plan is better developed and looks to incorporate the needs of housing authority tenants through negotiations with officials.
Nevertheless, 9×18 will likely meet opposition from current residents, especially those who require parking spaces, though parking garages are planned. This proposal also faces financial difficulties. As very little money would come out of subsidized housing, developers will be forced to look toward retail shops and market-priced houses to fill the gap in revenue. Another major problem would be building these developments in more affluent neighborhoods. Yet limited parking pales in comparison to the need for affordable housing. This plan’s focus on creating more functionality and efficiency out of certain land makes it a very attractive option.
However, “[b]y one estimate, the city has a net loss of 38,000 subsidized apartments every year, so even 200,000 in a decade would barely stem the decline.” 9×18 would barely put a dent in the problem, although it is still a step in the right direction.
Links and Sources from this Article
http://instituteforpublicarchitecture.org
http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/08/19/a-proposal-for-incremental-parking-reform-in-nyc/
http://www.pro-arch.com/9-x-18-AFFORDABLE-HOUSING-RESEARCH
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3033982/architects-re-imagine-new-york-city-parking-spots-as-new-housing
http://architizer.com/blog/architects-design-fix-for-new-yorks-retro-parking-requirements/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/08/19/a-proposal-for-incremental-parking-reform-in-nyc/
http://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2014/07/26/total_reset.html
Picture Credit: http://architizer.com/blog/architects-design-fix-for-new-yorks-retro-parking-requirements/