New Yorkers have seen a variety of information and headlines over the previous few days about what is going on in our metropolis. Here’s what has not modified: our metropolis remains to be going through an unprecedented housing disaster that’s bigger than anyone administration. And we nonetheless want our public officers to ship outcomes. Working-class New Yorkers, just like the over 80,000 union sturdy 32BJ constructing service employees members we characterize within the metropolis are nonetheless answering the decision, clocking in, and doing their jobs. Let’s all maintain our eye on the ball.
That’s why we’re calling on the Metropolis Council to help the Metropolis of Sure for Housing Alternative proposal, a plan to replace zoning to permit extra housing throughout town. Metropolis of Sure for Housing Alternative rises to fulfill the urgency of the housing disaster, creating housing choices for working individuals at each stage of life. Now, greater than ever, we want metropolis authorities to maintain our metropolis transferring ahead. Meaning Metropolis of Sure must be on the prime of the agenda.
For too lengthy, the housing disaster has harm working New Yorkers whereas holding again town’s native financial system. Greater than half of New York Metropolis renters —together with many 32BJ members — are paying greater than 30 % of their earnings on hire, and the emptiness fee of rental residences is the bottom it has been since 1968. Homeownership is more and more out of attain, even for New Yorkers with a superb union job and regular paycheck. Rising housing prices chip away at spending energy, make it tougher to construct generational wealth, and push individuals out of our metropolis.
If New York is to stay a metropolis the place working individuals can dwell and thrive, we will, and should, repair this. Constructing extra housing is a fully crucial a part of the answer.
Right here’s what Metropolis of Sure means for on a regular basis New Yorkers. The proposal creates somewhat extra housing in each neighborhood by a set of fastidiously crafted zoning adjustments – which has not been achieved for greater than half a century – to extend general housing provide. In response to the New York Metropolis Division of Metropolis Planning, the proposal may produce as many as 108,850 new properties over the subsequent 15 years. Huge issues require massive options. That is the large image answer our metropolis must make a flip and construct our method out of this disaster.
Metropolis of Sure may even considerably profit New Yorkers by creating good jobs and boosting the native financial system. The proposal is estimated to instantly create 265,000 jobs and generate 1000’s extra not directly, leading to a $58 billion financial impression from new housing alone. The rise in job alternatives, coupled with decrease housing prices, will unfold by the native financial system, which advantages everybody. New York Metropolis should not miss this chance to ship extra housing, good-paying jobs, and financial development.
There was a obligatory debate over the correct amount of recent improvement and the shape it ought to take, and we imagine that Metropolis of Sure strikes the correct stability between unlocking much-needed new housing and preserving the New York we all know. The proposal is rooted within the commonsense pondering that we should discover methods to construct new housing in each neighborhood in the correct method—whether or not meaning changing empty workplace towers into residential buildings, facilitating improvement in transit-dense areas, or by permitting for barely extra housing in each neighborhood of town. We owe it to our neighbors, from younger individuals spending total paychecks on hire to long-time New Yorkers struggling to remain within the metropolis the place they grew up, to create housing alternatives of all types.
The Metropolis Council may have a ultimate vote earlier than the top of the 12 months to show Metropolis of Sure from a imaginative and prescient right into a actuality. New Yorkers, together with tens of 1000’s of 32BJ members, merely can’t wait any longer. 32BJ is saying ‘sure’ and we want you — on a regular basis New Yorkers — to affix us in saying ‘sure’ so our Metropolis Council can move this laws to assist construct a greater, extra reasonably priced metropolis for all.
