Originally Posted by
MikeyinBrooklyn
Yuppie, I agree with most of your post. But I hate affordable housing requirements, as well as rent-control and stabilization laws. The laws intended to help make housing "affordable" actually are subject to very much fraud and abuse [[try finding a poor person in a NYC rent-controlled apartment, I dare you), and in the long run deplete housing stock, which causes there to be fewer, and thus more expensive housing. In NYC, there was a bump in housing built right after WW2, and then the control/stabilization and Mitchell-Lana aparment laws went into affect. New York went almost 40 years without building housing, except for public housing projects and luxury apartments and condos. Why? The city legislated the profit out of building for ordinary incomes.
Affordable housing laws make their proponents feel good. But they fight against market conditions and ultimately lose. I think it would be better policy to just give the truly poor a house [[along with mandated home maintenance training) than to try to manage the business affairs of private developers with "affordable" housing schemes. It is like mandating that all restaurants serve 20% of their meals to those who either can't pay or pay full price. There would be fewer restaurants, and the prices would be higher at those that did stay open.