New York bans 'poor doors' in win for low income tenants | Hacker News Reader

New York bans 'poor doors' in win for low income tenants

theguardian.com

34 pointsedward23 comments

I don't think too many people were offended by having to use the 'poor door' considering there were 88,000 application for 55 rental units. [0]

I'm afraid when you do away with market forces, you allow for old biases and prejudices, truly the worst of humanity. An idea of a 'poor door' is truly distasteful and inappropriate.

As Milton Friedman argued in Capitalism and Freedom:

> It is a striking historical fact that the development of capitalism has been accompanied by a major reduction in the extent to which particular religious, racial, or social groups have operated under special handicaps in respect of their economic activities; have, as the saying goes, been discriminated against. We have already seen how a free market separates economic efficiency from irrelevant characteristics. As noted in chapter i, the purchaser of bread does not know whether it was made from wheat grown by a white man or a Negro, by a Christian or a Jew. In consequence, the producer of wheat is in a position to use resources as effectively as he can, regardless of what the attitudes of the community may be toward the color, the religion, or other characteristics of the people he hires.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/nyregion/poor-door-buildin...

The article doesn't link to it but here is the relevant info from Housing and Preservation: http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/developers/tax-incentives-421a....

For a bit of NYC history, back in the '60s POPS (Privately Owned Public Space) came into being as part of the new zoning laws. They gave higher density allowance to commercial properties which provided public space, leading to many of the plazas one may be familiar with today in the city. Of course, architects, sociologists, and others have observed that many facilities provided under the program failed to attain what I'll just call an inviting atmosphere; that is, whether deliberately or not, many so-called public plazas and parks were designed out of the normal flow of things so that many simply didn't know that they existed. Part of the requirement is to have a clear sign indicating that the space is public, though many are obscured, unmaintained by plants, grime, or columns.

These kinds of initiatives (tax breaks for social benefit) have supporters from all areas and so as time goes on it's interesting to see them put to the test and be continuously improved– or at least worked on.

> These kinds of initiatives (tax breaks for social benefit) have supporters from all areas

In general they are bad ideas. The city ends up forgoing more in tax revenue than the public benefits from the in-kind concession. And even if the benefits were equal, you should still prefer the cash because it is more optionality.

Let the buildings pay their full property taxes and then if the city wants public spaces it can take some of that tax money and build parks. The same thing with affordable housing, if it is really so crucial that there be low income people living in multi-million dollar apartments in the west 60s, let the city take some of the full tax revenue it gets from the billionaires living there and rent or buy apartments for low income families.

Cash is king.

I don't see the big deal with using a poor door if I get a massive break on the rent I pay. I guess there's a slippery slope argument here. There are low-rent apartments where I live and some of the low-renters are making trouble for the rest of the tenants. I can see how people want to avoid an entrance frequented by the trouble-makers. What is the solution then? Evict the trouble-makers? Where will they go? If you filter out the troublemaking low-renters then having one entrance is fine. But that could be violating some law out there or there is a lengthy process of eviction.

There is definitely an issue in conflating low-income tenants with "troublemakers". However, the real justification for this break in particular is that there is a very real belief that by putting low-income renters in better housing and better environments that they will be more inclined to maintain or improve upon the status quo. The problem with the so-called "poor doors" is that they are ignored and create a bad environment (which is bad for everyone) which breeds contempt. I live right next to NYCHA housing and get to see first hand how much of a difference the environment makes on a person; kids growing up in really crappy places must have amazing fortitude and support in order to not get stuck in the status quo which is not giving a shit about anyone else, things always falling apart, etc. Granted the issue is more complex than this, but it's much easier to antagonize low income people than to come up with possible solutions.

Thanks for that explanation!

Can they still build two separate buildings next to each other, one of luxury apartments and one non-luxury apartments?

Exactly, I don't see the point of this bill. They'll just call it something else.

Presumably then the luxury building wouldn't get the subsidy or whatever incentive is involved here.

They wouldn't get a tax break on the luxury housing which generates all the money, and the non-luxury apartments (if you mean "affordable housing" here) simply wouldn't generate much money to make up for whatever savings they get.

I have a feeling many of these buildings will just give up on the tax break and stop offering units to low income tenants.

I think it's a pretty significant tax break

Wouldn't want to mix the rich with the poor.

How can you even mix rich and the poor in the same building? Assuming both rich and poor have to pay the same rent, it would be either too much for the poor, or "too cheap" for the rich (meaning, they will move to a more upscale property). The "segregation" just happens naturally.

Wow.

Wow, it's like you didn't even take the time to process what he said and decided to get outraged anyway.

I agree someone wasn't reading, but I don't think it was me!

receive a tax break for offering some units to low-income tenants

Literally the second sentence of the article. On top of that, units in the same building often cost vastly different amounts of money depending on the height, the view, etc.

I was talking in general, not New York specifically. Of course if a third party (the government in this case) basically pays the difference, anything can happen. But it seems like it's because you can't just build new housing in New York City, so existing houses have to accomodate the poor, which is a pretty unique situation.

There's typically an application process for the low income units. The rents are much cheaper than for the regular units. http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2012/06/05/city_now_accepting_...

I've seen buildings with separate doors and some without that have low income units. Even in the same building, the low income units are not as nice (e.g. no in-unit washer dryer, no stainless steel appliances, cheaper fixtures). Also, some buildings only provide keys to the gym and other common areas for non-low income. But I think they got in trouble for that and may have stopped.

>How can you even mix rich and the poor in the same ship? Assuming both rich and poor have to pay the same fare, it would be either too much for the poor, or "too cheap" for the rich (meaning, they will use a more exclusive vessel). The "segregation" just happens naturally.

My guess is that the rents in the building are not uniform.

It's highly unlikely. The tax benefits are enormous and last twenty years. I'd be very happy if developers choose to forgo them but I don't think it is going to happen.

See my post above (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9826916). The break itself is pretty significant and, if I read it correctly, would also make their rate static/predictable for a long period. That is pretty tempting for developers.

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