Wow: Here’s an actual ray of hope on Gotham’s housing insanity — with local lefty pols for once helping part the clouds.
After a Post investigation shed light on the issue, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and most of the borough’s City Council delegation will join Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams in pushing to kill the insane 12 FAR cap, a 1961 state law that’s been a prime driver of the Big Apple’s housing crisis for decades.
The aim is to repeal it in the state budget. Joining Levine are progressive council members like Yusef Salaam, Keith Powers, Shaun Abreu and Julie Menin.
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That’s right: The madness of the rule is so apparent, even hard lefties are catching on.
The FAR cap requires that buildings be no bigger than 12 times the size of their lots: It’s why the city’s stopped seeing new edifices like the elegant, massive, super-stylish apartment buildings that line Central Park West.
Instead, we get plenty of “pencil” towers — ultra-skinny skyscrapers like the Steinway Tower on West 57th, more than 1,400 feet tall but containing only 60 apartments.
The law’s cost the city an estimated 200,000 apartments since its passage, which (had they been built) would address almost 60% of New York’s housing deficit.
Levine & Co. will find themselves in conflict with mega-hypocrites like Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who selfishly protects the law while living in an inherited, rent-stabilized UWS apartment.
But it’s a noble battle, and for all our differences with them over the years — and doubtless going forward — on this, Levine & Co. are dead right.
Repeal the cap and let New York be glorious New York.
Not an island of soulless skyscrapers.
Source link: https://nypost.com/2024/03/20/opinion/kudos-to-mark-levine-and-other-lefties-on-nyc-housing-sanity/