Are Clinton Hill & Fort Greene’s Landmarked Historic Districts Hindering Affordable Housing Initiatives?

New York’s landmarked historic districts are having a negative effect on the city’s ability to provide enough affordable housing for its residents, says a new report from the Real Estate Board of New York. The Daily News published a story yesterday on the report, which concludes that protecting particular areas across the five boroughs may be inhibiting the construction of units for low- and middle-income New Yorkers.

The study shows that only 100 of the 35,000 affordable units constructed in the city between 2003 and 2012 were built in landmarked districts. During this time, no units were built in Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island historic districts.

“Higher design and constructions standards required by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, as well as a lengthy review process, add costs to developing housing within a historic district,” paper says. This is a particular concern in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Gothamist points out, since 45% of the property in our community district is landmarked.

There is some concern that current or increased historic district landmarking may interfere with Mayor de Blasio’s plan to build or preserve upwards of 200,000 affordable homes for New Yorkers in the next 10 years. On the other hand, as Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation executive director Andrew Berman told The Daily News, “The notion that this is a major contributor to the unaffordability of our city is just laughable.”

Commenters both on The Daily News site and Gothamist have suggested REBNY’s report might be skewed as they have not shown much favor to landmarking historic districts before, but we also wonder how unbiased the view is coming from the GVSHP. What do you think?

[poll id=”3″]