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| Re: Old London Melba Toast factory in Bronx relocating to NC - 228 jobs lost (553629) | |||
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Re: Old London Melba Toast factory in Bronx relocating to NC - 228 jobs lost |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Sat Jan 23 23:47:12 2010, in response to Re: Old London Melba Toast factory in Bronx relocating to NC - 228 jobs lost, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sat Jan 23 21:50:25 2010. Given the nature of what constitutes affordable housing, isn't it really de facto give-aways to groups that are politically connected and not exactly crushed by crippling poverty? In other words, not the big box store employee with children making $25K, but a unionized employee making $50k with one or two children?Mostly, hence my scare quotes. Even where income thresholds are lower, the developer still has to turn a profit, which is something that many people don't understand about affordable housing construction. Guess who makes up the difference? Sell to the current renters themselves or to new residents? Ideally, it's goes along a route like the so-called 'no-eviction conversion plan'. (Like so many of the cooperative and condominium conversions in our area). So current renters are offered better terms than outsiders if they purchase, and to the extent that a prospective resident purchaser is sufficiently creditworthy, they make a down payment and can take out a note for the rest. Sometimes, a resident who is unable to purchase is offered a lump sum relocation payment, but I don't see that as necessary in this case. As units are vacated, they are put on the market per the offering plan. Sometimes these vacated units will be renovated before being offered. Perhaps some fraction of the profits from this could be used to support the aforementioned financing to resident prospective purchasers. Well, unless you're a resident of a housing project... Remember though that a goal of the conversion is to remove the stigma of 'the projects' weighing down neighborhoods. Many current residents would still be there for many years to come, e.g., just as in the thousands of developments from rental to (mostly) cooperative (and some) condominium cases. You have buildings that went co-op in the 1970s and 1980s that still have renters in them from that era, often on rent control or stabilization. Here, the idea is similar, slow decontrol, hence why the close relative to the kind of plan that I have in mind is called 'no eviction conversion'. Regardless, as this main topic and comment thread has alluded to, there's a sizable portion of this city's residents are unskilled, yet, have some degree of need by business for filling low level service employee functions, but due to market forces, are unable to command high enough wages to live without some degree of subsidy. Remember that the subsidies, and the zoning regulations too, have a dark side: artificial scarcity. Somewhat paradoxically, well intentioned measures to aid working class people can create scarcity spirals that eviscerate what the subsidies are supposed to do, which leads to even more heavy-handed subsidies, and an even more forceful scarcity reaction. I don't think there's any easy way out of the situation. It's hard, and any progress will be gradual. It might even rely on what people regard as counter-intuitive ways of thinking. |
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