Housing

We are pleased to publish our second class of Forefront Fellows' original design and policy proposals to empower emerging and historic immigrant neighborhoods in New York City.

In the form of a stabilized, community-based, shared living environment, CO-LIVE has the ability to positively address the housing challenges faced by immigrants upon their arrival, while effectively increase housing supply and choices.

Quality public housing is critical to maintaining the city’s diversity. Value capture through rezoning is one way we can help preserve it.

Optimism, skepticism and cynicism on new technologies designed to make housing safer, sustainable and efficient.

Our inaugural Forefront class spent the past year meeting with Carto, Intersection, Kickstarter, Sidewalk Labs, and NYU CUSP to discuss how smart city technology is changing the way we experience and build cities. We are excited to publish the cohort's proposals, ideas and critiques on design in the digital era.

During the spring of 2013, the Urban Design Forum invited distinguished civic leaders, developers and designers to pitch bold visions for a more competitive, livable and sustainable New York. The result was a collection of forty courageous proposals imagining rebuilt infrastructure, reformed government, and an animated public realm.

Given the tremendous contribution that landmarks make to New York City, we need a more effective program to allow property owners to use untapped development rights to obtain funds needed for maintenance. We propose amending the zoning text to allow non-profit landmarks to transfer their development rights anywhere within their community district, as-of-right, as long as the development rights can be used within existing building height and setback constraints.

The static nature of the zoning code can make it an ineffective tool in helping communities address changing needs and conditions in their neighborhoods. It’s time to create a more dynamic planning process that explicitly addresses community well-being, not just form.

New York must entice talented newcomers by offering them truly affordable housing. I propose to rezone outer borough manufacturing areas that adjoin emerging residential neighborhoods as micro-housing enclaves.

We must recognize that the process of displacement and replacement now occurring citywide will not foster integrated and healthy communities, and we must explore new zoning mechanisms to reverse this pattern.

Typically, developers spend six months preparing responses to requests for proposals (RFPs). This has never been easy, but in recent years, the requirements have become extremely complex, arduous and expensive. Losing competitions is painful.

We have a serious shortfall in housing. Our total population is expected to rise by another million by 2030. The vacancy rate has stayed below 5% since it was first recorded in the 1960s. And half of New Yorkers pay more than 30% of their income on housing.

The City has successfully streamlined the delivery system for land sales and making grants and loans. But tax abatements and exemptions remain tangled.

While NYCHA is a great success — providing housing for 1 out of 13 New Yorkers — it is also struggling to remain solvent. The habitability of its buildings will soon be threatened if capital investments are not forthcoming.

Modular construction can transform how we build affordable and market-rate buildings with greater savings and a diminished impact on the community and the environment. At our first high-rise project at Atlantic Yards, we found that we can use a modern means of construction while embracing sustainability and delivering on world-class architecture.