the new red line

THE NEW RED LINEA Study of the Ongoing Segregation in the Broadway Triangle

Churches United For Fair Housing (CUFFH) is a grassroots organization that works towards community empowerment through community organizing, youth engagement and by providing

sophisticated social services. CUFFH organizes towards preserving and creating vibrant communities that are not exclusive and are really affordable to working families in New York City.

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Introduction The history of housing programs throughout the United States, including New York City, is a history of racial segregation and substandard housing for the poor and marginalized. Despite a stated commitment to the development of affordable housing units to serve New York City’s desperate housing needs, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing plan has created a minimal number of units that are truly affordable for New York’s low-income residents while continuing to subsidize developments that exacerbate the legacy of segregation.

A real plan to address New York’s housing crisis will require the development of truly affordable units, priced according to local community needs and tied to robust and enforceable community benefits agreements.

This report outlines the current crisis and the shortcomings of the Mayor’s plan to address it, focusing on the ways in which the proposed development in the Broadway Triangle—at the intersection of Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and Williamsburg—exemplifies the problem. The project proposed by the Rabsky Group offers fewer than three hundred nominally affordable units, many of which will be too expensive for the community’s Black and Latino residents, while stimulating a wave of high-income demand likely to accelerate displacement.

We demand that the City Council either reject the proposed development or demand the kinds of modifications that will ensure the project serves the community.

New York City’s Housing Crisis and Failed SolutionsIn 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to build or preserve two hundred thousand affordable units throughout the city by 2024. Of those, eighty thousand were expected to be new units created through tax breaks for developers building new apartment buildings at a cost to the city of ten billion dollars over ten years.1 While de Blasio’s plan has increased the number of units to come on the market in the last few years, the vast majority of those units are far from affordable. A recent analysis conducted by the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development found that de Blasio’s plan had underserved residents earning less than $40,000 per year while providing a disproportionately high number of units for middle- and high-income residents.2 In Brooklyn, the percentage of new units serving low-income residents is forty percent of what it should be, given the need.3 The supply of luxury units far outpaces the demand to the point that landlords are offering incentives to combat the fact that, “With so much to choose from at $5,000 [per month] there’s really no reason for tenants to stick around.”4

While landlords are struggling to fill vacant luxury units, low-income New Yorkers face a stark shortage. The city boasts that the Mayor’s plan has so far created or preserved over sixty-two thousand affordable units.5 Of those, only about twenty thousand were new construction,6 and even more troubling, fewer than half of the newly constructed units were affordable for Extremely Low- or Very Low-income families, defined as those making under $24,500 per year for a family of three.7 This glut of luxury construction is occurring at a time when Brooklyn faces a shortage of over one hundred thousand affordable units for Extremely Low-income households alone.8

Even if the number of affordable units was adequate, many would still be out of reach for low-income New Yorkers thanks to a skewed definition of affordability. Affordability is determined on a regional level, ignoring the reality that income levels vary dramatically from neighborhood to neighborhood.9 As a result, housing

A Study of the Ongoing Segregation in the Broadway Triangle

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that is deemed affordable in an area like the Broadway triangle requires an annual income that is nearly three times the median household income of $30,779.10

The influx of luxury units paired with “affordable” offerings that are not really affordable, threatens to worsen the housing shortage. A recent study conducted by researchers at UC Berkeley found that the construction of market-rate units can increase the demand for housing in areas that are already experiencing a shortage. At best, this increased demand cancels out the increased supply. At worst, it makes the shortage more acute, driving up rents and increasing displacement. The researchers concluded that a plan to counteract displacement likely requires the creation of large numbers of subsidized units coupled with tenant protection.11

The Broadway Triangle: A History of SegregationAs with most predominantly Black communities across the country, the history of the neighborhoods comprising the Broadway Triangle is one of segregation and denial of resources imposed by both government policy and private action. Affluent Blacks first began moving into central Brooklyn at the turn of the twentieth century, followed by middle and low-income Blacks in the 1920s and 1930s.12 During the 1930s, the area was plagued not only by the effects of the Great Depression but the fallout from the rampant real estate speculation of the 1920s that had destabilized communities and left properties in disrepair.13

The federal government’s programs to combat the housing crisis of the 1930s included the creation of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), which produced the maps that would determine a community’s access to federal and private financing. In 1937, noting the “steady infiltration of Negroes”, HOLC assigned Bedford-Stuyvesant a D rating (“Hazardous”) on its maps.14 The same grade was given to both Williamsburg15 and Bushwick16 due to the “infiltration of Italians” in both neighborhoods.17

Blocked from moving into the surrounding neighborhoods, Blacks in these neighborhoods were at the mercy of slumlords who charged exorbitant rents for dilapidated housing.18

By the 1960s, when a wave of Puerto Rican migrants moved to the area seeking factory jobs19, the damage done by HOLC, landlords and real estate investors was plain. Craig Steven Wilder’s description of the effects of segregation in Central Brooklyn applies equally to circumstances in the neighborhoods around the Broadway Triangle:

“Segregation was the initial stride of domination. The Central Brooklyn ghetto allowed white people to hoard social benefits while people of color became the primary consumers of social ills...The ghetto guaranteed white Brooklynites a monopoly in public services and perpetual control of the local government, quality schools, cleaner and safer streets, more efficient transportation, a greater share of government subsidies, superior medical and health facilities and greater access to parks, pools, and playgrounds.”20

Red-lining by the federal government not only deprived contemporary residents of access to federal housing programs but resulted in consequences that affected communities for decades to come. A study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that redlined areas experienced high rates of segregation, low rates of homeownership and low credit scores as compared with other communities at least through the 1990s.21 The monopoly of white Brooklynites on public services continued through Johnson’s War on Poverty, Nixon’s War on Drugs, Reaganomics, and the Bush and Clinton administrations.22

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Modern Efforts to Marginalize Black and Latino ResidentsNearly one hundred years after the concerted efforts of both government agencies and private developers starved residents of the Broadway Triangle of economic opportunity and basic public services, the area’s Black and Latino residents are once again organizing to defend their homes against public and private action. Beginning in 2006, the Bloomberg administration sought to develop the Broadway Triangle area, partnering with the United Jewish Organizations and Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Counsel to develop affordable housing on city-owned land and with public funds.23 UJO was tapped despite a history of discriminatory practices and no experience in developing large affordable housing projects.24

Unsurprisingly, the resulting plan did not address the needs of the area’s large Black and Latino

populations, focusing on three- to four-bedroom units in low-rise buildings, which not only limited the number of units but ensured that most units were suitable for large, mostly Hasidic families25 and unsuitable for the much larger number of small Black and Latino families. The plan also effectively excluded non-white residents by limiting the residency preference to the predominantly white Community District 1, despite the project’s proximity to predominantly Black and Latino Community District 3.26 In 2011, a state court cited these aspects of the plan as evidence that it would perpetuate segregation in the area in violation of the Fair Housing Act.27

In 2018, the Rabsky Group proposes to build 1,146 housing units on the so-called Pfizer site. The development will not include any studio apartments and the developer has refused to make a truly legally binding and enforceable commitment to specify the number of one and two bedroom apartments, those best suited to the community’s Black and Latino households.28

What is known is that about ninety percent of the proposed units will be priced out of reach for the majority of the area’s Black and Latino residents. While twenty-five percent of the units would be designated as “affordable”, only ten percent would be priced to be affordable for a family making under $40,000 per year. The remaining fifteen percent would be priced for residents making over $50,000 per year, with some renting for over $1,700 per month.29 This is being proposed in an area where the median income for Black and Latino households in the area is less than $25,000 per year compared with a median annual income for white residents of $61,198.30

As described above, the introduction of over one thousand unaffordable units into an area already experiencing rising rents and a housing shortage will likely increase residents’ risk of displacement as demand increases. With the threat of higher rents comes a higher likelihood of facing harassment from landlords eager to push out longtime residents to seek higher paying tenants.31 Throughout the city, longtime residents face developers flooding their neighborhoods with luxury housing developments with token amounts of nominally affordable housing, an influx of new wealthy residents changing the face of their communities, and landlords harassing them out of their homes to take advantage of the resulting local rent increases.32

“ In reviewing the Pfizer plan, we cannot afford to dismiss the risks of discrimination and accelerated segregation. We have a responsibility in City government to factor in these realities or history will continue to repeat itself."

—Antonio Reynoso, NYC Council Member, District 34


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A Better Way

“Considering these land use applications have been about more than one site or project, it represents a chance to evaluate the direction of devel-opment in Williamsburg and ensure that we are creating opportunities for everyone to afford to raise healthy children and families in this neigh-borhood. Any rezoning that the City grants must affirm the standard of diverse, not segregated, opportunity.”

—Borough President Eric L Adams in his press release 07/21 regarding his vote on the Pfizer site to disapprove

with conditions

New York City’s housing crisis is dire and calls for aggressive solutions. This fall, the Mayor is expected to win a new term, presenting an opportunity to abandon old, failed policies in favor of a new approach that provides truly affordable housing to those residents who need it most.. So far, Mayor de Blasio’s plan has led to an explosion in luxury units,33 a small handful of units for upper middle- and middle-income residents, and virtually nothing for low and extremely low-income residents. In order to seriously tackle New York’s housing needs, the Mayor should:

1. Ensure “affordable” units are actually affordable by calculating the area median incomesrequired to access affordable units based on the incomes of the communities where the newunits will be constructed, rather than the region.

2. Dramatically increase the percentage of affordable units required in manufacturing-to-residential rezonings to reflect the actual need for affordable housing in the surroundingcommunity. The current twenty percent requirement is not nearly enough to counteract theincreased secondary displacement pressures created by an inflow of new wealthy residents.

3. Pressure developers to adhere to community benefit agreements that require developers tomake real contributions to the larger community to ensure that new developments are an assetand not a threat to existing community members.

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NOTES1 Greenberg, Michael. Tenants Under Siege:

Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis. The New York Review of Books. August 17, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/08/17/tenants-under-siege-inside-new-york-city-housing-crisis/

2 Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. Is the Mayor’s Housing Plan Serving the Greatest Need? By Borough. September 28, 2017. Accessed September 28, 2017 https://anhd.org/is-the-mayors-housing-plan-serving-the-greatest-need-by-borough/; Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. How Does Housing New York Measure Up to New Yorkers’ Needs? September 13, 2017. Accessed September 28, 2017 https://anhd.org/how-does-housing-new-york-measure-up-to-new-yorkers-needs/

3 Id.

4 Greenberg, Michael. Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis. The New York Review of Books. August 17, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/08/17/tenants-under-siege-inside-new-york-city-housing-crisis/

5 Office of the Mayor Press Release, “‘Still Your City’: Mayor de Blasio Announces Major Progress Helping New Yorkers Afford Their Homes and Neighborhoods.” January 12, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017 http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/016-17/-still-your-city-mayor-de-blasio-major-progress-helping-new-yorkers-afford-their-homes/#/0; Bagli, Charles V. New York Secures the Most Affordable Housing Units in 27 Years. New York Times January 11, 2017.

6 Office of the Mayor Press Release, “‘Still Your City’: Mayor de Blasio Announces Major Progress Helping New Yorkers Afford Their Homes and Neighborhoods.” January 12, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017 http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/016-17/-still-your-city-mayor-de-blasio-major-progress-helping-new-yorkers-afford-their-homes/#/0

7 Id.

8 Getsinger, Liza; Posey, Lily; MacDonald,

Graham; Leopold, Josh; Abazajian, Katya. The Housing Affordability Gap for Extremely low-income Renters in 2014. Urban Institute. April 27, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017 https://www.urban.org/research/publication/housing-affordability-gap-extremely-low-income-renters-2014

9 U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment, FY 2017 Income Limits Documentation System: FY 2017 Income Limits Summary, New York, NY HUD Metro FMR Area. Accessed September 27, 2017 https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2017/2017summary.odn

10 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 2011-2015; New York City Housing Preservation and Development website, What is Affordable Housing? Accessed September 27, 2017 http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/about/what-is-affordable-housing.page The AMI for New York City is $85,900.

11 Zuk, Miriam; Chapple, Karen. Housing Production, Filtering and Displacement: Untangling the Relationships. Institute of Governmental Studies UC Berkeley. May 2016. Accessed September 27, 2017 https://dochub.com/michelekilpatrick/zEWVpZ/escholarship-uc-item-7bx938fx

12 Woodsworth, Michael. Battle for Bed-Stuy. Harvard University Press. June 6, 2016.

13 NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Bedford Stuyvesant/Expanded Stuyvesant Heights Historic District Designation Report. April 16, 2013. Accessed September 26, 2017 http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/2496.pdf; Banner, Stuart. Speculation: A History of the Fine Line Between Gambling and Investing. Oxford University Press. December 1, 2016

14 Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, AccessedSeptember 26, 2017 https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/40.6119/-73.9819&opacity=0.8&city=brooklyn-ny&area=D8&sort=99&adview=full&adimage=3/77/-136&text=bibliograph.

15 Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, AccessedSeptember 26, 2017, https://dsl.richmond.


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edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/40.6111/-73.9812&opacity=0.8&city=brooklyn-ny&area=D2&sort=99&adview=full&adimage=3/64/-72.

16 Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, AccessedSeptember 26, 2017, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/40.6116/-73.9812&opacity=0.8&city=brooklyn-ny&area=D4&sort=99&adview=full&adimage=3/77/-93&text=bibliograph.

17 While “infiltration” by undesirable white immigrants could lower a neighborhood’s rating, the form completed by HOLC researchers included a specific line for “Negro” where they would indicate whether and what percentage of the residents were Black.

18 Woodsworth, Michael. Battle for Bed-Stuy. Harvard University Press. June 6, 2016.

19 Id.

20 Wilder, Craig Steven. A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn 1636-1990. p.216 Columbia University Press, July 5, 2000.

21 Aaronson, Daniel; Hartley, Daniel; Mazumder, Bhash. “The Effects of the 1930s HOLC ‘Redlining’ Maps”. Working Paper, No. 217-12, 2017. Accessed September 26, 2017 https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/working-papers/2017/wp2017-12

22 See Williamsburg Fair Housing Committee v. New York City Housing Authorityand United Jewish Organizations ofWilliamsburg, Inc., 493 F. Supp. 1225(S.D.N.Y. 1980); Davis v. New York CityHousing Authority, 1992 WL 420923(S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 1992); Demause, Neil.“How the 1977 Blackout was Bushwick’sGrimmest Moment.” Gothamist.com September 26, 2016. AccessedSeptember 26, 2017, http://gothamist.com/2016/09/26/1977_blackout_bushwick_burned.php#photo-1; Woodsworth, Michael, Battle for Bed-Stuy. HarvardUniversity Press. June 6, 2016.

23 Broadway Triangle Community Coalition et al., v. Bloomberg, et al. Plaintiff’s Post-Hearing Brief in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Accessed September

26, 2017 https://www.nyclu.org/sites/default/files/Broadway%20Triangle%20Plaintiffs%27%20Post%20Hearing%20Brief.pdf. October 14, 2011.

24 Id.

25 Pew Research Center. A Portrait of American Orthodox Jews. August 26, 2015. Accessed October 3, 2017 http://www.pewforum.org/2015/08/26/a-portrait-of-american-orthodox-jews/ The Pew Research Center found that “on average, the Orthodox get married younger and bear at least twice as many children as other Jews (4.1 vs. 1.7 children ever born to adults ages 40-59).2 And they are especially likely tohave large families: Among those who havehad children, nearly half (48%) of OrthodoxJews have four or more offspring...” (ellipsisadded).

26 Broadway Triangle Community Coalition et al., v. Bloomberg, et al. Plaintiff’s Post-Hearing Brief in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Accessed September 26, 2017 https://www.nyclu.org/sites/default/files/Broadway%20Triangle%20Plaintiffs%27%20Post%20Hearing%20Brief.pdf. October 14, 2011.

27 Broadway Triangle Community Coalition et al., v. Bloomberg et al. NY Slip Op 21465 Decided, December 23, 2011. Supreme Court, New York County. Accessed September 28, 2017 http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2011/2011-ny-slip-op-21465.html

28 2010 Census Data shows an average family size for Black and Latino residents in the area of 2-2.2 and an average household size of 1-2.See also City of New York Department of City Planning Public Hearing Transcript: Pfizer Sites Rezoning. July 26, 2017. Accessed September 29, 2017 https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/applicants/env-review/pfizer/append5_feis.pdf

29 New York City Housing Preservation and Development website, What is Affordable Housing? Accessed Septemember 27, 2017 http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/about/what-is-affordable-housing.page Under the proposal, of the twenty-five percent of units reserved as affordable, five percent would be priced for those at one hundred percent AMI, allowing a one bedroom to rent for $1,733 per month. Ten percent would be

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priced for those at sixty percent AMI and the remaining ten percent for those at forty percent AMI.

30 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 2011-2015.

31 Greenberg, Michael. Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis. The New York Review of Books. August 17, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/08/17/tenants-under-siege-inside-new-york-city-housing-crisis/

32 Regional Plan Association, Pushed Out: Housing Displacement in an Unaffordable Region. March 2017.

33 Greenberg, Michael. Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis. The New York Review of Books. August 17, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/08/17/tenants-under-siege-inside-new-york-city-housing-crisis/ ; Kruk, Marynia. Luxury Rental Throwdown. The Real Deal. June 1, 2016. Accessed October 3, 2017 https://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/luxury-rental-throwdown/; Kaysen, Ronda. 2017: Year of the Renter. New York Times. January 6, 2017. Accessed October 3, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/realestate/2017-year-of-the-renter.html?_r=0; Bagli, Charles. ‘The Market is Saturated’: Brooklyn’s Rental Boom May Turn Into a Glut.” New York Times August 29, 2016. Accessed October 3, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/nyregion/the-market-is-saturated-brooklyns-rental-boom-may-turn-into-a-glut.html; Elliman Report. January 2017 Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens Rentals. Accessed October 3, 2017 https://www.elliman.com/reports-and-guides/reports/new-york-city/january-2017-manhattan-brooklyn-and-queens-rentals/2-806

the new red line

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