Archinect - News

NYC plan to allow cannabis cultivation on public housing rooftops runs into federal hurdles

2022-04-19T17:34:00-04:00

At an April 9 panel discussion in Albany, Adams said his team was exploring whether the city could allow cannabis cultivation on the rooftops of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) facilities. The idea, he said, would be to employ NYCHA residents to staff and oversee the greenhouses as the state continues to roll out its recreational marijuana program for adults. “The jobs can come from NYCHA residents. The proceeds and education can go right into employing people right in the area.”

As part of its economic development agenda, the Adams administration has been pushing an ambitious pilot program for rooftop cultivation on federally-funded NYCHA public housing properties. The current laws, however, still classify marijuana as a controlled substance, leading to an inevitable impasse. An inbound decriminalization bill written by New York Democratic congressman Jerry Nadler could clear the way for legal grow operations on such property via an update to the federal guidelines, which a spokesperson for the mayor told Gothamist are held over from a pernicious era of public policymaking.

“[Federal] laws still on the books continue to harm the same communities that have been targeted for decades,” City Hall spokesperson Charles Lutvak explained. “The House passed legislation to this effect earlier this month, and we need those who are obstructing progress at the federal level to follow New York’s lead.”

Related on Archinect: Michael Kimmelman on some newer rays of light ...

Tiny homes are fitting symbols of economic precarity

2019-02-12T14:38:00-05:00

Tiny houses are promoted as an answer to the affordable housing crisis; a desirable alternative to traditional homes and mortgages. Yet there are many complexities and contradictions that surround these tiny spaces, as I discovered when I began investigating them.

There is something inherently romantic about the nomadic lifestyle cooked up in the 1960's, exemplified by the VW van and the desert campfire. While this relic of America's recent past became, undoubtedly, the inspiration for the Tiny Home movement in recent years, the reasons for its current popularity do not match those of its precedent.

Interior of Elm, by Tumbleweed, Tiny House Company

Megan Carras "toured homes, attended tiny house festivals, stayed in a tiny house community, and interviewed several dozen people who live in them" to reach a discover that there is more to their wide spread use than popularly imagined. Tiny homes are, as Carras makes evident, a sign of economic precarity - one particularly felt by the millennial generation.

"All the tiny-houser millennials that I interviewed wanted to own bigger houses in the future," Carras reports. "They saw tiny living as a means of owning something now and being able to save at the same time. Several young couples planned to ...

New report assesses worrying impact of vacant properties in U.S. cities, and what local communities can do about it

2018-07-30T15:50:00-04:00

Neighborhoods with high vacancy rates rarely recover, according to the study. Vacancy is “first and foremost a symptom of other problems — concentrated poverty, economic decline, and market failure,” the study notes. That means the solutions must go beyond just tearing abandoned buildings down. The study urges local governments to use tools like “spot blight” eminent domain, vacant property receivership, and land-banking to speed up the transition from owner to owner.

CityLab editor-at-large Richard Florida summarizes a new report by Alan Mallach of the Center for Community Progress about the increase of vacant properties and hypervacancy in cities across the U.S. in recent decades — another worrying aspect of the American housing crisis. The report assesses how vacant properties are affecting certain cities, and it also outlines mitigation strategies for local governments and community groups.

New case of proposed "Poor Door" in Honolulu

2017-12-04T14:01:00-05:00

A real estate developer in Hawaii is under scrutiny for its plans to build a residential high-rise that has two separate entrances: one for high-income residents and another for low-income earners. [...] will include 78 affordable rental units for people earning 80 percent or less of the area median income, as required by Honolulu’s affordable housing strategy. The other 351 units will be market-priced condominiums. If things go as ProsPac plans, the units will be separated with two entrances.

Various examples of so-called "poor doors" in New York City, London, and Vancouver made the headlines in previous years, sparking heated debate across a number of Archinect comment sections.

How social equality is linked to health, as manifested in the built environment

2017-08-29T14:13:00-04:00

Residents of the outer suburbs tend to travel much longer distances between home, work and the services they need daily. Getting around necessarily defaults to the car, which has serious long-term implications for health. Driving is particularly associated with extended sitting in a confined space and, as a result, not getting enough exercise each day. When poorer communities are located in areas of lesser amenity due to lower housing costs, this exacerbates their health problems.

The close correlation between socioeconomic status and health has long been out of question. The built environment and the environmental context serve as direct social determinants of health.

Due to lower housing costs, poorer communities are often restricted to residing in areas of lesser amenity that exacerbate the obstacles to mental and physical well-being—lack of quality services and infrastructure, scarcity of green space and long work commutes challenge health. Additionally, poor building design and construction, and the excessive noise that it causes, can significantly contribute to stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and sometimes even neighbor conflict and violence. What might appear as light threats, such as sleep deprivation which is linked to obesity, serve as risk factors for many chronic diseases.

While high-density living is increasingly trumpeted as “healthy,” health and well-being of poor communities in high-rise housing heavily depends on the specifics—geographic...

Anti-growth zoning codes exacerbate economic disparity, racial segregation

2016-07-07T13:15:00-04:00

To most people, zoning and land-use regulations might conjure up little more than images of late-night City Council meetings full of gadflies and minutiae. But these laws go a long way toward determining some fundamental aspects of life: what American neighborhoods look like, who gets to live where and what schools their children attend. And when zoning laws get out of hand, economists say, the damage to the American economy and society can be profound.

"Studies have shown that laws aimed at things like “maintaining neighborhood character” or limiting how many unrelated people can live together in the same house contribute to racial segregation and deeper class disparities. They also exacerbate inequality by restricting the housing supply in places where demand is greatest."

In related news:

Silicon Valley is set to get over 10K more housing units – is this the beginning of the end of its housing crisis?

2016-03-08T21:03:00-05:00

Last week the city council in Mountain View, California, took a significant step toward addressing Silicon Valley's housing affordability crisis. The city approved a new planning document for its North Bayshore district that envisions the creation of up to 10,250 units of high-density housing. Mountain View only has about 32,000 households total, so that would be a substantial 32 percent increase [...]

"The big question is whether this represents an isolated victory for housing advocates or whether it's the start of a trend toward denser development in Silicon Valley more broadly."

For more on the housing woes of the world's tech capital, check out these links:

'Poor doors': not the worst thing about social housing

2014-07-31T13:41:00-04:00

"Of course these so-called 'poor doors' are shocking, but they are a symptom, not the problem," says Michael Edwards, senior lecturer at the Bartlett school of planning at UCL. "We've simply stopped building proper social housing, and until that's addressed then fiddling around with front-door arrangements is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

Previously: Tale of Two Cities: NYC approves ‘poor door’ for luxury high-rise

Tale of Two Cities: NYC approves ‘poor door’ for luxury high-rise

2014-07-22T14:08:00-04:00

New York City is moving forward with a proposal that calls for a new high-rise apartment complex to feature separate doors for wealthy tenants and those living in the building’s affordable housing unit. While wealthy residents will be able to enter the building from its designated front entrance, affordable housing tenants will be required to go in through a back alley. A mandatory affordable housing plan is not license to segregate lower-income tenants from those who are well-off.

Maybe the higher-ups will employ the low-income folk as maids and janitors? Built-in servants quarters, subsidized by the city.

World's first climate-controlled domed city to be built in Dubai

2014-07-13T12:48:00-04:00

Some have already joked about the city's future three million square foot "wellness district,” saying it is being designed for those who shop not only for new outfits, but also for new bodies. According to the project's press release, the domed wellness area "will offer a holistic experience to medical tourists and their families, ensuring access to quality healthcare, specialized surgical procedures and cosmetic treatments."

And thus we have the blueprint of the 0.1%'s vision of the future. An 'ideal' world existing inside a bubble, safe from the starving, diseased masses.

The Peril of Hipster Economics

2014-06-15T15:10:00-04:00

The Wall Street Journal calls this "Fighting Urban Blight With Art". Liz Thomas, the curator of the project, calls it "an experience that asks people to think about this space that they hurtle through every day". The project is not actually fighting blight, of course - only the ability of Amtrak customers to see it.

Reminds me of NYC in the 1980's when the city put large vinyl decals depicting shutters, potted plants, Venetian blinds and window shades over the yawning windows of abandoned city-owned buildings that face the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The limits of anti-gentrification politics: Brooklyn is getting poorer

2014-05-12T13:26:00-04:00

One problem with our obsession with gentrification as the end-all of urban equity issues is that it discourages us from talking about other important things happening in our cities. In some instances, gentrification has become such a dominating narrative that it has completely erased broader trends that we really ought to be concerned about. Case in point: Brooklyn is getting poorer.