Ben Kallos was upset. Not hostile, but definitely not happy.
The former Council member had called this spring to object to my column about Hal Fetner’s failed attempt to build housing on a NYCHA site.
This paragraph in particular bothered him:
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other progressives are now pushing for more affordable housing in wealthier neighborhoods. Where were these people in 2017 when Hal Fetner and NYCHA leaders were getting pummeled by idiots like Ben Kallos?”
“Idiots” was the wrong word. Nothing can be gained from calling someone an idiot, other than a brief dopamine hit.
Besides, Kallos was like most Council members in the 2010s in that they failed to grasp the urgency of building housing of all kinds, not just affordable, and didn’t fight constituents who opposed it.
As the supply-demand balance worsened, elected officials governed with a combination of economic ignorance, ideological blinders and political expedience. They were not idiots so much as creatures of their environment.
To explain my unfortunate choice of words, I told Kallos, “Well, you know I like to be provocative.” Then I turned the conversation around and asked, “Were any projects built or approved in your district during your tenure?”
Kallos immediately rattled off all the homeless shelters and supportive housing he backed from 2014 to 2021. “What I didn’t support,” he said, “was housing for billionaires.”
Sorry, not impressed. New York City has fewer than 150 billionaires among its 8.5 million people. What about outsiders? Wealthy nonresidents do buy places in the city, but not enough to crowd out housing for New Yorkers.
Their footprint is small because in Manhattan the ultra-wealthy prioritize not land but views, the kind you get from towers (this full-floor condo unit, listed for $54.9 million, went into contract July 5). Rich buyers who want square footage and a backyard purchase a townhouse, double-wide if possible. Those who want both views and space buy a duplex or triplex in a tower.
“Housing for billionaires” is not the source of our affordability problem. Opposing it scores points for politicians but accomplishes nothing, other than distracting from their other failures.
Billionaires’ Row condos such as CIM Group’s 432 Park Avenue, Vornado’s 220 Central Park West and Gary Barnett’s 217 West 57th Street do little to ease the housing crisis, but certainly don’t exacerbate it.
Housing production in the city has been driven by 421a (mixed-income multifamily) and subsidized affordable projects. The latter are impossible to build in wealthy neighborhoods such as the Upper East Side because they cannot compete with market-rate projects for expensive sites.
But the 421a tax abatement also didn’t create much housing in the Silk Stocking District. Aggressive rezoning in theory could have allowed some projects to pencil out, but developers knew which Council members would refuse. Kallos, as he proudly acknowledged, was one.
He deserves credit for supporting shelters, which are not popular. However, shelters don’t cure homelessness. Housing does.
Housing production in Kallos’ former district, which includes Roosevelt Island and a small piece of East Harlem, has been practically nonexistent. It’s by far the lowest among Manhattan Council districts and among the worst in New York City.
Some years, the district actually loses homes! That’s because homeowners combine more units than developers build. In four of the 10 years from 2014 through 2023, District 5 had negative housing growth. Its average yearly increase was just 85 homes.
Council districts have about 160,000 people. Eighty-five homes is not even a rounding error.
By comparison, five Manhattan districts gained between 250 and 700 homes annually, one gained more than 700 per year and three averaged more than 1,500.
In October, the Mamdani administration will reveal the 12 least productive districts. Most will be middle-class and upper-middle-class enclaves dominated by single-family homes. A new rule will speed projects in those districts.
The fast-track rule wasn’t designed for dense areas, yet the Upper East Side might make the bottom-12 list anyway. Whether developers could find viable sites there is unclear, but at least no City Council member could stop them.
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