Village Preservation Argues That City of Yes Would Displace People of Color

As the City of Yes zoning initiative–which seeks to boost both affordable and market-rate housing development citywide–is facing a vote by the NY City Council, the prominent preservationist nonprofit Village Preservation is arguing that it would disproportionately benefit white people and displace people of color.

”What these up zoning proponents have been saying is completely wrong,” Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman said in an interview with Straus News. “What we’re seeing is that the statistics tell a very different story.”

The organization has released a neighborhood-by-neighborhood study based on NYC City Planning data to this effect, in which they conclude that areas with high rates of housing production “became less Hispanic and less Black during this time period—not just in relation to the White population, but in relation to the population of these areas overall.” They go on to claim that the opposite effect happens in areas with “more modest” housing construction rates, which are undeniably tempered by contextual zoning and landmark protections.

“These figures would seem to indicate that increasing new housing construction, by itself or in the manner the city has done over the last ten years—largely via market rate housing—is unlikely to make cities or neighborhoods more diverse, affordable, or accessible,” the study says.

Village Preservation says its study is based on changes in some of New York City’s 200 Neighborhood Tabulation Areas, or NTAs, which are census subunits.

“We analyzed the thirty [NTAs] with the largest percentage increases in the number of housing units, according to the 2010 and 2020 censuses,” the study notes, “which are found in every borough, in higher- and lower-income areas, and in neighborhoods of varying racial and ethnic composition.”

In this high-construction NTAs, the study continues, “Whites went from being the third largest racial/ethnic group (after Hispanics and Blacks) to the largest.” This reportedly includes both overall population level and the total share of the population, relative to other racial categories.

Conversely, the study says that areas with a lower-than-average boost in housing construction “became” less White over time; they also reportedly became more Hispanic and mostly more Black, with the “the Black population and Black share of the population” reportedly preserved more often than not.

The Asian population reportedly increased everywhere over time, in both high-production and low-production areas. Village Preservation claims that the population boost was better sustained in lower-production areas, however.

While the study singles out the impacts of rapidly building out market-share housing and the loss of affordable housing—in addition to the elimination of some zoning protections that would occur if City of Yes passed—the zoning overhaul’s proponents have argued that it is supposed to incentivize affordable construction as well. This would reportedly occur through something called Universal Affordability Preference, which allows developers to build “20 percent” more units per building, as long as they’re permanently affordable.

Yet some City of Yes skeptics that share Village Preservation’s concerns about preservation changes, like Lower Manhattan City Councilmember Christoper Marte, have also argued that its affordability provisions are not extensive or mandatory enough.

Four of the five borough presidents, including Manhattan BP Mark Levine, have expressed support for the City of Yes overhaul.