Village Preservation RELEASES REPORT SHOWING REBNY’S REAL RECORD ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Dear friend,
For years the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) has been waging a war against preservation measures in New York City. After years of claiming unsuccessfully that landmark protections and zoning restrictions strangle economic growth, REBNY switched gears and now, incredibly, claims that preservation measures have the opposite effect, making New York City so desirable that New Yorkers cannot afford it.
The through-the-looking-glass logic of this campaign has been repeated often enough by a well-funded p.r. machine that it has actually attracted adherents in the media and city government.
Such thinking seems to be increasingly influencing policy-making decisions which place preservation at odds with tackling our city’s affordability challenges.
GVSHP and our friends in the preservation world have long called for a real examination of potential strategies to help keep New York affordable to all. But we don’t think opening the floodgates to unfettered development is a serious strategy, and we don’t think that REBNY’s real interest is in finding such solutions.
Why? Not just because of their inherent self-interest in dismantling as much regulation as possible for the developers they represent. More importantly, because REBNY has consistently used its considerable economic resources to fund campaigns in New York City and Albany which have worked AGAINST the cause of affordability, and against the agenda of advocates for affordable housing.
GVSHP has documented this pattern, and REBNY’s role in stymying progress on the affordability front at every turn, in our report “Check the Facts and Consider the Source: Campaign CA$H and REBNY’s Real Record on Affordable Housing” – read it here.
Please share and spread the word about the report. It’s important that we take back our city, and the debate about its future, from real estate interests who claim to care about affordability, but whose real agenda is simply increased profit and development.
Sincerely,
Andrew Berman
Executive Director