Brief Thoughts on "Is it possible to be both YIMBY while also feeling that 60 stories is a tad bit tall for the West Village?"

Is it a housing emergency, or not?

Yesterday, New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher tweeted the messages you see above, replicated here:

I strongly believe in the need to build more housing in all neighborhoods, but a height of 600 feet (60 stories) is obviously out of scale for the Meatpacking District. I have asked the city to pause releasing this RFP and instead issue one with a more appropriate height.

Is it possible to be both YIMBY while also feeling that 60 stories is a tad bit tall for the West Village? Asking for a friend.

As you can imagine, many people got mad at him. Just look at the ratio of likes to comments. I think many pro-housing advocates were also disappointed, because the CM changed his mind about building housing in recent years, and this seems like a setback to them:

The charitable comparison between this tweet and the one at the top of the essay is that this one is not 60 stories. But I would ask the CM to consider what got him to change his mind about this building, and extend that logic forward. Similar reasons that led to his opposition then are likely still operating today on the 60-story building.

And although I disagree with him on substance—I think the building should go ahead¹—I didn’t like the responses he was getting from pro-housing people. Why? Two broad reasons:

• They were mean to a council member with a pro-housing track record, even if it’s not to the degree many would like. CM Bottcher is a good member of the council who works hard for his constituents.

• They did not seriously engage with the question the CM asked in his second tweet. There are difficult, important things to address there!

So I quote-tweeted the CM’s tweets and provided my own answer to his question, which I reproduce below with slight edits for style and reference.

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Erik Bottcher has been getting heat for this particular stance, so I want to start by saying: he's a pro-housing candidate, and he's great. And he's hitting on a difficult tension that exists among policy-makers who actually have to make and implement law. Here's how I think about it:

NYC had a supply-driven rental crisis in the 1920s (vacancy rate <1%). We exited that crisis by unleashing massive amounts of rental construction through policy—it was the only time a rental emergency was declared, and then actually solved (vacancy near 8%)!

What was the nature of that policy? Full property tax holiday for about a decade in some instances. And generally no requirements like below-market units that would have to be subsidized by market-rate units, driving their rent up to cover the difference. The legal landscape was also different in the 1920s—we didn't have SEQR, ULURP, etc.

The basic point is this: are we in a housing emergency or not? Are the effects devastating, or not? Does it demand an emergency response, or not?

If it is an actual emergency, that is actually devastating, that actually demands an emergency response, then it is reasonable to do things one would think otherwise suboptimal outside an emergency. It is reasonable to do almost everything it takes to rush housing supply online.

This is what Governor Al Smith and the NYS Legislature did in the 1920s. The hundreds of thousands of units they unleashed did change neighborhoods—by giving them new units, by allowing them to grow, by bringing down rents. But they faced massive criticism at the time, especially for giving apartment builders property tax breaks without things like Mandatory Inclusionary Housing programs, or strict contextual zoning requirements. But this enabled sufficient supply to come online quickly, and had far better results than a slowed-down process burdened with qualifications (even well-meaning ones). And people often like the housing produced in that era!

So to answer the CM's question:

The preface: if someone is the kind of YIMBY dedicated to actually solving the housing emergency, and treating it like one, they would act like the government of the past (Al Smith and company) who actually did solve the housing emergency of their time--unlike the modern government, which has allowed it to exist for decades. Acting like Al Smith means letting neighborhoods evolve and change to accommodate sufficient supply to solve the housing crisis, and get vacancy to ~8%.

The answer: "no." You can be a YIMBY and oppose a particular building, if "YIMBY" means "person who wants net housing supply to go up, and generally supports it most of the time, and has a track record of moving supply up in any amount."² But if "YIMBY" means "politically and legally doing what is required to solve the housing crisis, like Al Smith did," which I think CM Bottcher wants to do, I think the honest answer to this question is "no." You don't pick and choose new development like this if it's an actual emergency. Partially because picking and choosing requires keeping power in the hands of pickers and choosers, who clearly aren't capable of solving the housing crisis (else it would not have endured for decades).

On top of it, I think the building would fit in the area—part of being Al Smith caliber is generally setting personal opinions about contextual development aside, and going all in for NYC as a whole. No one could reasonably accuse Al Smith of not being "for the people." And many current New Yorkers like the design, and in the future I bet they will too. It is like that for pretty much all new housing.

Final note: I'm glad the council member is sharing his opinions so openly, and always has. This is what we'd want a legislator to do. It's a tough job, especially when discussing housing supply. I appreciate him.

Further reading:

1. Among other reasons, delaying housing and shortening it both lead to less units (unless the CM asks for a shorter design that doesn’t diminish units, in which case he would likely find constraints preventing this).

2. I think you can believe that a neighborhood is beautiful just as it is, have strong aesthetic preferences about that, and also think the neighborhood should be allowed to evolve into something else in the future—just as the present version came about through evolution. I wrote about this conflict as it manifested with the Elizabeth Street Garden.