It should have been a match made in heaven.
With COVID-19 hitting the tourism industry, many New York hotels were sitting empty, possibly unable ever to recover. At the same time, the city’s homeless population was growing. Why not convert some of the abandoned hotels into housing for the homeless?
So two New York state legislators tried to help building owners do exactly that by setting aside $100 million in financing for developers who wanted to convert their hotels into homeless shelters.
And it might have worked just fine, except for one large problem: The legislation did not come with the regulatory reform needed to transform hotels into housing.
Under New York City zoning laws, permanent residential housing may only be built in residential zones. That means hotels located outside commercial zones cannot legally be converted to housing.
And even if hotels were in residential zones, there are a slew of regulations that must be met when a building switches from housing to residential. For example, most hotels don’t have large enough elevators, doorways, or room sizes to meet residential minimum requirements. The legislation itself even dictated that all homeless units must have a kitchenette with a full-sized refrigerator, cooktop, and sink.
“There are very few hotels that physically could be converted and comply with the requirements of today’s zoning and building code without substantial, expansive reconstruction, partial removal or demolition,” developer consultant James Colgate told
Politico
. “That would increase the costs greatly.”
As a result, in the program’s first full year, it has received just two preliminary inquiries and zero applications. Undaunted, the New York State Legislature has dedicated another $100 million to the program, even though not a single dime was spent in the first year.
“The extra money won’t do any good without the regulatory changes,” architect Mark Ginsberg told
New York Focus
. “It doesn’t pencil out unless you change the code.”
Will New York City change its zoning code? Not if “homeless advocates” like Joseph Loonam have anything to say about it.
“We didn’t want a program that cut corners to make it more palatable to developers,” Loonam told reporters. “We wanted a program that centered the needs of homeless New Yorkers, which is true high-quality, affordable housing where they can have full autonomy and dignity.”
It looks like homeless advocates just centered the people they supposedly support right out of new housing.
