Inclusionary housing

Cases

Boston

Boston's Inclusionary Development Policy, introduced in 2000, requires any residential development that includes ten or more units and that receives financing from the city, is on city property, or needs an exception to current zoning regulations to designate fifteen percent of its market rate units as affordable housing. Rather than adhering to these base stipulations, developers have the option, in some cases,make a monetary contribution for as much as $380,000 per unit (depending on where the proposed development is located) to a fund for affordable housing or to build affordable housing units off-site at an increased ratio (up to 18 percent of the total). 

Boston's inclusionary strategy is aimed at providing affordable housing for middle-income earners in attractive areas of the city from which they would otherwise be shut out. The plan reserves housing spots for residents making up to 100 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) as well as a certain number of units for people making 70 percent or less of the AMI. 

New York City

New York City Council approved a mandatory inclusionary housing program in 2016. The approved measures were designed to take into account a situation in which the City's population had grown by one million people since 1990, along with steadily rising housing costs and large numbers of residents on waiting and lottery lists for public housing and private affordable units. Unlike Boston's strategy, New York's inclusionary housing scheme specifically targets lower income residents with a Deep Affordability Option that requires higher percentages of building floor areas to be set aside for residents making an average of 40 percent of the AMI. "The Department of City Planning and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development have stated that the central goals of the proposal are to create more economically diverse communities across New York City and to ensure that a share of new housing in growing communities is affordable."