Margins should be pretty similar across cities after adjusting for risk. When margins are fat, land prices get bid up, when margins are thin, land prices go down.

Worth noting that this paper doesn't really care whether housing in general improves affordability or not, whether it builds the tax base or not. It assumes market-rate housing is neutral & evaluates IZ on its own terms--how good is it at producing affordable apartments at no govt expenditure?

That's pretty interesting

Tax abatement aka payment in lieu of taxes

Right, they have to come with a carrot that has to be calibrated not to kill supply. But the real kicker here is that even for the same sized carrot, the voluntary program produces more affordable units than the mandate.

Developers are greedy and profit-maximizing. They opt to take the subsidies where they can most efficiently be spent.

All of these are aspects of development that are modeled in the paper, and contribute to these outcomes are observed.

I think this result–that voluntary incentives would produce more affordable housing than mandates–must seem deeply counterintuitive for some people. They key is that every development site is different, and some are more suited than others to trading a tax incentive for affordable housing....

TL;DR. Inclusionary zoning mandates fail even on their own terms. Even if you don't care about housing supply and don't believe more housing in cities drives down costs and lowers carbon footprints, inclusionary zoning mandates are a crude, imprecise, and inefficient tool. There are better ways.

Eric Kober, a former NYC director of housing at NYC Planning, found that Voluntary Inclusionary Housing was more effective than Mandatory Inclusionary Housing at producing affordable units. tinyurl.com/3etds7af

The paper is by Lebret, Liu, and Valentin and can be found here: realestatecenter.wertheim.fsu.edu/sites/g/file...

While this is a theoretical paper with a model using real-world NYC data, it closely matches NYC's real-world experience with mandatory & voluntary inclusionary zoning.

...and, notably, the voluntary program doesn't reduce overall housing supply (and therefore raise costs for renters who don't win an affordable housing lottery), like the mandate does.

The really notable thing is what happens when you compare a mandate with a PILOT or upzoning, to a *voluntary* program that give density bonuses or PILOTs in exchange for affordable housing.

A voluntary program with PILOTs produces MORE affordable housing overall at 1/5 the cost than a mandate!

...when IZ mandates are combined with PILOTs or upzoning. As expected, this increases the affordable housing and reduces negative effect on supply. But the cost of the subsidy is still steep per unit.

The model looks at the effects of inclusionary zoning mandates, PILOTs, and density bonuses. Inclusionary zoning that is mandatory with no PILOT or density bonus produces the least affordable housing (and kills the most supply overall), which is no surprise. But where it gets interesting is...

Many affordable housing proponents support mandates on the premise that they produce more affordable housing than voluntary incentives, even if they kill housing supply overall. A recent paper by Lebret et al shows this premise is false. (thread)

Only for the original, not the revision (yet)

Other projects revised for a similar decline in height and density are 51 Morton Pl and 417 Communipaw Ave.

At 6 stories you can use wood frame as opposed to concrete or steel.

A pattern we've seen in some of the parts of JC with lower market rents is buildings being built at 6 stories, even when taller buildings are allowed, to save on construction costs. 212 Culver Ave is the latest to reapply at 6 stories (down from 8). Down from 365 apartments to 266.

Traffic crashes killed 206 New Yorkers in 2025, tied for the safest year since 1910.

More than 200 deaths in a year is still far too many. The goal of Vision Zero is zero.

Getting there will require redesigning streets, lowering speed limits, and daylighting every intersection.

The same circumstances are true when it comes to metro systems.

China opened more metro lines in 2025 alone than exist in the entire countries of Russia, UK, or France. Over the past 4 years, China built 2.5x as much metro lines as the US has in total.

A sewer socialist gets results by focusing on outcomes and on the nuts and bolts of unglamorous but essential city services.

Is the opposite of that a parade progressive?

(Tbf he's been in office 5 business days, prob can't blame him for this imo)

A sewer socialist gets results by focusing on outcomes and on the nuts and bolts of unglamorous but essential city services.

Is the opposite of that a parade progressive?

(Tbf he's been in office 5 business days, prob can't blame him for this imo)

El Poblado is one of the wealthiest areas of Medellín, and it's where the strictest limits were imposed 😬

Unfortunately I fear this is a sign of distress due to citywide height limits pushing demand from wealthy neighborhoods to poorer ones in Medellín.

More details from Hudson County Complete Streets: @hudcostreets.org

If you have time at 11am (NOTE: it was moved from 9am!), call in and register your opposition to the $12 billion Turnpike Extension widening through JC.
This is the first meeting under the new governor & new Turnpike Authority chair; first impressions matter!

Call 800-346-7359; access code 487219

Oof. Will update.

Looks like it moved to 11 am

Both of these bike lanes on Bergen and Marin are still impassable now. What happened to the bike-lane snow plow the city bought ?

A minor thing, but I hope the NIMBYs who typically scream that safe streets and housing advocates are just paid shills or in the pocket of Big Bike or whatever understand that they're a lot closer to Trumpism than they probably care to admit.