Churchill: Asking questions as Albany thwarts progress – Albany Times Union

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, shown announcing her candidacy for re-election last month, was against an inclusionary zoning requirement before she was for it. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, shown announcing her candidacy for re-election last month, was against an inclusionary zoning requirement before she was for it. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Churchill: Asking questions as Albany thwarts progress

Albany

You can almost count on it. As soon as Albany starts to build momentum, city government will find a way to mess things up.

The latest example: The decision to insert an "inclusionary zoning" provision into the city's ongoing update of its development rules.

What, you ask, is inclusionary zoning?

Excellent question! I'm glad you asked.

Inclusionary zoning is a rule that will require apartment developers to set aside five percent of units for affordable housing.

That probably doesn't seem so unreasonable. Indeed, inclusionary zoning is one of those things like "free tuition" or "Knicks basketball" that sounds wonderful until you look closely.

It's perhaps even true that inclusionary zoning has worked OK in wildly expensive and popular cities where rapid gentrification is pricing out long-term residents.

Albany, alas, is not one of those cities.

Instead, it's a place where developers are nervously sticking their toes in the water and looking for encouragement. The city is just beginning to see significant apartment construction in neighborhoods like the warehouse district.

Come on in, friends! The water won't hurt you!

That's what the city should be saying. But in this (admittedly tortured) analogy, inclusionary zoning is like a sign warning about sharks. It tells developers to scurry back to the bathtub safety of towns like Colonie.

You don't have to take my word for it. Consider the wisdom once uttered by Mayor Kathy Sheehan:

"I'm very concerned that if we were to mandate inclusionary housing, we'd see a huge drop-off in development in the city of Albany," Sheehan said last month to the All Over Albany website. "We have to be realistic about this market."

Nicely put!

Unfortunately, that Kathy Sheehan has vanished like your favorite phone booth. At Monday night's Common Council meeting, the mayor was among those speaking in favor of the last-minute insertion of inclusionary zoning into the long-planned and much-discussed ReZone Albany plan.

Sheehan's office subsequently sent me a statement saying it was "excited to be the first municipality in the Capital Region to implement this."

Of course, there's a reason no other municipality around here has done this. In upstate New York, it doesn't make economic sense.

So how, you ask, do we explain Sheehan's change of heart?

Excellent question! I'm glad you asked.

Well, I suspect the mayor's decision is mostly about the upcoming election. Her opponents in the Democratic primary Frank Commisso Jr. and Carolyn McLaughlin support inclusionary zoning, and she probably didn't want to be painted as a big meanie.

Sheehan isn't a real progressive! She's a tool of developers!

Speaking of developers, I called around to ask a few about the requirement, which applies to projects with more than 50 units and mandates that rents for affordable units can't exceed 30 percent of the city's median household income.

None would speak against it publicly, but they privately used words like "tragic" and "maddening."

"They just don't get it," one said. "They refuse to understand."

The developers said building in high-tax Albany still feels financially risky. The city, they said, should be easing the difficulties of construction, rather than throwing up hurdles that will shift urban investment to Schenectady and Troy.

Let me hit you with some numbers that seem to back that up: The census says the number of housing units in the city has fallen by 4.2 percent from 48,411 to 46,362 since 2010, while its population has inched up.

Anyone who passed Economics 101 can predict the inevitable result: Higher rents.

Anyone with basic supply-and-demand knowledge would know that increasing the number of units is one way to address the problem. But instead of encouraging new construction, Albany is choosing an opposite path that could slow development and further decrease supply.

I mentioned these concerns to Kelly Kimbrough, who represents North Albany on the Common Council and has been among the strongest supporters of inclusionary zoning.

"If we don't do anything, the developers aren't going to do the right thing," Kimbrough said. "I'm speaking for the people I represent. My focus is on making sure they have affordable places to live."

I believe Kimbrough's heart is in the right place, but I'll end with a few thoughts on why I think he's misguided on this.

One, the city has nearly 1,000 vacant residential buildings, a staggering number that suggests its housing market isn't robust enough for inclusionary zoning.

Two, since Albany's housing affordability problem is really a poverty problem, you could just as reasonably argue that supermarkets should be required to offer food discounts to poor customers.

But even Albany's misguided city officials wouldn't do that, presumably, because they understand it would discourage grocers from operating in the city.

So why, you ask, should housing be treated any differently?

Excellent question! I'm glad you asked.

cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill

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Churchill: Asking questions as Albany thwarts progress - Albany Times Union