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The Lighthouse Project | The Heartland Project | YIMBY Campaign Choices | YIMBY Criteria
YIMBY Campaign Choices
The following is a list of different strategies to develop new affordable housing.
YIMBY supports affordable homeownership and affordable rental housing for people of all ages and races. In addition we require that new affordable housing that is built must be affordable in perpetuity.
ACCESSORY APARTMENTS
This would require allowing single family homes to have an apartment that they could rent without having the single family zoning of the home changed. Due to high taxes many Long Island seniors are struggling to stay in their homes. Legalizing accessory apartments helps people stay in their homes while providing affordable rental housing.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING FUNDS
This is a pool of money to encourage affordable housing projects. These funds can be used to provide affordable rental and homeownership options.
APARTMENTS ABOVE STORES
Long Island has hundreds of strip malls and many downtowns. By providing apartments above stores, affordable rental housing is created and the downtown or strip mall is revitalized.
CO-HOUSING
Is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. Cohousing residents are consciously committed to living as a community and residents also have access to common facilities such as open space, courtyards, a playground and a common house.
DENSITY NEAR MASS TRANSIT
This would allow more people to live closer to areas where there are already transit lines. This includes clusters development bringing down costs and preserves open space.
HOME SHARING
Home sharing programs find older adult homeowners and find people of all ages who need affordable rental housing. The program carefully screens and has criminal background checks on everyone. The parties decide if rent is paid and if the home seeker provides any help to the homeowner such as doing chores, cooking, lawn care, etc.
INCLUSIONARY ZONING
When a large neighborhood sized development is being built inclusionary zoning would require that a percentage of the homes are affordable homes or are rentals (usually 20%). This is most effective in less developed areas where large scale housing developments are still being built. Laws requiring this have been successful in Massachusetts and have been passed in a few communities on Long Island. Recently a new New York State law requires that 10% of all new developments need to provide 10% affordable housing.
LAND TRUSTS
A Community Land Trust is a not-for-profit organization with the purpose of creating a democratic institution to hold land and to retain the value of the land for the benefit of the community. This creates an affordable home price since the homeowner will be purchasing the home and not the land.
RENOVATING ABANDONED PROPERTIES
In this case, the town would seize rundown and abandoned properties and rebuild them, converting them into affordable rental housing. This would also include reclaiming HUD housing.
SUPPORTING NEW DEVELOPMENTS THAT PROVIDE AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Throughout Long Island there are developments that are being proposed by government and private developers. Some of these projects include affordable housing. We must stand up at Town Board meetings to say “yes” to these good projects. In order to support projects, we must evaluate them. YIMBY has a criteria form which does this. View the Affordable Housing Project Criteria Form.