Bribing homeowners to build tiny houses won’t solve NYC’s housing problem

Those who believe New York City not only needs more housing but more types of housing to serve its many types ൩of households should be cheered by 🍃the Adams administration’s support for “granny flats.”

These small “accessory dwelling units” built in backyards, converted𒀰 basements or converted garages can help homeowners pay their mortgages and older adults stay in their neighborhoods.

But leave it to New York to mess up a good idea.

City Hall plans to pay — bribe? — 15 homeowners up to a staggering $400,000 each to build an ADU on their property.

And, of course, that subsidy comes with strings attached: “affordability” income restrictions for future residents and, yes, 🍨rent control, with a $2,600 a month cap.

This is the opposite 𝕴of the type of 🌠zoning reform New York City needs.

Rather than further distorting the housing market, already saddled with a million rent-regulated units and hundreds of thousands of “affordable” units, th🍷e city should free⛎ homeowners to build small, cheap ADUs that are naturally affordable — because they’re small and cheap.

Keep in mind that what may seem like🗹 a tiny unit — the city envisions 750 square feet — is about the size of a postwar house in Levittown.

The model for Gotham should, surprisingly, be California, which has sharply checked the power of localities to limit ADUs, thanks to 2019 YIMBY (yes i📖n my backyard) legislation.

The law includes such free-market improvements as eliminating ADU minimum lot si🔜zes and so-called “impact” fees (regulatory costs) for units 750 square feet or smaller and not requiring owner-occupancy — all zoning tricks localities had used to keep them out.

California also requires auth🐷orities to rule on an ADU permit request with♛in 60 days.

In other wꦚords, th🍒e Golden State took steps to let the market operate.

If 💫it turns out no one wants to🙈 live in a tiny ADU, builders will opt for bigger ones.

Better not to tel📖l 🍨them what size is best nor assume costs will be exorbitant.

Why should it take $4💝0🅺0,000 to build a tiny house, after all?

California’s results have been promising.

“Between 2019 and 2022 the number of ADUsꦗ permitted grew 88%,”𒁃 the Cato Institute reports.

Constructed ADUs rose from “5,852 in 2019 to 17,460 by 2022 (an almost 2�♓�00% increase).”

Without a $400,💦000 subsꦿidy per unit — and without rent controls.

Other states, including Massachusetts, where s🌌ing🍸le-family zoning has been the norm — as it is, surprisingly, in Queens — are looking to Sacramento as a model.

The Bay State is rediscovering the natural affordability of its pre-zoning standard of two- and threeꦛ-family homes.

(Although Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is toying with bringing back the housing insanity called rent control, guaranteed to limit new construction and encourage tꦕhe low turnover that plagues New York, making it hard for newcomers to find a p📖lace to live.)

Cities were able to provide♕ naturally affordable housi♌ng before zoning strangled housing variety.

Between 1870 and 1940, Brooklyn built some 120,000 buildings with gr🔯ound-floor retail and upper-floor apartments, often occupied by those who owned𝔉 the stores.

In Philadelꦓphia during the same period, 299,000 small attached, sing♏le-family rowhouses accommodated that city’s waves of immigrants.

And in Boston, 60,000 units were f𓂃ound in the city’s trademark “triple-decker” frame homes — where extended famili♎es often lived under one roof.

This is 🌊the sort of housing variety we need to rediscover.

𝓰To underscore: New York and the nation need not just more housing but more types of housing.

The Adams administration had, unt𒁃il the ADU-bribery idea, been on the right track with zoning reform.

Proposals to allow incrementally more density — including the time-honored outer-borough model of small apartments on second and third floors above stores — and relaxing parking requirements are both steps in the right direction, as even the li🏅beral NYU Furman Center has signaled.

New, high-cost subsidies for what should be uni꧂ts homeowners will ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚwant to build — because they make financial sense — are a way to spoil a good idea.

Howard Husock is an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and the author of “The Poor Side of Town — And Why We Need It.”