Foreword

As a planner, an advocate, an administrator, and a former political appointee I’ve stepped out in front of scores of boards, hearings, working groups, and meetings of many types to attempt to secure approvals in the service of getting more housing built. Often there is quick agreement amongst everyone that a home is essential to providing stability and safety, and that the barriers to housing, particularly the increasing cost to rent or own, need urgent attention and intervention. Together, we’ll exchange analogous statements that making housing more accessible will strengthen the health, fiscal, and societal bonds of  a community. But despite that common ground, it is not long before too many of these discussions can devolve into perplexing contentiousness. In these exchanges about whether housing should be allowed in the proposed location, designed as suggested, and serving the mix of people we’re proposing to serve, it’s critical that we leverage our most reliable and persuasive tools if there is any chance these proposals will be embraced.

The high bar is because the subject of housing – yours or someone else’s – can be incredibly personal, the arguments as subjective and varied as the gamut of those, with their individualized experience and values, that present them. The debates that play out occur in exchanges equally driven by facts as they are by feeling. For many it’s not simply a matter of public policy or rational planning, but a decision that represents the most consequential thing standing between themselves and protecting their prosperity. The potential of new housing can be seen both as an opportunity and a risk – this perspective sometimes shifts from support to opposition and vice versa when talking about different geographies where a proposal may be considered. In those moments, how the information is presented, how responsive it is to address broader concerns, and the credibility of that information can make or break a proposal.

The act of holding the discussion is not the problem, it remains part of the solution. It should occur through direct participation and elected representatives evaluating the complexities of broad regulatory and tax reforms or more discrete discretionary actions that can potentially unlock barriers to growing the housing supply. And depending on the scope of the changes proposed, conversations go beyond a decision about the buildings themselves, but instead drill into questions about local infrastructure, public transit, parks, roads, sustainability, and school seats which either through mandated environmental reviews or voluntarily offered research, bring to the surface some reasonable, and difficult, questions that need to be considered alongside the need for housing.

These forums are at their most effective when participants are supplied with data that is vetted and factual and not primarily driven by anecdotes or assumptions. This is not to say there isn’t a role for qualitative techniques and descriptive input. Non-numerical information can be invaluable and needs to be integrated to fully grapple with the complex questions being considered. But it’s the mixed methods approach, with dynamic analysis at its foundation, that can allow for a faster, fuller charting of where your stakeholders are now and where they want to be in the future. Especially as the scope of the questions being considered grow beyond the housing and the additional subject matters at play become more specialized and exact, it’s important to pivot to strategies of gathering, organizing, and presenting information so that participants and decision makers in the process are speaking from the same set of facts and sharing the same reality.

  Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can do just that. It can facilitate a more unbiased platform for information to be studied, issues and trends scrutinized, permutations of various impact assessments to be played out. Alongside the qualitative data, you can then visually articulate and graphically render information in ways that illustrate the findings in the broadest possible terms promoting inclusive engagement and easy digestion of the factors at play.

As a facilitation tool, GIS allows housing discussions to become a collaborative and iterative process where users can draw on 21st century spatial analysis made more reliable with an ever-growing set of data-rich and accredited inputs. In its simplest form, this is software for locating things on a map, but in the hands of      trained professionals, it can set the stage for a proposal to advance more quickly past rudimentary steps and onto the technical and political landscape that      needs more attention and nuance.

The possibility that the strategic use of GIS can contribute to affordable housing campaigns and organized movements is more important now than ever. Large cities, and more towns and villages typically untouched by what were considered “urban” problems, now face record numbers of homelessness, increased household overcrowding, and deepening rent burden. The accelerating cost of insurance and materials, rising interest rates, high land costs and the challenges associated with maintaining quality housing has made conditions for adding new supply more unpredictable for even the most experienced builders. Unsurprisingly, the ramifications go further when you consider that housing shortages can stifle job growth; undermine tax revenue; curb spending on core public services like transit, waste removal, schools, and recreational spaces; exacerbate climate resiliency issues; and dilute fair housing goals and investments to reverse intrenched residential segregation that local, state, and national entities have made. The difficulties not only present issues for diversifying access to housing but it also stiffens obstacles that exist for diversifying the companies working in the sector itself. Emerging and BIPOC builders struggle to break in and overall prevents more firms constructing the housing to reflect some of the communities they are building in.

We are not helpless in this situation. In fact, there are many effective strategies we can deploy to create the housing we need. A suite of tools that include public private partnerships; social housing strategies; flexible as-of-right and discretionary municipal financial incentives; rental subsidies; permissive and incentivize zoning; and regulatory, code, and administrative reform are among the primary instruments. Federal funding directed at lowering housing costs, expanding supply, improving affordable rental and homeownership options, supporting even deeper levels of affordability, and tackling homelessness creates energy at the highest levels of government that can help break through parochial roadblocks. But to secure these tools requires public support and the key to garnering public support relies on communicating clearly, authentically, and with exactitude – three things that GIS can help us all do.

The authors Ramasubramanian, Albrecht, and Rojas do a tremendous job working through the complexity of the history, the present and the future of housing policy decisions at the core of this problem and expertly present the case for how comprehensive spatial analysis can diffuse noise to make room for lucidity in a combative space. My hope is the reader sees this not as a passive learning experience but a call-to-action where every able-bodied and skilled practitioner is compelled into service. The promise of “home” particularly for those with no or limited choice, and the future of our communities depends on it.

Ahmed Tigani, First Deputy Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development