Leonard Grunstein: The Answer to the Affordable Housing Crisis Is More Housing—A Blueprint for Accessing the Capital Markets to Finance the Creation of New Middle Income and Other Affordable Housing

Recently published in the spring 2014 edition of the Real Estate Finance Journal, Leonard Grunstein’s plan to resolve New York’s affordable housing crisis proposes a new mixed-income, mixed-use model of affordable housing that enables the free-market to fund the development. The full plan can be accessed below.

This article analyzes the affordable housing crisis and proposes a solution.

Part I:

The Affordable Housing Crisis and a Capital Market Solution

Part II:

Middle Income and Other Forms of Affordable Housing—A Study of Definitions

Part III:

Underwriting Middle Income Housing—A Basic Financing Manual

Part IV:

Start with the NYCHA Sites in Manhattan as a Model

Part V:

The Proposed Self-Financed Rent Voucher Program

Part VI:

The Need For Predictability—The AHA and Financeable Ground Lease can be Effective Tools to Accomplish the Mission

Part VII:

Mitchell-Lama and Other Precedents

Part VIII:

The UDC Precedent, Including Battery Park City Authority and the Need for an Affordable Housing Authority

Real Estate Expert Leonard Grunstein Proposes a Solution to New York’s Affordable Housing Crisis

Leonard Grunstein has released a plan to resolve New York’s affordable housing crisis. Recently published in the spring 2014 edition of the Real Estate Finance Journal, the plan proposes a new mixed-income, mixed-use model of affordable housing that enables the free-market to fund the development.

The proposed plan would let the market play a larger role in New York’s housing policy, urging reforms to lower the cost of land in order to attract free-market financing and equity through the capital markets. This would enable development of unused city land and encourage developers to lease the ground where new projects are built, generating rents from the luxury component of the mixed-use complex.

Grunstein also encourages using the additional funds from these rents for the creation of self-funded “sticky” rent vouchers that would empower struggling families by letting them rent an apartment. He believes the answer to low-income affordability is more income, not more structurally flawed low-income projects.

To put these ideas into action, Grunstein is urging the city to create an Affordable Housing Authority, which can resolve issues using a public-private partnership model.

 

Leonard Grunstein Celebrates Yeshiva Graduates

Leonard Grunstein attended a reception earlier this spring honoring the new Bergen County graduates of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (REITS). Grunstein and his wife Chanie have long been generous supporters of Yeshiva University, from which his three children, daughter-in-law and sons-in-law all graduated. In July 2013, Grunstein was named a board member of Yeshiva’s Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. The school has also praised Grunstein for his analysis of Jewish banking laws, which appeared in the Banking Law Journal in 2013.

The reception celebrated the seminary’s 50 new Bergen County graduates. This year’s REITS cohort, 230 graduates in total, is the largest graduating class in the school’s history. The reception in Teaneck preceded the REITS ceremony and featured Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, a professor at the school and renowned former chief rabbi of England.

Sacks, the Kressel and Ephrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva, served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from September 1991 until September 2013. He is known as one of the most prolific and well-regarded Jewish thinkers in the world and has been called an “intellectual giant” by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. At the reception, Sacks elaborated on the role of the rabbi in the Jewish community, saying the training of new students is the most important thing one can do in the Jewish world.

Leonard Grunstein expressed his excitement at having Sacks speak at the ceremony, calling him “a brilliant man and speaker.”

Leonard Grunstein and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Lady Elaine Sacks and Chanie Grunstein at Bergen County graduate reception

Rav Benjamin Yudin, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rav Herschel Schacter and his son, Rabbi Shai Schacter

Dean of REITS at YU, Rabbi Menachem Penner and Rabbi Ari Zahtz, assistant Rabbi at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck