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30 N.Y.U. Env't L.J. 413 (2022)
Community Ownership in New York City: The Housing Development Fund Corporation

handle is hein.journals/nyuev30 and id is 427 raw text is: NOTE COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP IN NEW YORK CITY: THE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FUND CORPORATION KRYSTLE OKAFOR* ABSTRACT Community ownership refers to tenures and tactics for the shared acquisition, financing, development, rehabilitation, and stewardship of land and housing among residents in a local community. As the COVID-19 pandemic softens multifamily housing markets, tenant activists, policy advocates, and progressive legislators have trumpeted community-owned real estate as a stabilizing force. New York City has long piloted forms of community ownership. An outgrowth of the 1970s fiscal crisis that allowed low-income New Yorkers to found housing cooperatives with their sweat equity, Housing Development Fund Corporations (HDFCs) presaged the current moment, demonstrating the viability of non-market approaches to housing provision, especially in Black and Latinx neighborhoods withstanding organized abandonment. Despite their successes, HDFCs face challenges and tradeoffs, both of which offer prescient lessons for emerging forms of community ownership. A thorough examination of HDFCs' triumphs and travails illuminates the potential of community ownership as an alternative to commodified housing and the racial differentiation that underlies it. As exemplified by HDFCs, the promise of community ownership is its ability to contest markets by generating scalable alternatives to profit-oriented institutions that betray a historic and present bent toward antagonizing people of color. ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. 413 INTRODUCTION: THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS RICH....................................... 414 I. CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND ................................................................... 423 * Krystle Okafor is a J.D. candidate, Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar, and Moelis Urban Law and Public Affairs Fellow at the New York University School of Law (class of 2022). Noah Kazis and Clayton Gillette provided supervision. Nick Berghall and Jaden Powell reviewed earlier versions of the Note. Anya Irons, Andy Reicher, Jerry Salama, Sheila Foster, Gerald Korngold, and Anne-Marie Hendrickson consulted with the author during the drafting process. Charlotte McCary offered editorial assistance. The author is grateful for the contributions of each. 413 Imaged with Permission of N.Y.U. Environmental Law Journal

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