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Inclusionary zoning in New York and Sydney

17 August 2017
What can Sydney learn from NYC's affordable housing plan?
New York City's inclusionary zoning policy marks a significant step towards affordable housing. Dr Mark Willis recently visited to discuss the city's housing market and explain the economic analysis behind this policy.

As a central platform of its New York Affordable Housing Plan, New York City adopted mandatory inclusionary zoning in early 2016. The evolution of inclusionary zoning policy from a voluntary to mandatory program is an important story in New York City Housing Policy.

Dr Mark Willis, Senior Policy Fellow at the NYU Furman Center, recently visited the University the Sydney to deliver a talk about the New York Housing market and explain some of the economic analysis behind the development of the policy. 

About the speaker

Dr Mark Willis is the Senior Policy Fellow at the NYU Furman Center. Before joining the NYU Furman Center, Mark was a Visiting Scholar at the Ford Foundation. Prior to his time at Ford, he spent 19 years at JPMorgan Chase overseeing its community development program. Mark has also held positions with the City of New York in economic development, tax policy, and housing, where he was the Deputy Commissioner for Development at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Mark has a B.A. in economics from Yale University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in urban economics and industrial organization from Yale University.

Our visit

in 2016 our Trust Director, Professor Phibb, visited New York city to speak to housing researchers and officials to learn more about mandatory inclusionary zoning policies. Watch his account of the similarities between the cities and the feasibility of housing strategy discussions he observed during his trip: