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ahtasva t1_jca49db wrote

Reply to comment by Jimmy_kong253 in New rail station to be built ahead of delayed PATH Newark Airport extension by 66nexus

So what? You talk as if the people who occupy the “luxury” units are all Russian who are taking advantage of our infrastructure. In case you don’t know; those people are tax paying American. Their taxes help pay for the infrastructure in the first place. This is the hard bigotry of anti-gentrification; a policy that demands you hate your neighbor purely on the basis that he is willing or able to pay more then you do in rent.

If housing is not affordable then either build public housing or increase wages. The govt is not willing to do either. It actively works against both objectives.

Here is a prime example of the utter idiocy of modern progressive ideology. Thousands of homeless sleeping rough on the streets. The progressive answer is not to house them; that would be too easy. Instead we are supposed to give over our parks, stations, curbsides and other public spaces to the homeless do as they please. Anyone who dare question the efficacy of this policy is labeled a racist, bigot, fascist etc.

This is the what progressivism is today, a shell game of virtue signaling and manufactured outrage designed to divide the public and keep poor and disenfranchised exactly where they are.

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Jimmy_kong253 t1_jca74is wrote

Well as far as you saying about Russian owning it. A times article a couple years ago pretty much showed evidence that the majority of Manhattan luxury rentals were owned by shell companies with links to out of the country people or businesses. As far as taxes building owners aren't paying their fair share and just like with the rest of the wealthy that tax burden gets moved on to the average nobody barely getting by. Now as far as you saying people should earn more money well thanks to the pandemic people have been getting paid more and employment has been low. What does that do? the feds scream and cry people are making too much money and unemployment isn't high enough which is why they're raising interest rates now to create that unemployment level that is acceptable to the economy and supposedly will bring down inflation

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ahtasva t1_jca9ah0 wrote

I said nothing about ownership. I was talking about occupancy. Are the majority of occupants of the luxury rentals Americans? If so, why are they less worthy of enjoying public services (that they pay for through taxes)? That is the crux of your argument. With better transit comes more expensive housing and that in turn causes displacement of existing residents. All points I agree with btw. What I don’t agree with is your solution. You want the luxury apartment to go “elsewhere”. Where will they go? Even if they could; why should they?

The point I make and you willfully sidestep is that i think your solution is wrong. It’s wrong because it divides people. It encourage people who would otherwise have things in common to hate and mistrust each other. I argue that as a result of this we can never have nice things because we can never unite over the things we agree on long enough to get it. That is bad for all of us.

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Jimmy_kong253 t1_jcaa5sd wrote

I don't want them to go elsewhere I want tax abatements for private companies to be banned outright. If you know your development is going to charge $2k or more for units honestly you don't need a tax break and if you're whole business profit plan depends on those tax breaks in the first place then you shouldn't be in business. I'm against the shifting of taxes on the ones who can't afford it

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Newarkguy1836 t1_jcj6bek wrote

Banks don't lend money developers based on how much they're going to charge for rent. They lend based on How likely they are to make a return profit & potential risk on the money they loan to developer.

Tax abatements and pilot programs lower the risk to Banks, allowing them to lend more easily in areas they consider high risk and traditionally redlined.

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