CJS Decision 2024

As anger builds in Chinatown over the city’s expansion of a Manhattan jail complex, some residents fear that construction will lead to an inhospitable environment for business owners and residents. 

According to Hong-Shing Lee, executive director of the Chinatown Manpower Project, a workforce development nonprofit, small businesses near the jail on Baxter, Walker and Center streets have already been visibly impacted by the construction. Compounded by increased traffic from the city’s street renovations, some business owners say they are seeing reduced foot traffic while others are being forced to reroute shipments to narrower streets. 

But according to Lee, the driving force pushing small business and residents out of the area is not the jail project or street repairs—but the neighborhood's persistent lack of affordable space, for both housing and commercial use. Some experts point to a more nuanced discussion of the problem that could be helpful. They argue that Community Land Trusts offer a potential solution to ease stress on both tenants and landlords.

Community Land Trusts (CLT) are nonprofits governed by a community board that purchases and manages a designated area of land. Touted as a progressive model for increasing affordable housing, Community Land Trusts have been implemented by landowners in Boston’s Chinatown, with Cooper Square being one of the city’s oldest active examples. In order to release some of the operating pressure off Chinatown’s aging, legacy structures, community advocates suggest the adoption of such trusts. 

As high costs to landlords spur even higher rents, Chinatown is no stranger to high real estate operating costs. Median housing rents can go upwards of $3,800. But according to Jan Lee, a legacy landlord and co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal, nearly 75% of the housing in Chinatown is rent regulated, with many units below market range. These rent-regulated units make up most of the tenement housing stock, whose operating costs are often shouldered by ground floor commercial spaces, leading to higher commercial rents. 

“What you have is an aging population, (and) no turnover. You have people aging in their apartment for 50 years, and the apartment becomes decrepit. It's no longer meeting its building code,” said Jan Lee, “and when it becomes vacant, what do you think are the chances of that landlord renting that apartment for $65 a month? That doesn't make a community stable.”

In order to release some of the operating pressure on Chinatown’s aging structures, community advocates suggest the adoption of Community Land Trusts.  

Through the adoption of trusts, landlords pay lower property taxes— reducing pressure to raise rents. 

Wellington Z. Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation and former Commissioner of the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals, has long advocated for the implementation of Community Land Trusts to address affordability issues in Chinatown. He said that the trusts lower operating pressures via reduced property tax, which could save landlords upwards of $100,000 a year. 

“Each tenement building has a lot of maintenance costs, so something has to give,” Chen said. “In lieu of taxes you use that money to replace roofing, repair the boiler, and emergency lighting. We work so hard to preserve the mom and pop shops, because they are helping to support these tenement buildings and affordable units upstairs.” 

By encouraging landlords to shift to trusts, buildings can be better maintained while rent-stabilized tenants improve their quality of living, advocates said. But property owners may be hesitant to give up their titles, many of which are Chinese-owned by way of family associations. 

“That’s a common misconception,” said Chen. “The fundamental fear is, why do you want me to give up the title to my land? In a way, this is a nonprofit Co-Op.” In Co-Ops, Chen explained, residents don't own land, but a stock based on the percentage and size of their property. 

Instead of leading to further displacement of ethnic communities, Community Land Trusts aim to protect the interests of low-income renters and incentivize new business developments. New businesses that, according to Jan Lee, should be “contextual businesses” – culturally competent businesses that restore the self-sufficiency of the community. 

“The beauty of New York is that a lot of the neighborhoods that are ethnic enclaves are actually owned by the people who live there, who will rent to contextual businesses,” said Lee. “So when we leave our greatest ethnic neighborhoods, that's when you lose the soul of the community.”