Rumbles continue over fair trade of land for housing.

The crushing demand for affordable housing has made citywide neighborhood rezoning proposals to incorporate "inclusionary" clauses that tempt developers to trade larger floor plates for a portion of low income housing more viable.

The inclusionary zoning program--which has been used in Manhattan for over a decade--has been extended in the past three years to include larger scale projects in Woodside Queens, Jamaica Queens, South Park Slope, and Williamsburg/Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

While most developers and advocates support the tool as one of several being utilized to combat the 3% housing vacancy rate in the city, developers and community board members are butting heads over the nuances of inclusionary housing.

Some believe recent large scale re-zonings that have integrated inclusionary housing like Hudson Yards, West Chelsea, and Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Brooklyn--which combined have resulted in developments promised to bring over 30,000 apartments, 8,500 of which will be affordable--are proof positive that the program is working.

"The beauty of the program is that, by using a density bonus, we create an enormous incentive and I think that the record shows over the past two years that developers will choose to exercise that option and create affordable housing in their projects," said Rafael Cestero, former deputy of development for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and senior vice president for field and regulatory operations with Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing finance organization

Others believe the housing included in these zonings is not enough. The most militant advocates for affordable housing are still calling for mandatory, rather than voluntary inclusionary zoning. A recent survey undertaken by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy suggested 83% of business leaders agree that mandatory inclusionary zoning would be good for the city.

Members of the Real Estate Board of New York are among the most outspoken opponents of mandatory inclusionary housing, calling it another form of "price control," and claiming it will impede new development.

Cestero believes the issue of mandatory inclusionary zoning is a red herring.

"At the end of the day, real estate development in itself is a voluntary action. If you impose affordable housing inclusion on a developer, they still have a choice, they can choose not to build anything," Cestero said. "With a city like New York, where you have a 3% vacancy rate, it is very important to the health of the city that we continue to encourage development."

Cestero--who has worked on affordable housing development for most of his career--believes the inclusionary program, when combined with incentive programs such as the 421-a tax credit that offers tax breaks to developers who include affordable housing in their developments, and other subsidy incentives provides sufficient impetus for developers to choose to build low income housing.

Community boards trading higher percentages of affordable housing in exchange for higher percentages of floor to area ration (FAR),which have increased from a 5% bonus in the 1980's to a 33% total in some of the newly planned zones, is a giant leap that worries some in the industry.

"Inclusionary zoning is a worthy goal, but you always have to be careful to temper your expectations. Community boards are pushing for higher and higher percentages now and there is a limit to how far you can go and still produce viable market rate housing. There is always a danger of over-reaching," said David West, architect and policy expert at Costas, Kondyllis and Partners.

"Right now, there is a big slop factor on financial projections, we may not always have that luxury. Things that are being proposed to be built won't make sense if rents don't keep rising 10 or 15% like they are now," West said.

Others believe that the FAR being offered to developers is not enough.

"Every opportunity we get to create affordable housing, we tend to short-change ourselves," said Michael Slattery, head of research with REBNY.

"Most of the zoning proposals we have seen brought to the table--with the exception of Hudson Yards and West Chelsea--have been too timid. We need to be more aggressive to build more neighborhoods. We need to find ways to grow neighborhoods and not to freeze wrap them in their current state."

Woodside, Queens was a neighborhood he believes was recently short-changed in the zoning process, where advocates rallied for a 3.75% FAR as a base, which could be brought up to 5% if developers chose to include affordable housing. That neighborhood is large enough and attractive enough to support larger developments, Slattery said.

"Too many of the bonuses out there just give you free floor area to build affordable housing. There is an inadequate amount of new development attached to these programs to pay for the creation of affordable housing," he said.

Whatever form it ultimately takes, some allege that inclusionary zoning has become endemic to most zoning.

"It is no longer politically viable for a zoning proposal to be considered by city planning and the community boards if they do not include some form of affordable housing incentives. It would never make it through the ULURP process," said Juan Reyes, a partner with Hartman & Craven LLP.