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CRAINSNEWYORK.COM I AUGUST 7, 2023

How the price of affordable housing is set in New York The figure, used as a benchmark for affordable housing projects, is by design significantly more than the typical salary By Eddie Small

fordable housing in the city, namely that it is not affordable Rodrigo Camarena, a 39-year- for the New Yorkers who need it old Sunset Park resident, was most. The complex way the fedrecently looking into an afford- eral government calculates the able housing lottery for a devel- area median income, or AMI, opment in nearby Gowanus. He plays a major role. The U.S. Department of found himself shocked by both the cost of the “affordable” rent, Housing and Urban Development, which deterwhich would be more mines the statistic, has than what he pays for BY THE the city as a his current market-rate NUMBERS designated high-cost area, meanapartment, and the ining a place that has come requirements, particularly expensive which did not align Approximate rents in relation to the with what he actually median median income. The makes. family agency thus deter“It’s sort of like, why income for mines income limits even bother,” said CaNew York for affordable housing marena, who works in projects based on how immigrant advocacy much a person would and ran for the City Council in 2021, “when, one, need to earn to spend no more the [area median income] rates than 35% of their income on themselves are out of sync with rent. Because rents have far my family’s income, and, two, outpaced wage growth in rethe rents that they’re requiring cent years, income limits for on a monthly basis are higher affordable housing projects than what I’m paying in an un- have in turn become significantly higher than the median regulated apartment?” Camarena’s reaction gets at income for New Yorkers. the root of one of the most common complaints about afSee HOUSING on Page 22

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Morgan Barrett (in white hat) and Ariel Purnsrian (in blue blouse) started hosting Breakfast Club events. | BUCK ENNIS

Tech scene is back, but not in offices Employment and startups in the technology sector are surging, taking networking events and meet-ups to the next level | By Cara Eisenpress It might have been the most popular ticket in Soho. At least 500 people registered for the July 6 panel, though it was a holiday week during a hot city summer. The hosts, the team from a 30-person artificial intelligence monitoring company called Arthur, finally had to gate the door. “People were pushing and shoving to come in,” said Adam Wenchel, Arthur’s CEO. The panel was on the future of large language models and included a who’s who of builders in the buzzy subsector. Still, the fact that so many tech people converged in one office at one time

astonished even the most enthusiastic boosters of the local tech industry for the sheer physicality of the gathering. Many of them consider New York City the most exciting location in the tech sector but will also admit there is a limit to the boom, especially when it comes to the industry’s lack of enthusiasm for offices. New York is now a worldwide center for national and globally distributed technology companies of every shape and size, but that doesn’t mean it’s playing host to trophy headquarters where most employees work from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It doesn’t even mean that the leadership of

local companies can be found in Flatiron or Soho, at least not on an average weekday morning. For the A.I. event, the Arthur organizers booked Jonathan Frankle during the approximately 18 days per month he spends in the city. Frankle is the chief scientist at San Francisco-based MosaicML, the 62-person company that had sold for $1.3 billion to data storage firm Databricks just weeks before. Frankle lists his location on social media in the coding language JSON as “P{NY=.6, SF=.2, DC=.1, BOS=.1}.” Tech workers are energizing See TECH on Page 19

Sunset Park resident Rodrigo Camarena told Crain’s he was shocked by the price of “affordable” rental units in Brooklyn. His experience reflects the realities of thousands of city residents burdened with rising rents. | BUCK ENNIS

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