Affordable housing advocates are facing a disturbing new opponent in planning battles across the country: other affordable housing advocates. Take the battle over implementation of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposed Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy in East New York. The policy would require private developers to ensure that 25 percent of all new housing units are for lower- income residents. It is the kind of policy that activists concerned about gentrification have long dreamed of. So it was somewhat ironic that Vickie Been, de Blasio’s housing commissioner, felt compelled to speak out in response to concerns that the plan would cause gentrification and displacement.

Because New York’s inclusionary housing plan is tied to zoning changes, which would allow higher density development along Brooklyn’s major corridors, a number of advocates for the area’s lower income residents have concluded that the plan will add fuel to the booming market and drive rents and for-sale home prices higher than they already are. Vickie Been’s response was to remind people that rents were already high and rising and point out that that was the predictable result of a shortage of housing. The new zoning plan, she said, “is not the trigger for displacement; instead, it is a preventative measure.”