Monitor Point Is a Housing Plan NYC Needs

Real Estate Partner Louise Carroll, Affordable Housing and Community Development Co-Chair, authored an op-ed article for the Daily News about the Monitor Point project in Brooklyn, a proposed upzoning under the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning program (MIH) that the New York City Council (Council) is currently debating.

"When I ran NYC's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, I learned something that no amount of capital can change: the city cannot build its way out of this crisis alone," Louise wrote. "Even at $1.4 billion a year in housing capital, public dollars do not go far enough, fast enough, or to enough places. Nearly every affordable apartment New Yorkers actually move into is the product of a partnership between the public sector and a private developer willing to take on real risk." She added that, according to NYU's Furman Center, which advances research on housing neighborhoods and urban policy, "land use changes, especially upzonings, help drive new housing production."

Louise notes that Monitor Point would not only provide housing, but also bring "open space, educational investment, and quality of life improvements," and therefore deserves the Council's approval, especially against the backdrop of citywide rental vacancies hitting a record low of 1.4 percent in more than half a century. "In a housing crisis, we should be urgently approving housing developments, but Monitor Point also has more than 51,000 square feet of publicly accessible waterfront, finally connecting Greenpoint and Williamsburg along the shoreline and unlocking the long-promised realization of Box Street Park by relocating the MTA facility currently in the way," she wrote. "The question facing the Council is not whether this project is perfect — no project ever is — but whether stopping a project that the community wants and needs would make the housing crisis better or worse."

"Monitor Point is a housing plan NYC needs," Daily News, May 30, 2026