Zoning for character: Contextual rezoning and socioeconomic change in New York City neighborhoods, 1986–2019

Empirical research is increasingly evaluating how municipal rezonings may affect the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods over time. There are also some zoning types that are not intended to affect development capacity and are based on the policy rationale of protecting urban character. Contextual rezonings are one such type and apply a layer of mandatory regulation on building height, setbacks from the street line, and yard requirements to create more restrictive but visually interesting building envelopes. In the American context, bundled with the notion of urban character are also discriminatory biases about the demographic characteristics of who should be allowed to live in urban neighborhoods and whose presence adds economic value. There is a need for additional studies that examine how character-based zoning controls may also be implicated in forms of neighborhood change, particularly exclusionary practices. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the neighborhood socioeconomic impacts of contextual rezonings implemented in New York City between 1986 and 2019 using a difference-in-difference method. The findings indicate that after implementation, contextually zoned neighborhoods tend to increase in socioeconomic status and become more predominately white and affluent. These changes represent a further entrenchment of white isolation that solidifies related privileges.