“Racial impact studies don’t block or delay rezonings. They simply pull together data that’s already publicly available,” the authors write. “What the backlash reveals is how uncomfortable some developers are with giving communities the tools to demand more from a broken status quo.”
A Manhattan community board meeting in 2018. The authors are calling for better trainings for boards across the city around how to evaluate racial impact studies when weighing in on new development proposals. (Photo by Adi Talwar)
When New Yorkers hear plans of a new development or rezoning in their neighborhoods, residents always ask the same question: Will it drive up rents? Will longtime residents—especially communities of color—get pushed out?
For decades, there was no requirement for the city to provide data to directly answer those questions. That changed in 2021, after years of organizing by housing justice advocates like the Racial Impact Study Coalition (RISC), when New York created new tools to confront the racial impacts of land use decisions.
Racial impact studies—more formally known as Racial Equity Reports (RER)—are now mandated for inclusion in certain land use applications to show a project’s potential effects on local housing affordability, displacement risk, and job access. Public data tools, managed by city agencies, were also created to help residents and decision-makers understand neighborhood trends and where displacement risk is highest.
These tools marked a milestone in the city’s zoning history. But nearly four years later, a new report from the Pratt Center finds that these tools are being underused and under-supported—putting their promise at risk. “Making the Most Out of Racial Equity Reports” analyzed over 50 RERs and interviewed community board members and elected officials. The findings are clear: many boards have received no training, and some have not even heard of the tools. Applicants often fail to present racial impact studies during public review. And for many residents, parsing the data remains confusing and inaccessible due to lack of training.
In this vacuum, some opponents are seizing the opportunity to discredit the legislation entirely. Earlier this year, an op-ed in The Real Deal went so far as to call racial impact studies “apartment killers.” That framing is not only false—it’s dangerous.
Racial impact studies don’t block or delay rezonings. They simply pull together data that’s already publicly available. Developers can prepare the report themselves, but many hire consultants—a cost of just a few thousand dollars—for projects worth millions. What the backlash reveals is how uncomfortable some developers are with giving communities the tools to demand more from a broken status quo.
Let’s be clear: RERs aren’t what’s holding back housing production. Neither is community input. New York’s housing challenges are complex—shaped by decades of policy decisions, market forces, and systemic inequities. But instead of grappling with those underlying issues, some recent conversations have focused on cutting back public review to speed up approvals, as seen in the mayor’s Charter Revision Commission hearings.
This push on the public review process is happening right alongside broader efforts by the city to accelerate new housing development—and change is coming fast. That’s a risky tradeoff. If we’re serious about equitable growth, we should be strengthening our anti-displacement tools, not sidelining them from the conversation. That means making sure these tools actually work for the people they were meant to serve.
It starts with training community board members—something the city still hasn’t done—on how to use RERs. It means improving the existing data tools to make it easier for residents to navigate. And it requires holding developers accountable for presenting their RERs as part of public review for discussion, not just submitting them as a technicality.
These are exactly the moments when communities need clear, accessible, and well-supported tools to shape development—before it reshapes them.
But tools are only as useful as the investment we make in their implementation. These reports were never meant to sit on a shelf. They were meant to inform decisions, start conversations, and empower local advocacy. That only happens if we give communities the resources to use them.
No tool is perfect. RERs won’t solve our housing crisis alone. But they represent a meaningful step toward transparency and a foundation for accountability in a land use system that has too often overlooked racial impact. Community members fought hard to win these tools, and the city took an important first step by creating them. Now, the challenge is to ensure they’re used effectively, with the training, visibility, and support needed to meet their full potential.
Tara Duvivier is a senior planner at the Pratt Center for Community Development. Eve Baron is the chairperson of Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment in the School of Architecture.
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