Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday unveiled a sweeping new plan meant to spur more housing development in every New York City neighborhood — from the suburban swaths of Staten Island to the skyscraper canyons of Midtown.
Adams’ proposal hinges on a medley of rule changes and incentives, like rewards for developers who add more income-restricted units to their projects, new policies allowing single-family homeowners to erect a spare apartment in their backyard, and a measure eliminating parking requirements that force new apartment buildings to reserve pricy space for garages and lots. He said the plans could pave the way for 100,000 new homes over the next 15 years.
“If we do this right, decades from now, New Yorkers will see this moment for what it was: a turning point away from exclusionary policies and outdated ideas and towards a brighter, bolder, more equitable future,” he said in a statement.
But the mayor has his work cut out for him.
The formal introduction of the so-called “City of Yes” plan kicks off an intense, yearlong public review process that allows everyday New Yorkers to weigh in ahead of advisory votes from every community board and all five borough presidents before a binding decision by the City Council.
Adams and his deputies have framed the proposal as the most transformative change to the city’s housing landscape since the 1961 introduction of the zoning code, which dictates the size and use of every new building in the city.
“The time for tinkering is over,” said Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, who oversees housing.
The package would also allow for taller residential buildings and tiny apartments near train stations and along commercial corridors. And it would lift a rule that prevents landlords from turning thousands of offices built before 1990 into condos and apartments.
Adams’ effort comes as rents soar to record highs, more than 100,000 people spend each night in city homeless shelters, and New Yorkers struggle to find affordable places to live amid a decades long housing shortage. The city’s most recent housing survey found just 4.5% of apartments were empty and available to rent, with a 1% vacancy rate of less than 1% for units priced under $1,500 a month.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that New York state needs 655,940 new units to meet the housing needs of nearly 1 million extremely low-income people, such as families of three earning around $38,000 a year.
But the plan doesn’t yet spell out details about income-restricted housing — apartments with rents set at prices affordable to the lowest-income New Yorkers.
Developers who choose to add more affordable units to their buildings could receive a 20% density bonus under the plan, expanding an incentive that already exists for new senior housing. But city officials are still hammering out what exactly constitutes an “affordable” unit. City officials said they are thinking of units that are priced so that a family of three earning about $100,000 a year pays no more than 30% of their income on rent annually.
The proposal puts into practice several goals spelled out by Adams and other city leaders over the past two years, including tweaks to the zoning rules that would allow for a modest amount of new housing, like a third unit on the lot of a two-family home, or a couple extra stories of apartments on top of a one-floor retail shop.
Administration officials are explicitly calling out so-called “exclusionary” zoning — like bans on homes with more than one unit in certain areas — that prevent new housing and lock out low- and middle-income New Yorkers, especially people of color.
“Our goal is to create a little more housing in every neighborhood,” said Dan Garodnick, who chairs the Department of City Planning.
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