Adams sets goal of 100K new homes in Manhattan over the next decade
To further address New York City’s critical housing shortage, Mayor Eric Adams has set an ambitious target of adding 100,000 new homes to Manhattan over the next decade. During his 2025 State of the City address on Thursday, the mayor said he aims to review zoning across the borough to unlock potential housing sites for development, using the tools included in the recently passed “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity.” Dubbed the “Manhattan Plan,” the new initiative includes the Midtown South rezoning, which is expected to create 10,000 new homes.
Adams’ address focused on ways to make New York City “the best place to raise a family,” with ideas centered around safety, housing, childcare, education, and jobs. The mayor unveiled the “City of Yes for Families,” an initiative that will create more family-friendly neighborhoods and housing, with new homes built alongside schools, playgrounds, grocery stores, libraries, and accessible transit stations, according to Adams.
“We’ll start to use the new zoning tools we secured from Albany and our City of Yes plan to add 100,000 new homes in Manhattan and reach a total of 1 million homes in the next decade,” Adams said during his speech on Thursday. “We call it ‘The Manhattan Plan,’ a tribute to this borough’s long history as a place where families from all over the world could come to start their American Dream.”
Adams added: “From the brownstones in Harlem to the high rises in Midtown, we will say ‘yes’ to more housing and ‘yes’ to a more family-friendly city.”
First announced in August, the Midtown South Mixed-Use (MSMX) zoning plan would allow the city to build bigger apartments in Midtown Manhattan through the use of new zoning tools.
The zoning area spans 42 blocks of Midtown, where housing development has been largely prohibited. It covers four quadrants between 23rd and 40th Streets, and 5th and 8th Avenues, an area that is home to more than 7,000 businesses and 135,000 jobs.
In November, an updated draft of the plan was released, mapping new high-density, mixed-use zoning districts with floor area ratio (FAR) caps of 15 to 18, enabled by the state’s repeal of the 12 FAR cap. This change would allow for larger developments and roughly 9,700 new homes, up from the previous estimate of 4,000.
These new R11 and R22 districts allow for dynamic, live-work neighborhoods that incorporate Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), ensuring that 2,800 of the 9,700 projected homes will be permanently affordable.
City Council Member Keith Powers issued a statement in support of the Manhattan Plan following Adams’ announcement.
“Today’s announcement presents laudable goals to address the affordable housing crisis. Without enough homes to house the people who live here, we have seen rents soar, vacancy rates plummet, and opportunity decline. The result is New Yorkers who are leaving our city, searching for housing they can afford. That has to change.”
Powers continued: “We are already taking action to build more homes in Manhattan. The Midtown South rezoning plan has been underway, which will reimagine a central area of the borough as a live-work neighborhood.”
To identify additional development opportunities, the city will engage in a planning process involving city agencies, elected officials, and community members, according to Dan Garodnick, director of the Department of City Planning, as first reported by Politico.
Last month, the City Council voted 31-20 to approve Adams’ landmark “City of Yes” housing proposal. The plan features citywide zoning reforms that are projected to produce more housing than any initiatives led during Bill de Blasio’s eight-year administration or Michael Bloomberg’s 12-year administration.
Adams has committed $1 billion to housing developments, $2 billion to infrastructure projects like sewers, flood prevention, street improvements, and open spaces, and $1 billion in expense funding over the next decade for tenant protections. Gov. Kathy Hochul has pledged $1 billion in state funding for housing capital over the next five years.
Other key elements of the plan include the acceleration of office-to-residential conversions and a density bonus for affordable housing.
Adams also hopes that the city’s new tax break, 485-x, will also incentivize developers to construct new housing. However, while the tax break has already gone into effect, developers have expressed caution about capitalizing on the incentive due to its higher construction wage floors and affordable housing requirements, according to The Real Deal.
The city has launched several other initiatives to spur housing development across the five boroughs, including “24 in 24,” a plan to develop 24 public sites that will deliver 12,000 housing units, and the Bronx Metro-North rezoning plan, which aims to create 50,000 homes around four new Metro-North stations in the Bronx over the next 15 years.
An engagement and review process for the Manhattan Plan is planned for this year.
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