‘City of Yes’ housing plan approved by City Planning Commission
Image courtesy of amanderson2 on Flickr
In a win for Mayor Eric Adams, the City of Yes housing proposal has cleared the first hurdle of the approval process. The City Planning Commission (CPC) on Wednesday voted 10 to 3 to approve Adams’ City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan, which aims to address New York City’s housing shortage by creating more than 100,000 new homes over the next 15 years through a series of zoning changes. Now, the plan heads to the City Council, where a more contentious debate is expected, as some council members have already voiced opposition to several major proposed changes in their districts.
The plan, if approved in its current state, would enact major reforms to the city’s zoning codes and make it easier to build new housing across every neighborhood.
Proposed changes include permitting three-to-five-story residential developments near public transit, constructing new homes above commercial businesses and on campuses, accessory dwelling units (ADU) like backyard cottages, converting office buildings built before 1990 into housing, legalizing single-room occupancy (SRO) housing, lifting parking mandates, and more.
Other features of the plan include replacing the city’s Voluntary Inclusionary Housing program, the Universal Affordability Preference (UAP), which would allow buildings to be built 20 percent larger if all the additional housing units are made permanently affordable.
Considered to be Adams’ term-defining project, the administration will have roughly two months to convince the Council to approve it. The battle is expected to be challenging, especially given the ongoing corruption investigations involving the mayor’s administration.
Three key provisions have drawn the most opposition, with 35 of the city’s 52 community boards having rejected the proposal, according to The City.
However, this is still more approval than previous zoning reforms have received, and four out of five of the city’s borough presidents have already voted in favor of it, according to City & State New York.
Opponents have rejected changes that allow for more development in low-density areas, including five-story apartment buildings above retail stores and an increase in density around public transit. They fear these changes will disrupt the status quo that has let predominantly white, suburban-like neighborhoods avoid new housing.
Alfred C. Cerullo III, a CPC commissioner representing Staten Island, voted against City of Yes, citing its impact on low-density neighborhoods.
“I know that for Staten Island and many other areas around the city, ADUs, reduction of lot sizes, the undoing of decades of fighting land use abuses, and the clear reversal of the successes that have been achieved after years of fighting to preserve the physical built neighborhood environment; that those that made Staten Island the home they desired make it impossible to support this one-size-fits-all solution to the housing crisis.”
In April, the Department of City Planning released two interactive map tools and a report that illustrated where new housing is being permitted and built across the city. The report showed that last year, 10 community districts produced as much housing as the other 49 combined.
Other opposition has fixed on lifting the mandate for including parking spots in new developments, and the provision allowing homeowners to add ADUs to their properties.
Jolie Milstein, president and CEO of the NY State Association for Affordable Housing, applauded the CPC’s approval of the proposal.
“For far too long, the ongoing affordable housing crisis has weighed heavily on hundreds of thousands of rent-burdened New Yorkers. Recent estimates project a need to build 817,00 more homes over the next decade to keep up with rising demand. Today’s vote by the City Planning Commission brings us one step closer to sustainably expanding the city’s affordable housing supply.”
Milstein continued: “This comprehensive proposal has the potential to galvanize the construction of affordable housing by addressing and modernizing many of the mandates that drive up costs. City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is a chance to counter antiquated and restrictive zoning laws that currently serve as roadblocks to affordable housing production.”
Altogether, the proposal is estimated to produce roughly 109,000 new homes across NYC in the next 15 years, addressing the city’s dire housing shortage.
In February, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development released the results of a survey, which showed that NYC’s net rental vacancy rate had dropped to a mere 1.4 percent, the lowest rate on record. Despite adding 60,000 new units since 2021, the demand for housing in all five boroughs is outpacing the construction of new homes.
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