In yards, offices and basements, New York hopes to build 100,000 homes

MAYOR Eric Adams proposed a major overhaul of New York City’s approach to development that his administration says could make way for as many as 100,000 additional homes in the coming years and ease the city’s severe housing crisis.

The proposed reforms, which Adams announced in remarks at Borough of Manhattan Community College, amount to his administration’s broadest and most ambitious attempt to tackle New York City’s housing shortage, which has been worsening for decades.

Rules limiting growth have long made it difficult for enough homes to be built to accommodate everyone who wants to live here, driving up the cost of living. That, in turn, has raised a threat to the city’s economy as businesses struggle to keep workers and families have poured out of the city.

The proposals could bring new housing development to nearly every corner of New York City and reflect a growing political consensus that the city must do everything it can to build.

In particular, the extreme shortage of lower-cost housing has come into sharp relief in the past year as more than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since spring 2022, and more than half of them have landed in homeless shelters.

“We cannot have a city where the shelter system is how we are defined,” Adams said in his speech on Thursday (Sep 21). “We must put people in housing.”

One proposal would allow the construction of apartment buildings up to five storeys tall on top of laundromats, bodegas and other single-storey commercial buildings in some neighbourhoods outside Manhattan. That type of development has been effectively prevented by requirements that residential developments include yards or certain types of roofs and limits on building height. Another would undo similar rules that limit development around transit stations.

Adams is also proposing making it easier for owners of one- and two-family homes to turn basements, attics or backyard garages into apartments.

And he wants to eliminate mandates that certain new residential buildings include space for parking – a requirement that has made some housing construction impossible for developers.

SEE ALSO

New York City penthouse once listed for record US$250 million gets 22% price cut

Yet another proposal would let developers build larger buildings in Manhattan and other higher-density areas if the buildings include affordable homes. The plan would ease conversions of offices to apartments by making more buildings eligible. It would also do away with zoning requirements that apartments be 680 square feet on average, essentially allowing for smaller apartment sizes.

Many housing advocates and experts had called on Adams to make good on a campaign promise to push more development across the city – particularly in wealthy neighbourhoods, like the Upper East Side of Manhattan, that have been effective at resisting change but may have better access to transit, jobs and schools.

City officials said the proposals were designed to be broad but also not so aggressive that they provoked backlash: They must be approved by the City Council, and a vote could come as early as next autumn.

Over the next few months, the administration will seek to win the support of community boards and other neighbourhood leaders, which may not be easy to get.

Local politicians and activists have regularly opposed development proposals, including a recent 231-unit project in Midwood and a more than 900-unit building in Harlem.

Adams acknowledged in his speech the likelihood of resistance. He said: “Everyone is concerned about the impacts on parking, transit and traffic.

“What we are proposing would benefit virtually every neighbourhood and every New Yorker.”

At the same time, the proposals will likely be welcomed by developers, because they address complaints about how frustrating it can be to navigate city rules and politics. But they could bring scrutiny to the mayor’s ties to the real estate industry, which have been a talking point of Adams’ critics in the past.

Danny Pearlstein, a spokesperson for the Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group, said the proposals emphasised the need for the mayor to improve a bus system that is already strained. He said many of New York City’s lower-cost neighbourhoods were not near subway stations.

“If Mayor Adams wants to build a lot more housing, he’ll need to meet the needs of riders as well as real estate,” he said.

The proposals would not immediately help lower-income New Yorkers struggling to afford housing or the thousands of migrants who need homes.

In some cases, the state Legislature would also likely need to pass Bills to support the city’s goals, through programmes like new tax incentives. That may not be easy. Gov Kathy Hochul’s own ambitious housing proposals died in the state Legislature this year amid pushback from suburban officials who resisted mandates to allow more housing to be built.

Still, if they succeed, city officials said they believed the changes to the rules governing development would be the most significant in half a century and could make New York City a model for other cities nationwide.

Annemarie Gray, the executive director of Open New York, a non-profit that advocates for building more housing, welcomed Adams’ proposals but said her group would “be paying close attention as the public process moves forward to ensure that the proposed changes are as ambitious as possible.”

Raju Mann, a former director of land use and planning for the City Council, said the proposals were overdue and were big and potentially transformative for development in the city.

Mann, now an associate principal at the design and engineering firm Arup, said housing development was often bogged down by negotiations over individual projects or about particular neighbourhoods.

“What’s unique here is that he’s saying it has to be a citywide thing in order to work,” he said.

But he said the state would also need to pass measures, like a tax incentive for affordable housing development, for the city’s plan to reach its potential. He said the mayor’s push would hopefully signal to legislators in Albany that the need is urgent.

“I think resetting the tone on these things is important,” he said. NYTIMES