City of Yes or mess? NYC holds 2-day housing and zoning hearings
Most can agree that New York City has a stark housing crisis, but people are fundamentally split on how to solve it. Mayor Eric Adams’s City of Yes for Housing Opportunity (CHO) proposal is a massive, citywide overhaul of all zoning districts in an effort to produce more housing.
Every three years the city’s 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS), which has been conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau since 1965, collects housing data to determine if the city needs rent control and rent stabilization. The survey reported that rents and housing costs have skyrocketed for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers of all kinds. If someone needed an apartment for under $1,100, the vacancy rate is 0.39 %, and for less than $2,400, it’s below 1%, said the survey. Additionally, most households making less than $50,000 without rental assistance are 86% rent burdened.
The New York City council held a two-day hearing this week on Oct. 21 and 22 with electeds and the public to thoroughly review the CHO proposal ahead of their final vote, which is supposed to be before the end of the year. Many passionately testified about their fears and concerns about the zoning changes, and doubled-down on the city’s real need for more affordability.
In her opening remarks at the hearings, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said that working- and middle-class families throughout the city are already on the brink of being “squeezed out” because of high rents and a lack of homeownership opportunities. She added that homelessness has soared to record levels in recent years, with an estimated 350,000 people without homes, and eviction rates as well as housing insecurity has also increased.
“All of these factors are contributing to New York’s housing crisis, and they will only worsen unless we advance holistic housing solutions,” said Speaker Adams, recognizing the importance of updating the city’s zoning. “At the same time, this Council knows that zoning reform alone cannot fully address the wide-ranging housing needs of New Yorkers. Zoning reform is one important component, but New Yorkers also need deeper affordability, expanded pathways to affordable homeownership, strengthened tenant protections, the removal of barriers to housing vouchers, investments in their neighborhoods, and more.”
While the hearings were happening just upstairs in City Hall, Adams at his Tuesday presser commented that: “We know people are fearful, particularly in low-rise areas, of seeing a complete transformation of their communities. We got that.”
Breaking down the zoning and housing proposal
The city’s planning commission voted to approve the CHO proposal in September 2024. Department of City Planning (DCP) Commissioner and City Planning Commission (CPC) Chair Dan Garodnick, joined by Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrion Jr., detailed the proposal in a lengthy presentation on the first day of the hearings.
“By building a little more in every neighborhood that means we can have an impact in the aggregate on our housing shortage without dramatic changes on any one neighborhood,” said Garodnick.
The proposal would allow for the creation of up to 108,850 new homes over the next 15 years by changing the city’s zoning, which regulates the density and use of what can be built in a particular area. It splits the city’s 59 community districts into R1 through R10 zones: lower-density or “missing middle” housing is within R1 to R5 zones and medium and high density neighborhoods are within R6 to R10 zones. Much of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and parts of the Bronx are considered low density. Manhattan, and chunks of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and a sliver of Staten Island, are considered high density.
Other key takeaways from CHO:
- Legalize town center zoning, which is housing above businesses on commercial streets, about two to four stories in low density areas
- Legalize small and shared apartments with dorm-style common facilities. This type of shared housing was banned in the 1950s and apartment buildings full of studio apartments were banned in the 1960s. CHO proposes that more studios and one-bedrooms would be great for recent college graduates, older households that are downsizing, or those without families that prefer to live alone as opposed to with several roommates
- Legalize transit oriented development, which allows for three to five story apartment buildings in low density neighborhoods on large lots on wide streets or corners within a half-mile of public transit.
- Legalize small accessory dwelling units (ADUs) for one- to two- family homeowners, like backyard cottages, converted garages, attics, or basement apartments. Basement ADUs would not be allowed in areas at risk of coastal flooding.
- Create more “modest, contextual” development, meaning shorter buildings that were legal before 1961
- Create the Universal Affordability Preference (UAP), a bonus allowing roughly 20% more housing in developments as long it is “permanently affordable.” It would be permanently affordable to households earning 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI).
- Allow development on large lots known as campuses including faith-based organizations.
- Update Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) options to have a standalone Option 3 with 40% AMI for affordable housing projects. Was last updated in 2016.
- Clear hurdles for 100% affordable “homeownership” programs like MIH.
- Promote more building design from pre-1961 with more windows and better ventilation, meant for “family-sized units.”
- Eliminate parking mandates for new residential construction, while still allowing for off-street parking as needed.
- Replace the Sliver Law, which restricts the height of narrow buildings, with height-limited contextual law especially in Manhattan.
- Make it easier for conversion of offices and other non-residential buildings into housing.
- Streamlining zoning rules around yards and heights and technical rules for small, multi-level “non-conforming” homes that are out of compliance.
- Create new zoning to build housing in high density areas now that the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) cap, instituted in the 1960s, was repealed. This would be R11 – 12 with MIH included.
Garodnick agreed that zoning alone won’t solve the housing crisis, and needs subsidies and tax incentives to include “affordable housing.”
Fixing racial disparities in past zoning
During former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s time in office in the early 2000s, and just before his term in the 1990s, New York City had a huge downzoning and rezoning.
Politico reported that one of the main goals of these zoning changes was to maintain “neighborhood character” by limiting new construction in places like Staten Island or Brooklyn. The NYU Furman Center’s State of New York City’s Housing & Neighborhoods 2010 Report found that areas that were upzoned tended to be “less white and less wealthy with fewer homeowners” while areas that were downzoned were “more white and had both higher incomes and higher rates of homeownership.” In short, wealthy neighborhoods were preserved while Black and Brown neighborhoods were developed — an ongoing trend noted Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in his testimony.
“By functionally building walls around entire parts of the city we increased segregation and we increased displacement in some areas and gentrification in others,” said Garodnick. He said these issues were an intentional policy choice about 20 years ago that must be overturned.
Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse represents Canarsie, Flatlands, and parts of south Brooklyn. She said in the hearing that Black and Brown communities like hers are “enraged” over decades of rampant gentrification, high disclosure rates, and displacement of low-income homeowners and renters as a result of these policies. She feels like people without access and means will absolutely lose their homes to market rate and luxury housing development.
Concerns over infrastructure and parking
Councilmembers and the public primarily had concerns about how more housing would impact a neighborhood’s infrastructure, such as the electrical grid, fire houses, schools, hospitals, sewer and water systems, air quality, green spaces, flood and climate resiliency plans, and racial diversity in historically Black and Brown neighborhoods. Garodnick acknowledged that schools, open spaces, and transportation will likely experience “incremental” impacts, which the council pushed back on.
“When it rains people just cross their fingers and pray. I have people talk to me during Sandy, during any little storm,” said Narcisse, whose constituents are concerned that more housing will burden the already inadequate storm infrastructure and mean more flooding.
A wholly divisive component of the proposal was the push to eliminate parking mandates. Council members representing more residential neighborhoods, in boroughs like Queens or Staten Island with transit deserts, were explicitly worried about the parking situation for constituents who drive.
“Southeast Queens is unique. Our infrastructure is often stretched, especially in the face of climate change with frequent flooding and high water tables. Additionally, we rely heavily on cars due to insufficient public transportation options. Parking remains a significant issue for our residents,” said Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, who represents Southeast Queens.
Brooks-Powers advocated for more homeownership opportunities and infrastructure investments to support low to high density neighborhoods. “I think we have to be nuanced in this space,” she said.
Who wants the City of Yes?
At one of the rallies held outside City Hall during the hearings, several unions and housing advocates as well as electeds and developers pledged their support for the proposal.
“Due to the long ULURP process, financing challenges, and these racist zoning laws, the shelter industrial complex, that I speak of often, thrives making millions while housing development is held back. So the choice is yours. Housing or shelters,” said homeless advocate Shams DaBaron at the rally. “Some argue that the City of Yes is a giveaway to real estate developers. But let’s be real, the developer is a part of the process either way, whether they build housing or shelters. The question becomes, what do you prefer to be built in your backyard? A permanent home or a shelter that looks like a jail with 200 cots.”
Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference (NYHC), along with nearly 150 organizations, is a huge supporter of zoning reforms. She said that while infrastructure investments are important, that’s not what this proposal was about. “This is changing our zoning for the next decade. We have to take this action today. I think that we heard some concerns around flooding and climate change,” said Fee. “We know that this is an issue as well but we can do both of these things. We can invest in infrastructure and change our zoning.”
Councilmember Pierina Sanchez said it would be problematic to say the least to pass the proposal without considering all the impacts, but is hopeful that it will pass. “I’m here standing with this coalition and organizing my colleagues and talking to everyone that I can talk to because I hope that we can get to a yes, as a city council,” said Sanchez.
What does the opposition say?
Adams is adamantly pushing for more housing to be built “equitably” throughout the city, in every neighborhood. But outside of unions and some housing advocates, there’s little support for the full scope of the proposal or him — especially since his indictment has raised red flags around his connections to real estate. Former Brooklyn Senator Jesse Hamilton, who is the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS)’s deputy commissioner for real estate services, had his phones seized by the FBI after a trip to Japan with the Mayor’s Chief Advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin.
Co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater NY Chivona Newsome and her brother, Hawk Newsome, called for the Mayor’s resignation and slammed the housing proposal at a separate rally against the City of Yes also held at City Hall.
“They don’t care anything about us as we’ve seen community gardens get ripped away and given to developers. Developers own Eric Adams,” said Newsome, speaking to her thoughts regarding the intentions behind the proposal. “New York needs a new way. The first, needs Eric Adams to resign, and the second, the city needs to heal. We can no longer live on the streets of Gotham where everything is a scam. Today, we say no more. We say this is a City of Mess.”
“Hopefully the council will take the public seriously and try to address these and other concerns raised by members of the public who are not lobbyists and not representatives of businesses and organizations with direct financial and political stakes in the outcome of the council’s deliberation,” said Cheryl Pahaham, who co-chairs Inwood Legal Action. She’s in favor of legislation like the state’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), universal rent control, and free legal counsel for tenants.
Queens Councilmember Robert Holden also pushed back hard over infrastructure concerns. He worked extensively to downzone the city during the Bloomberg administration, he said in the hearings.
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