As Mayor Eric Adams’ administration involves an in depth on the finish of this month, we’re looking again at its document on land use and housing. The administration has lately introduced that it has created, preserved, or deliberate for about 426,800 houses for New Yorkers throughout its time period and for the subsequent 15 years together with a minimum of 250,000 reasonably priced houses.
When Adams was elected in 2021, town was nonetheless rising from the challenges of COVID. He campaigned on making New York a “City of Yes” that may encourage and expedite housing manufacturing and financial restoration. To that finish, in its first 12 months the administration set an bold purpose of making 500,000 new houses by 2032 and launched its “Get Stuff Built” report, recommending methods to enhance and streamline approvals by way of the Division of Buildings, the Metropolis Environmental High quality Assessment (CEQR), and the Uniform Land Use Assessment Process (ULURP).
These suggestions have resulted within the Division of Buildings’ Main Initiatives Improvement Program, to facilitate assessment, allowing and approval of huge or complicated tasks, the “Green Fast Track,” which exempts sure small- and medium-sized housing proposals from CEQR, modifications to the Division of Metropolis Planning’s pre-ULURP utility assessment course of to typically require submission of just one draft utility as an alternative of a number of drafts, and, most notably, the recently-passed poll proposals for revisions to town constitution to exempt a number of classes of reasonably priced housing proposals from ULURP. Different initiatives designed to assist streamline housing manufacturing embody the Workplace Conversion Accelerator, an interagency crew to help homeowners with conversions, from analyzing the zoning feasibility of particular person conversion tasks, to serving to conversion tasks safe needed permits.
Turning the “City of Yes” chorus into coverage, maybe probably the most emblematic of Adams’s land use document, is the “City of Yes” textual content amendments to the New York Metropolis Zoning Decision, first introduced in 2022. Spearheaded by Metropolis Planning Division Director Dan Garodnick, these had been three complete zoning textual content amendments that the administration touted as probably the most bold modifications to the zoning decision since its enactment in 1961. These had been launched to take away boundaries to housing creation, financial improvement, and sustainability.
First was the passage of “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” in December 2023, which was devised to make it simpler to put in inexperienced vitality know-how, amongst different issues. Second was “City of Yes for Economic Opportunity,” enacted in June 2024, which primarily up to date the zoning decision’s rules to develop places the place numerous sorts of companies can find. Third was “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” in December 2024, which sought to make it doable to construct “a little more housing in every neighborhood,” by increasing eligibility for residential conversions below permissive rules, permitting 20% extra housing in medium and excessive density districts for reasonably priced housing below the “Universal Affordability Preference,” eliminating or decreasing parking necessities for brand spanking new housing, allowances for accent dwelling models and for extra transit-oriented improvement, together with different modifications. The planning division has estimated the proposal would allow the creation of 82,000 houses over the subsequent 15 years. Opponents of Metropolis of Sure sued to overturn it, however the go well with was lately dismissed on the trial court docket stage. The plaintiffs are difficult the dismissal within the Appellate Division, Second Division.
Rezoning, the method of adjusting the zoning rules in a sure neighborhood to allow new makes use of or densities, has been a vital instrument for New York Metropolis mayors for many years. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration’s main rezonings included Hudson Yards and Greenpoint-Williamsburg, whereas Gowanus and SoHo-NoHo had been among the many distinguished rezonings below Mayor Invoice de Blasio.
Adams’ rezoning technique was marked by a concentrate on unlocking potential housing in transit-rich areas. For instance, early in his tenure, the administration recognized neighborhoods comparable to Midtown South in Manhattan for rezoning to permit new housing and for elevated density. This rezoning was enacted in August, which the administration tasks would create round 9,700 houses, together with as much as 2,900 income-restricted reasonably priced houses. Earlier this 12 months, the Atlantic Avenue Combined-Use Plan, protecting a stretch of Atlantic Avenue in elements of Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, was handed which is projected to create as much as 4,600 houses, roughly 1,900 of which might be income-restricted.
Two different main neighborhood rezonings, each enacted final month, had been in Lengthy Island Metropolis and Jamaica Queens. The administration tasks the Lengthy Island Metropolis rezoning would create roughly 14,700 houses, of which 4,300 can be income-restricted. The Jamaica rezoning is projected to create over 12,000 houses, of which roughly 4,000 can be income-restricted.
Different initiatives of the Adams administration have included efforts to advance reasonably priced housing tasks on public websites, and to rehabilitate public housing by way of the PACT program (Everlasting Affordability Dedication Collectively) that companions with personal and non-profit builders, and the New York Metropolis Public Housing Preservation Belief, in addition to advocating for Albany’s 2024 enactment of tax incentives for newly constructed and transformed residences that embody reasonably priced housing, after the earlier program expired in 2022. Citing these and different insurance policies and packages, the Adams administration has proclaimed itself “the most pro-housing administration in city history.” The passage of time and historic context will afford future observers the chance to judge whether or not this declare is deserving.
Dan Egers, a shareholder of Greenberg Traurig, focuses his observe on New York Metropolis land use and zoning. The views expressed are his personal.
Ed Wallace, co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s New York workplace, is counsel to the Residents Funds Fee.
