– New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) Director and City Planning Commission (CPC) Chair Dan Garodnick today celebrated the passage of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing zoning proposal in New York City history. As the city confronts a generational housing crisis with a 1.4 percent rental vacancy rate, the citywide rezoning will enable the creation of 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years and invest $5 billion towards critical infrastructure updates and housing. The City of Yes proposal alone exceeds all the housing created from rezonings during any mayoral administration of the last 50 years, including all of the 12 years of the Bloomberg administration and all eight years of the de Blasio administration.
“Today is a historic day in New York City, but, more importantly, for working-class New Yorkers. We showed the nation that government can still be bold and brave by passing the most pro-housing piece of legislation in city history. Our administration proposed and fought hard for this proposal for more than year, and now New Yorkers are the ones who will benefit from lower rent,” said Mayor Adams. “I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to come together and collaborate on this landmark legislation, especially City Council Speaker Adams and Governor Hochul, the City Hall and agency teams that kept this plan moving forward no matter what, the advocates who knew we had to get this done, and everyday New Yorkers who made their voices heard. A home is more than just four walls and a roof. It’s the key to unlocking the American Dream, a path towards stability, and an opportunity that’s been out of grasp for too many for too long. City of Yes will forever change the course of our city’s history by bringing that dream closer to reality for New Yorkers — and it all started by saying ‘yes.’”
“Our only shot at solving New York’s affordability crisis is by building more housing — and that’s why I’m committing $1 billion for projects that will make ‘City of Yes’ a reality,” said Governor Hochul. “I signed the most powerful pro-housing legislation in three generations earlier this year, but the work is far from over. That’s why it’s critical for New York City to move forward with zoning reforms that will create more of the homes New Yorkers so desperately need.”
“Today, the Council made historic strides to create more homes and make our city more affordable by approving the modified Zoning for Housing Opportunity text amendment with $5 billion of major investments in our City for All housing plan,” said Speaker Adams. “By taking a major step to address the housing shortage, while supporting existing homeowners and tenants, making housing more affordable, expanding homeownership opportunities, and strengthening the infrastructure of neighborhoods, we are advancing a safer and stronger city. This shows that our city can ensure every area helps contribute to confronting the housing crisis by creating more housing, while respecting the differences of neighborhoods across the five boroughs and investing in New Yorkers.”
“In the face of our long-standing housing crisis, the greatest city in the world has just passed the most pro-housing legislation in our history. ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ marks the start of a new era of affordability and access for everyday New Yorkers,” said First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. “Thank you to Mayor Eric Adams, Speaker Adrienne Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul, and the diverse and tireless coalition of community advocates, faith leaders, labor leaders, and public servants who brought ‘City of Yes’ to fruition.”
“New York City’s housing crisis has persisted for so long that many assume high rents, scarce housing, and landlords holding all the cards are just a fact of life. But these outcomes are the result of policy choices, and today, we are officially choosing a new path. These critical changes in our zoning rules will help tackle our housing shortage and create the homes New Yorkers need, all while avoiding significant changes in any one area,” said CPC Chair and DCP Director Dan Garodnick. “Thank you to the City Council, labor, faith leaders, advocates, and everyday New Yorkers for supporting this initiative to build a more affordable future, with housing opportunity in every neighborhood.”
Highlights of the historic City of Yes agreement include:
- Creating the Universal Affordability Preference (UAP), allowing roughly 20 percent more housing in medium- and high-density developments, as long as the additional homes are permanently affordable. If UAP had been in place since 2014, an additional 20,000 income-restricted homes could have been created.
- Legalizing small accessory dwelling units (ADU) for one- and two-family homes, with some restrictions in limited areas to address concerns around flooding and neighborhood context. These small homes, which include backyard cottages and converted garages, can give homeowners extra income and allow families to age in place.
- Permitting transit-oriented development and Town Center zoning, to create three-, four-, and five-story apartment buildings near most transit and along commercial corridors, respectively, with an affordability incentive for projects with more than roughly 50 homes.
- Allowing height-limited, contextual development on large campuses or lots, including those owned by faith-based organizations, that previously could not use their existing development rights because of outdated and conflicting rules.
- Rolling back parking mandates for new residential construction through a three-zone system that lifts them entirely in Zone 1, reduces them in Zone 2, and keeps them in place in Zone 3. Zone 1 will be the most populous parking mandate-free area in the U.S. — nearly triple the population of Austin, the largest U.S. city to lift parking mandates.
- Enacting new high-density zoning districts that would allow more housing, including mandatory affordable housing in high-demand central areas where it is urgently needed.
- Re-legalizing small and shared housing models with common facilities like kitchens.
- Making it easier to convert offices and other non-residential buildings into housing.
City of Yes for Housing Opportunity invests $5 billion towards the city’s housing and critical infrastructure updates. Mayor Adams is committing $1 billion for housing capital. He is also investing $2 billion in infrastructure projects — to be reflected in upcoming financial plans — that will support investments in sewer and flood infrastructure, street improvements, and open space. Finally, Mayor Adams will spend $1 billion in expense funding over 10 years in tenant protection, voucher assistance and combatting source-of-income discrimination, flood monitoring, and neighborhood planning. Additionally, thanks to her strong leadership and shared commitment to building housing, Governor Hochul is committing another $1 billion to housing capital over the next five years, subject to state budget approval.
The passage of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity follows an extensive public review process, including over 175 Community Board meetings, 10 public information sessions, a CPC hearing in which a majority of speakers testified in favor of the proposal, and more. The proposal also received favorable recommendations from Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
Mayor Adams and Speaker Adams have made historic investments toward creating affordable housing over the last three years. In June, City Hall and the City Council agreed on an on-time, balanced, and fiscally-responsible $112.4 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Adopted Budget that invests $2 billion in capital funds across FY25 and FY26 to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the New York City Housing Authority’s capital budgets. In total, the Adams administration has committed a record $26 billion in housing capital in the current 10-year plan as the city faces a generational housing crisis. In July, Mayor Adams announced back-to-back record breaking years in both creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing. This past spring, the city celebrated the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years with the Willets Point transformation.
Further, the Adams administration is using every tool available to address the city’s housing crisis. Mayor Adams announced multiple new tools, including a $4 million state grant, to help New York City homeowners create ADUs that will not only help them to afford to remain in the communities they call home, but also to build generational wealth for families.
Earlier this year, Mayor Adams and members of his administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that will spur the creation of urgently needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.
Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, the city is fulfilling its 2024 State of the City commitment to build more affordable housing, including by being ahead of schedule on advancing two dozen affordable housing projects on city-owned land this year through the “24 in ‘24” initiative, reopening the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program waitlist after being closed to general applications for nearly 15 years, and creating the Tenant Protection Cabinet to coordinate across agencies to better serve tenants. The city has also taken several steps to cut red tape and speed up the delivery of much-needed housing, including through the “Green Fast Track for Housing,” a streamlined environmental review process for qualifying small- and medium-sized housing projects; the “Office Conversion Accelerator,” an interagency effort to guide buildings that wish to convert through city bureaucracy; and other initiatives of the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce.
“Today’s historic zoning reforms will help repair our history of segregation and exclusion by ensuring every neighborhood does its part to solve our housing and affordability crises. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to add 80,000 new units of housing for New Yorkers of all income levels and invest in housing and infrastructure citywide,” said Rachel Fee, executive director, New York Housing Conference. “We are extremely grateful to City Council Speaker Adams, the members of the City Council who have provided input and support throughout this long process, the Department of City Planning, the Adams administration, Governor Hochul and every member of our Yes to Housing coalition. Together, we are creating a more affordable and accessible city for all New Yorkers.”
“Our housing crisis requires aggressive action and intense collaboration, both of which are fully reflected in our cross-government success with City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” said New York City Executive Director for Housing Leila Bozorg. “Our combined action between the Mayor’s Office, city agencies, City Council, the Governor, advocates, and labor to agree on such an astounding positive change for New York City —to create 80,000 homes over 15 years, invest $5 billion in infrastructure and housing, and overall make the most pro-housing change to our zoning code ever—was an historic feat, and proof that public servants city- and state-wide are dedicated to delivering the strongest future possible for all New Yorkers.”
“Our housing crisis is driven by not just an inadequate quantity of housing, but also too few types of housing,” said Howard Slatkin, executive director, Citizens Housing and Planning Council. “Our diverse city requires a multitude of housing options in all our neighborhoods, to address the dynamic and evolving needs of New Yorkers’ lives. Great credit is due to the Mayor and the Speaker for their leadership on this issue. The adoption of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is a watershed moment in the effort to make New York City more inclusive, welcoming, and affordable.”
“Today’s vote marks an important step in New York’s push to build more homes and lower prices, shifting the balance of power away from landlords and back toward renters,” said Annemarie Gray, executive director, Open New York. “For far too long, many neighborhoods were effectively off-limits to being part of the housing solution. This agreement is a major step forward to ensuring that every neighborhood is contributing to creating more homes for New Yorkers. An unprecedented coalition of labor unions, faith leaders, housing advocates, Open New York members and hundreds of other New Yorkers from every walk of life have pushed for an all-of-the-above approach to housing – combining land use reform, tenant protections, and critical investments. Today is not the end of our housing crisis, but it marks the beginning of fighting it seriously.”
“RPA celebrates the historic passage of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning reform package by the New York City Council,” said Tom Wright, president and CEO, Regional Plan Association. “City of Yes delivers important reforms to New York’s zoning codes that will encourage a little more housing in every part of the city. RPA has long championed these policies, but we still need to do more to address our affordable housing needs to help all New Yorkers – and residents of the metropolitan region – have access to safe, affordable, and quality housing.”
“Even for New Yorkers with good union jobs and steady paychecks, rising housing costs are chipping away at their hard-earned wages, cutting into their spending power and pushing too many out of the city,” said Manny Pastreich, president, 32BJ Service Employees International Union. “Today’s passage of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal by the City Council is a monumental step forward toward addressing New York City’s urgent housing affordability crisis. The City Council has seized an opportunity to deliver on bread and butter issues by offering us a path to bring down the cost of housing by creating 80,000 new housing units. This policy addresses the housing needs of our members – essential workers who make our city run – and their communities, and will create thousands of jobs that will provide family-sustaining wages.”
“‘City of Yes’ as passed by the City Council today, is a critical first step in building the much-needed housing our city needs to relieve our dire need for more units and more affordability,” said Carlo A. Scissura, Esq., president and CEO, The New York Building Congress. “While more needs to be done, the $5B investment in necessary infrastructure upgrades and the Council’s insistence on increased affordability are huge boons, and welcome additions to the plan. On behalf of our members, we look forward to the opportunity to put shovels into the dirt and build us out of this affordability crisis and into a better future.”
“The development and passage of this first comprehensive update of the city’s 1961 zoning resolution is a significant breakthrough in terms of removing obstacles to private investment in the development of the new housing that the city so desperately needs,” said Kathryn Wylde, president & CEO, Partnership for New York City. “This is a credit to the Adams Administration, the City Planning Department, and the City Council. It illustrates how much we can accomplish when New Yorkers come together to solve big problems.”
“The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is a milestone achievement to ensuring New York City can grow inclusively and smartly by adding up to 80,000 new units of housing in communities across the City through common sense zoning reforms that include universal affordability, updating parking mandates, ability to convert underutilized office spaces into homes and homeowners being able to add accessory dwelling units,” said Michelle de la Uz, executive director, Fifth Avenue Committee. “The companion landmark City for All $5 billion in City and State funding for affordable housing, NYCHA and infrastructure investments and tenant and homeowner support that the City Council advocated for ensures that as the city addresses its dire housing shortage, that we don’t leave low-and-moderate income New Yorkers behind and that communities receive the investments they need to support growth. Congratulations to the Adams administration, the City Council and the advocacy community that came together to find a way forward to make this happen for New York and let’s get to actually implementing these solutions so we can improve the lives of New Yorkers!”
“Housing Rights Initiative applauds the passage of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” said Aaron Carr, founder and executive director, Housing Rights Initiative. “We are hopeful that these common sense policy tweaks will, as planned, open the door for the addition of a little bit more housing in every single neighborhood. We are especially pleased to see that the final modified version of the plan will include additional incentives to allow developers to build bigger if they include more affordable units. The current housing affordability crisis is a complex and multifaceted problem that needs many different solutions in order to be addressed, and COYHO is one piece of that puzzle that will help lay the foundation for the city to meet its affordable housing goals.”
“Today marks a historic moment. As someone who has lived through homelessness—sleeping on couches, park benches, project hallways, and in shelters—this victory is deeply personal,” said Shams DaBaron, Da Housing Hero. “Today, we lay the foundation to prevent tens of thousands of New Yorkers from enduring that same trauma, reversing decades of racist zoning policies that have harmed Black and Brown communities. For too long, people have been told to settle for a right to shelter. But I’ve always believed we need a right to housing. Housing is the real solution to homelessness, and today’s decision shows how we can make that a reality. I’m deeply thankful to Mayor Eric Adams for his courage and commitment to making housing the solution. I’ve walked the streets with him, visited shelters, and brought others with lived experience into City Hall. This administration has listened and acted. The entire team has worked tirelessly to do right by New Yorkers. Together with advocates across the city and everyday New Yorkers, the City Council has answered the call for more and better housing options. Today, we’ve laid the groundwork for lasting solutions and set the stage for a better and more affordable New York for everyone who calls this city home.”
“With its passage today of the City of Yes and the City for All, the New York City Council – the most diverse in our city’s history – in partnership with the extraordinary efforts of the NYC Department of City Planning and the City Planning Commission, have helped blazed a new path for the future of our great city, particularly for the tens of thousands in our shelters and hundreds of thousands struggling to find housing that they can afford,” said Marc L. Greenberg, executive director, Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. “At the root of the numerous great faith traditions that call this city home is the command to stand with those in need. A City cannot truly call itself great with so many of its people unable to afford to live here. With this historic vote, New York City can again begin to live up to its promise as memorialized by our lady liberty – with this vote, New York City lifts its lamp beside our golden door!”
“From reducing onerous parking mandates to establishing a universal affordability preference in medium- and high-density neighborhoods, this historic vote to advance City of Yes represents the most meaningful effort to upgrade our city’s zoning regulations to address the housing problem in New York City in at least half a century,” said Rafael E. Cestero, CEO, The Community Preservation Corporation. “This will allow our neighborhoods to increase their housing stock, expand economic opportunity, and make New York City a much more affordable and equitable place to live. I thank Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams, the City Council, City Planning Commission Chair Dan Garodnick and First Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer for the leadership and vision they demonstrated in ensuring our city will be a more welcoming and accessible place for generations of future New Yorkers.”
“Today’s City Council vote to adopt “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” is a major leap forward in a decades-long struggle to address the city’s affordable housing shortage, which has disproportionately harmed New Yorkers living in poverty, said Richard R. Buery, Jr., CEO, Robin Hood. “On its own, “City of Yes” will not solve our housing crisis, but it represents a critical step forward. Along with the $5 billion pledge in City and State funds to support affordable housing and infrastructure projects, and continued investment in policies and programs that prioritize housing solutions for low-income New Yorkers, we can begin to build more inclusive, affordable, and prosperous neighborhoods across the city.”
“The passage of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity reforms is a vital step toward addressing New York City’s housing crisis,” said Grace Rauh, executive director, 5BORO Institute. “These common-sense changes will unlock much-needed housing production, create more affordable homes, and help ensure that families can stay in the city they love. At the 5BORO Institute, we are proud to support policies that advance opportunity and innovation, and this reform package embodies those principles. We applaud the City Council and Mayor for making it easier for New Yorkers and newcomers to find a home in our great city.”
“The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning amendment will not only address the severe housing shortage in our city, it also offers a clear roadmap toward a more sustainable and equitable future,” said Alia Soomro, deputy director New York City policy, New York League of Conservation Voters. “We congratulate Mayor Adams and DCP Chair Dan Garodnick on this forward looking plan, along with Speaker Adams and the NYC City Council for their leadership, and Governor Hochul for working to get it over the finish line.”
“The Mason Tenders District Council and Laborers Local 79 and Local 78 represent thousands of New York City residents,” said Dave Bolger, business manager, Mason Tenders District Council. “Our members and their families are concerned about the cost of housing in NYC. We celebrate today’s victory for working people with City of Yes. From organized labor’s beginnings, we have fought for working class New Yorkers to have affordable housing, and City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is an historic step to ensure our members, and all New Yorkers, can live in the city where they work.”
December 5, 2024 Manhattan, New York
Sources: NYC.gov . Midtown Tribune
Big New York news BigNY.com