NYC Looking to ‘City of Yes’ Rezoning Plans to Relieve Housing Crisis

By:  Serach Nissim

New York City has taken a historic step towards finally doing something about the housing crisis. Last month, after about 175 community board meetings and two public hearings, each of which lasted close to 15 hours, the City Council passed the “City of Yes”. As reported by the NY Times, these new rules are the most extensive set of zoning changes in over 60 years.  The last time an overhaul zoning package was written was 1961.  The new rules, work to roll back old restrictions which had been set in a different era with different needs, and which have stifled housing supply in the Big Apple for too long.  The guiding principle behind City of Yes is to distribute the responsibility of creating housing more evenly, extending it to every neighborhood in the five boroughs.

The plan is in stark contrast to the previous focus, which was to build tall skyscrapers in already high-density neighborhoods like Manhattan and northern Brooklyn, which sparked outcry of gentrification from local communities and led to years of litigation.   The crux of this new plan, is an emphasis on modest structures of five or six stories in any underused site.  The new changes also unlock the possibility for more easily converting office buildings into apartment buildings across the city.  The plan incentivizes development in practical ways, by relaxing or even eliminating overbearing requirements- which include rules about the number of parking spaces that must be allotted for new apartment complexes.

City of Yes will create more homes for lower income individuals and families over the next 15 years, than all of the city’s other inclusionary housing programs since they first came into existence in the mid-1980s, per estimates from the city’s planning department.  City of Yes is expected to produce roughly 80,000 new units of housing in total over the next 15 years.  Although the city needs some 500,000 new housing units to end the housing crisis, this is a good step.  The goal is to be aided in part by a new, state-sponsored tax incentive and a $5 billion contribution of additional city and state funds, which the City Council speaker Adrienne Adams fought for, per the Times.

Currently, the city is grappling with a 1.4 percent rental vacancy rate.  “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 Kathy Hochul.  More specifically, the new plans will help address “the missing middle”.  Instead of setting aside a portion of a building as affordable, these rezoning rules will push for development of middle-class housing in suburban counties, created for and geared towards lower income residents.

Over the years, there have been new housing projects—however most of them were luxury housing, not affordable even for the middle class.  Developers had little incentive, or promise of returns, to build small apartment complexes.  Developers have sought to build massive glass towers, which local communities complain took away housing for the lower class instead of adding.

“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 Eric Adams.