The Big Apple could soon see the largest overhaul of its zoning law in decades, easing restrictions for developers as part of City Hall’s latest attempt to address the ever-worsening housing crisis.
Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the ambitious plan to a packed crowd at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center Thursday morning — proposing nixing mandated parking spots, allowing increased building sizes and relaxing restrictions on the number of studio apartments.
“So many of the issues that we face as a city are rooted in this ongoing crisis — a housing shortage that is forcing too many people to leave this great city,” Hizzoner said at the rollout in Lower Manhattan.
“Where do we begin? It’s simple. We have to build more housing,” he added later. “More homes, more apartments, more development.”
The overhaul, city planners project, could allow New York City to build an extra 100,000 units of desperately needed housing over the next 15 years.
That’s a 35% increase over the estimated 200,000 units permitted per decade over the last 20 years.
The changes announced Thursday hope to address the ongoing housing crisis. Getty Images/iStockphotoThe changes — which could be approved by the Council as early as next fall — would touch virtually every aspect of how housing gets built across the five boroughs, including:
- Rules requiring new parking to accompany most new developments would be scrapped;
- Homeowners with large enough lots would be allowed to build a second unit, giving them new options to generate rental income or to downsize post-retirement;
- Regulations limiting the number of studios allowed in larger buildings would be relaxed and the ban on building new single-occupancy rooms with shared bathrooms and kitchens would be lifted.
Additionally, City Hall said it would like to expand a program that allows developers to increase building size if they agree to set aside units for lower incomes from its current form, which is limited to just senior housing.
“Cities from Minneapolis to Tokyo are keeping costs down by increasing the supply of housing. How are we allowing Tokyo to do things better than us?” Adams said.
The goal, said City Planning Commissioner Dan Garodnick, is to wring more housing out of every neighborhood across the city instead of fighting years-long battles neighborhood by neighborhood to upzone.
Thursday’s announcement was “welcomed” by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) and lauded by pro-housing and pro-development groups, like the Regional Planning Association.
“We welcome Mayor Adams and City Planning’s encouraging and thoughtful proposals as a starting point towards critical changes that will help us equitably produce more housing across the city to confront these challenges,” Adams, no relation, said in a statement.
Adams announced the sweeping changes Thursday morning. James Messerschmidt for NY PostNumerous reports released by city planners, state officials and independent researchers have laid out in stark terms the depth of the housing crisis in New York City and its surrounding suburbs.
The city needs another 342,000 homes and apartments to meet the level of demand seen in 2019 — up roughly 50% from the 245,000-unit gap between supply and demand that existed in 2012, according to a report from the renowned RAND Corporation think tank.
That gap continued to grow because the city added some 700,000 new jobs over the most recent decade, even though its housing production continued to lag well behind.
The result is rents in Manhattan that now average more than $5,000 and that even those who can afford the nose-bleed rents have to spend weeks — and, sometimes months — lining up and bidding against others for the few new or empty units out there.
Housing production is so anemic in some wealthy neighborhoods that they are actually losing units to building consolidations more quickly than new ones are being added.
