“City of Yes” Housing Overhaul Passes Zoning Commission

The “City of Yes” housing amendment moved moderately closer to becoming a reality on September 25, when the City Planning Commission approved it by a margin of 10-3. It will now progress to the City Council for a vote, where it may face more skepticism from certain politicians.

The amendment essentially aims to create a boom in citywide affordable housing development, or put “a little more housing in every neighborhood,” as CPC Chair Dan Garodnick puts it.

Its proponents note that New York City currently has around a 1.4 percent apartment vacancy rate, far below a healthy rate of 5.5 percent. They also believe that the resultant housing shortage is one of the primary causes of a spike in rental costs. Some of the amendment’s most vocal opponents disagree with this analysis, as they believe that developers will continue to prioritize luxury development over affordable units, even if the “City of Yes” passes.

Garodnick has further pointed out that a total of 93,000 homeless people were counted in the city last year, 33,000 of whom were children sleeping in the shelter system.

In other words, the CPC is betting that the amendment will partially rectify the grim figures that they are citing. The recently-indicted mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has made the amendment one of the centerpiece initiatives of his administration. Yet it is also endorsed by four borough presidents, including Manhattan BP Mark Levine. Adams praised the Planning Commission vote in a statement.

“Today, the City Planning Commission listened to the voices of countless New Yorkers and said, ‘yes’ to the ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” Adams wrote. “New Yorkers cannot afford to wait any longer. With a 1.4 percent vacancy rate and the rent being too damn high, families are getting priced out. The only way to solve this crisis is to build more. Now, it is time for the City Council to meet the moment.”

For the purposes of Manhattan, which is classified as a “high-density” area under the terms of the amendment, the headline zoning change would institute something called “Universal Affordability Preference.” This would allow developers to increase their units-per-building by 20 percent, a sizable increase. However, these added units would need to be deemed affordable, which the amendment defines as being 60 percent of a given neighborhood’s median income.

The amendment would also make new buildings parking-optional, rather than parking-mandatory. For example, current rules stipulate that every developer must create six parking spaces to complement every ten residential units, which the CPC notes drives down available living space (the agency has emphasized that the creation of parking space would in no way be banned by the “City of Yes”).

A controversial change, at least according to those who are skeptical of the bill, is the amendment’s “infill” section. It would allow for more construction on campuses, including NYCHA complexes. CPC Chair Gardodick has said that such additional construction is supposed to be “contextual,” meaning that it won’t disrupt the architectural character of these campuses.

Christopher Marte, who represents Lower Manhattan in the City Council, believes that this provision could possibly be exploited by unscrupulous developers one day–who might build a massive tower in the midst of a historic housing complex, for example.

More crucially, though, Marte has told Straus News that he takes issue with the amendment not having any compulsory affordability mechanisms. While he’s indicated that he’s strongly in favor of building affordable units, he thinks that developers may see the new zoning text–which does take the form of encouraging, rather than mandating, inexpensive units–as a means of creating a development boondoggle.

This view has been echoed by other opponents in the neighborhood, such as the nonprofit group Village Preservation (otherwise known as the Greenwich Village Preservation Society), who put out a press release blasting the CPC’s “yes” vote.

““City of Yes” is a doubling down on the failed housing policies of the past, and a giant giveaway to developers with little in it for average New Yorkers,” the group claimed. “The entire plan is premised on the notion that building more unaffordable housing will somehow make our city more affordable, as the plan seeks to gin up even more luxury condo development in neighborhoods like ours where it results in gentrification and escalation of housing prices.”

Of course, as Dan Garodnick toted in a statement of his own, many local organizations wholeheartedly support the entire amendment: “We can add CPC’s approval to the chorus of support we are hearing across the five boroughs, including from four borough presidents, close to 20 community boards, nearly 150 organizations of the ‘Yes to Housing’ Coalition, and New Yorkers from all walks of life who know that tackling the housing crisis is the defining task of our generation.”

What side of the equation the City Council ends up on, when they vote this fall, remains to be seen.