Adams ‘City of Yes’ Business Boost Comes Up for Council Votes

Mayor Eric Adams’ effort to sweep away what his team says are archaic rules hamstringing businesses is headed toward approval by a key City Council committee this week, the administration’s second major victory in its City of Yes zoning overhaul.

The Council’s land use committee Wednesday is expected to approve the “Economic Opportunity” proposal with modest tweaks, and the full Council is almost certain to give its approval next month.

Proposed changes range from allowing commercial spaces above residences to allowing dancing in music venues.

“This is an effort to update our zoning rules so we are not perpetuating vacant storefronts in New York City,” said Dan Garodnick, chair of the City Planning Department Monday on NY1 as he and the mayor began a series of media appearances to push the proposal. “We are giving people an opportunity for jobs and for the ability to take care of their families.”

Expected to be approved easily are proposal to lift time limits on when vacant storefronts may be reoccupied, ending onerous restrictions such as those that limit the size of retail bakeries or prohibit bicycle retailers on some streets from also offering repair services, expanding areas where indoor agriculture is allowed, legalizing amusement activities in commercial districts as well as those zoned for industrial use, and permitting commercial activity on residential campuses like NYCHA complexes, where retail is needed.

In scrutinizing Adams’ proposal, the Council’s land use committee is likely to focus on measures that have already been modified by the City Planning Commission, which approved the package in March, or have faced pushback from community boards and Council members — liberalizing rules for home offices, fast-tracking permitting for corner stores in residential areas, and allowing offices and other commercial uses above residential areas in a building.

To allow more home offices, the administration originally had proposed increasing the amount of space a home office could take up to 49%, increasing the number of employees from one to three and eliminating rules that bar 12 occupations from residential buildings.

“We have an unusual set of rules which allows you to be a music teacher but not an interior decorator in your own home.” Garodnick pointed out Monday. “We need to modernize these rules.”

Now the proposal caps the space the business can use to 49% or 1,000 square feet, whichever is less. The increase in the number of employees and lifting the ban on those dozen occupations remain, although the Council could impose stricter rules.

The Adams administration sought to allow commercial use above residential floors in a building, which is now prohibited, as long as the two have separate entrances. But opposition to that idea and questions from Council members at a recent hearing indicate that proposal is endangered.

Also in the crosshairs is a plan to encourage more stores in areas where residents have long walks to food and other needed goods and services. Instead of requiring a full rezoning, the plan would provide an easier path for stores up to 2,500 square feet within 100 feet of an intersection after environmental review and Community Board approval.

About 265,000 New Yorkers live more than a quarter mile from a place where they can get a carton of milk, City Planning says.

During the review process, City Planning was pressured to include restrictions on “last mile” delivery warehouses, which have proliferated in some industrial areas since the expansion of online shopping during the pandemic. Since that issue was not part of the City of Yes environmental review, changes cannot be made in the current proposal. But Garodnick promised a study of the issue.

The proposal has won widespread backing from the business community. Garodnick and the mayor Monday released a letter of support from all five borough Chambers of Commerce and 31 business improvement districts.

“We often ask the government what policies they can institute to help us. Sometimes — and City of Yes gets to this — it is to just stop doing things to us,”said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York Hospitality Alliance.

All the borough presidents except Vito Fossella of Staten Island are in favor as well.

If the Council’s land use committee makes changes, the plan goes back to the City Planning Commission for its assent and then will go the full Council for a vote, probably early next month.

At that point, the Adams administration could have its second major zoning victory. Last year, the Council approved the City of Yes for Carbon Neutralit y zoning amendment, which was designed to make it easier to adopt green technologies and fight climate change.

Next up will be its most important effort, the City of Yes Housing amendment, which has just begun the seven-month land use review process. It is designed to spur construction, especially in neighborhoods that have resisted more housing, and to increase the number of designated affordable units.

“It’s a referendum on housing and it’s the first time we have had a referendum like this in a long time,” said Howard Slatkin, a longtime official at City Planning and now executive director of the nonprofit Citizens Housing and Planning Commission.

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