City of Yes Housing Proposal Picks Up New Support Ahead of Crucial Hearing

Rachel Fee, the executive director of the New York Housing Conference, was very uneasy when she attended a recent meeting of her Brooklyn community board.

Years ago, as a city official with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, she had faced strong pushback when she tried to convince the same board of the merits of a proposal to add new housing to the area, which covers Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace.

Now, as Brooklyn Community Board 7 met to debate Mayor Eric Adams’ so-called City of Yes zoning proposal , which aims to build “a little more housing in every neighborhood,” Fee worried history would repeat itself. A former member of the community board called in virtually to remind members that they had supported very few land use changes in the past — and they shouldn’t back this one, either.

But a few weeks later, the board voted in favor of the rezoning changes.

“I was shocked,” said Fee.

The City of Yes proposal faces a crucial test Wednesday as the City Planning Commission hears 12 hours of testimony on the plan. It continues to face strong opposition from residents in low-density neighborhoods, where additional housing is very unpopular. But it’s also clear that the plan has amassed far more support than previous efforts to use zoning to increase housing.

“I think we are in a different time where elected officials and everyday New Yorkers  know we have a housing crisis, and we need to use zoning to build more housing,” Fee said.

Where Housing Gets Built

The City of Yes rezoning text amendment is a series of tweaks designed to incentivize developers to produce between 58,000 and 109,000 new homes over 15 years, a major step in the mayor’s ambitious goal of adding 500,000 new housing units in the city over a decade. It would also allow the city to take advantage of a revived property tax break and other measures that the state legislature passed in the spring.

Among the far-reaching changes in City of Yes are eliminating many requirements for a specific number of parking spots mandated for each new building, a hot-button issue outside Manhattan. It would provide an automatic 20% square foot bonus if it is used for affordable apartments, meaning developers can build 20% more if they include subsidized units in their buildings.

And it would make it easier to construct smaller apartment buildings and additional dwelling units to single family homes, known as accessory dwelling units — all designed to push every neighborhood to accommodate more housing.

Doing so would be a radical new approach, since in recent years new housing has been built primarily in only a handful of neighborhoods.

In April, the Department of City Planning released a report showing that last year, 10 community districts in New York produced as much housing as the other 49 combined.

It’s the same story for affordable housing analyzed by City Council districts, which are similar but not identical to community districts. Last year, 10 Council districts each produced at least 600 units of new affordable housing, according to an analysis last month by the New York Housing Conference. Meanwhile, low-density areas in Staten Island, northern and central Queens and southern Brooklyn — as well as Manhattan districts with high construction costs and little available land — each added less than 10 apartments each.

The City of Yes proposal has still been overwhelmingly rejected by community boards, the advisory, all-volunteer bodies that weigh in on many aspects of civic life. But it has more support than any zoning proposal in the previous mayoral administration.

So far, City of Yes has won the support (with conditions) of 15 community boards, 35 have opposed it with conditions, and one commented on the specific provisions without taking an overall position. When the city approved its sweeping mandatory inclusionary zoning proposal in 2015 under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, only 9 community boards were in favor.

Typical of the new attitude is Community Board 2 in Queens, which represents Hunters Point, Sunnyside and Woodside. It backed the proposal, as it did with previous text amendments on zoning changes to speed adoption of clean energy and liberalize rules restricting commercial businesses.

“We have to meet the moment, and one of the biggest challenges is inadequate housing,” chair Anatole Ashraf told THE CITY.

Queens Community Board 1 in Astoria came around, as well. When interviewed by THE CITY in the spring, chair Evie Hantzopoulos was skeptical that the proposal would really incentify developers to build in lower density areas instead of just building in Astoria, one of the areas that has added the most new housing in recent years.

“I find it hard to believe that the City of Yes will alleviate the pressure on the neighborhood” she told THE CITY then.

But in the end Queens 1 voted yes.

Growing Support

Four of the five borough presidents also support the City of Yes proposal, compared to 2015 when the majority of borough presidents strenuously opposed the plan.

Monday night, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso came out strongly in favor, telling the Planning Commission, “Do not back down. Do not scale back. Do not shy away. If you’re going to do anything, do more.”

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine has been holding rallies in favor of the text amendment and gave his strong support Tuesday as well.

The Bronx’s Vanessa Gibson Tuesday also issued her statement of support with some modest conditions. At a recent Crain’s New York Business breakfast Donovan Richards of Queens was mostly in favor, expressing doubts about allowing apartments in garages. Only Staten Island’s Vito Fossella is expected to be a no.

Those borough presidents join a growing number of City Councilmembers who have adopted an affordability-minded pro-growth mentality.

But resistance in neighborhoods that have long opposed new housing persists. When a representative of the City Planning Department presented the proposal to the Community Board 10 in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge, he informed members that the neighborhood had produced the least new housing in the entire city in recent years. The audience cheered.

The proposal “will destroy the quality of life in our neighborhood,” said Queens Community Board 7 in voting no 36-1. It singled out transit oriented development, accessory dwelling units and especially the end to parking requirements as threats to the Flushing Meadows and Corona Park neighborhood.

Those who oppose it are organized, motivated and persistent, including u rban planner Paul Graziano who has been attending community board meetings in the low-density neighborhoods to marshall opposition to the basic “build everywhere” approach.

Those who do not want to see new housing in their neighborhoods will be at Wednesday’s hearing, where each speaker will have three minutes to say their piece.

But groups in support of the City of Yes proposal will be well represented at Wednesday’s hearing, too. Fee’s New York Housing Conference has put together a coalition of 130 organizations in support of the text amendment, about half of whom are expected to testify.

The Adams administration is collecting allies, as well. It won strong support from the AARP, and more than 20 LGBTQ groups have signed a letter backing the proposal.

After Wednesday’s hearing, the Planning Commission will weigh any changes with a vote scheduled for late summer or early fall.

“With a dire housing crisis and the lowest rental vacancy rate in nearly sixty years, people understand that inaction is simply not an option here,” Dan Garodnick, head of the planning department told THE CITY.

The City Council must vote by the end of the year — and with Speaker Adrienne Adams firmly in the camp of those who believe the city must act on its housing crisis, some version of the text amendment will likely be approved. The question is whether it will be weakened by council members representing low-density districts where provisions ending parking requirements and allowing accessory dwelling units have drawn the most fire.

“Success or failure will be determined by whether we give people more options that they actually use to build more housing in all neighborhoods,” said Howard Slatkin, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council. “We can’t get away with building more housing here and there and not everywhere.”

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