City of Yes zoning is a big win: NYC needs housing and Council vote helps get us there

Thursday, the City Council exercised wisdom and vision as it overhauled an arcane, restrictive zoning code to allow more housing in neighborhoods all throughout New York. A few shrill voices are crying about neighborhood character being under assault — but the passage of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is in fact a profound affirmation of the character of the nation’s largest and most dynamic metropolis. This is not everything Gotham needs to do to spark the production of more housing and, in the process, hold down the cost of living, not by a long shot. The city also needs to […]

Dec 5, 2024 - 22:16
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City of Yes zoning is a big win: NYC needs housing and Council vote helps get us there

Thursday, the City Council exercised wisdom and vision as it overhauled an arcane, restrictive zoning code to allow more housing in neighborhoods all throughout New York. A few shrill voices are crying about neighborhood character being under assault — but the passage of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is in fact a profound affirmation of the character of the nation’s largest and most dynamic metropolis.

This is not everything Gotham needs to do to spark the production of more housing and, in the process, hold down the cost of living, not by a long shot. The city also needs to fix a terrible property tax code, attack the high cost of construction and more. City of Yes is itself modest, especially compared to bolder steps in other cities. 

But it is the biggest, broadest pro-housing step forward in memory. Kudos to Mayor Eric Adams and City Planning Chair Dan Garodnick for identifying a crucial priority, developing a solid plan and following through with a powerful persuasion campaign.

If there’s one thing New Yorkers agree on, it’s that it costs too much to live here. With record-low vacancy rates for apartments, rents go up and up, outpacing wages. That makes it less likely a talented, hardworking young person might settle here to make a go of it, a growing family will be able to stay, or a senior on a fixed income will retire here.

The path to sustainable health is to more housing of all types to satisfy demand.

Critics have caricatured the Adams plan as a giveaway to developers that will let light and sky-stealing high-rises lord over lower-density housing, rendering neighborhoods unrecognizable. It is a desperate, false claim.

In fact, the plan adds a bit more height and density where that makes sense. Two to four stories of housing will get to be built over ground-floor commercial. Three-to-five-story buildings can go near subway stops.

People with backyards, basements and garages will generally be able to rent those out as housing. Ridiculously arbitrary and punishingly expensive parking mandates — which require parking spaces to be built even when an apartment building is right atop a subway station — will be rolled back. It’ll become easier to convert underutilized office buildings into apartments. Housing with private bedrooms but shared kitchens, once known as SROs, will provide more options for single people. 

Negotiations with the City Council whittled away at what already started as a carefully calibrated law. Especially counterproductive was carving up the map to create different zones for parking mandates; nothing would’ve stopped developers from building new parking where that would’ve satisfied demand.

All told, the adjustments will reduce the total number of apartments produced by about 20,000, to 80,000 over 15 years.

That should be a floor, not a ceiling. This great place works best when people from across America and around the world perennially revive our economy and our spirit. City of Yes makes it much likelier that today’s and tomorrow’s New York will be a living, breathing place where driven people poor, rich and in between can find a foothold and keep climbing.

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

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