N.Y.C. Housing Plan Moves Forward With an Unexpected $5 Billion Boost

By Emma G. Fitzsimmons

A major plan seeking to address New York City’s housing crisis won approval from a City Council committee in a key vote on Thursday, bolstered by an unexpected pledge of $5 billion in city and state funds for affordable housing and infrastructure projects.

The plan, known as City of Yes, is designed to ease restrictions that have made large-scale housing growth difficult, and represents the most significant overhaul of New York’s zoning regulations in decades. City officials estimate the changes could make way for 80,000 additional homes.

The plan was passed by the Council’s Land Use Committee in an 8-to-2 vote. The hearing was delayed for hours as opponents — including some council members who represent neighborhoods with more single-family homes — successfully fought to slightly water down some of the original proposal.

The plan that the committee approved still left most of the initiative’s key elements intact, but softened requirements over parking mandates and tightened the ways homeowners will be allowed to add apartments on their properties.

The plan — which now goes to the full Council for a vote on Dec. 5, where it is expected to pass — was a top priority for Mayor Eric Adams and has been seen as a key test of his influence after his indictment in September on federal corruption charges.

It was also an opportunity for the City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, to assert her own influence by adding some of her housing priorities, including additional funding for affordable housing.

Half of the $4 billion in new city money will go toward capital expenses over the next five years for sewers, flood protection, streets and “open space” investments, according to the mayor’s office. Another $1 billion will be spent over 10 years for tenant protections and flood monitoring, with the final $1 billion — plus another $1 billion in state funds — going into housing-related capital funds.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, an ally of the mayor, praised the deal: “We need all hands on deck to build more housing and make New York more affordable for all of us.”

Mr. Adams told reporters at City Hall on Thursday evening that the vote showed that his criminal case had not distracted him from his job, adding that the plan would be a major part of his legacy. He thanked Ms. Hochul, his advisers and the Council speaker.

“We’re all uniform in the fact that we have to provide housing, and we just did something amazing,” he said.

The politics were complicated: Many progressive City Council members supported the plan despite their frosty relationship with Mr. Adams; many of the mayor’s more conservative allies in the City Council opposed the plan.

The mayor, who has record low approval ratings, has been largely absent from the push to get it approved. Instead, Mr. Adams has relied on two allies: Dan Garodnick, the director of the Department of City Planning, and Maria Torres-Springer, his first deputy mayor.

Lincoln Restler, a progressive council member from Brooklyn, praised Ms. Adams and Mr. Garodnick, a former council member, for getting the plan across the finish line. He criticized Mr. Adams and his office for failing to line up support among members for his own initiative.

“It’s not just that the mayor has zero political capital — he’s toxic,” Mr. Restler said.

New York City is facing its worst housing shortage in half a century. The scarcity of homes has helped drive up rents and home prices, pushing many families out of the city.

The housing plan is the third part of a broader City of Yes proposal to update the city’s archaic zoning rules. The Council already approved two other measures to prepare the city for climate change and to create new rules to boost businesses; the housing initiative is being portrayed as a formal clapback to powerful “Not in My Back Yard” neighborhood groups who often decide the fate of housing developments.

The housing plan had many striking proposals: ending parking mandates for new housing in some neighborhoods; allowing units such as backyard cottages and basement apartments; and adding housing above businesses on commercial streets in low-density areas.

It would allow modest apartment buildings to be built near subway, bus and other transit stations in places where they are not currently allowed. And it would give developers an option to build bigger buildings than they can now if they include apartments restricted to lower- or moderate-income residents or people who are struggling with homelessness.

But the Council chose to scale back some of the plan, voting to exempt single-family districts from development near transit stations. It also curtailed the backyard and basement measures, including in some flood-prone areas.

The Council did not accept the administration’s proposal to eliminate requirements that developers of new housing across the city include parking. It instead put forth three tiers of differing requirements. The mandates are still removed in Manhattan and adjacent parts of Brooklyn and Queens, but in other areas, including large sections of Queens and Staten Island, the current requirements will remain in place.

Developers say the cost of adding parking, often in underground garages, makes many projects financially unworkable and in some cases gets baked into higher rents.

Many pro-housing groups vigorously supported the plan. But it was opposed by some pro-tenant groups, who said it did nothing to improve affordability in the short term, and by people living in many low-density neighborhoods, who worried about the potential influx of new housing.

Republicans in New York City, who have been encouraged by a rightward shift among voters during the presidential election, have strenuously opposed the proposal.

Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the City Council, said that his district in Staten Island was not suited to high-density developments because it lacked critical infrastructure investments and transit.

“We’re going to give you more density with none of the improvements?” he said. “We’re a no.”

Some urban planning experts lamented the changes that were made to the plan.

“The City Council’s modifications evidence a preference for an incremental approach rather than the ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’ approach of the original proposal,” David J. Rosenberg, a land-use lawyer at the real estate-focused law firm Rosenberg & Estis, said in a statement.

Many of the Democrats who are running for mayor against Mr. Adams supported the plan, including Brad Lander, the city comptroller, and Scott Stringer, the former comptroller. Still, Mr. Stringer said that the city must do much more to build housing.

“At the end of the day, this minimalist proposal is a small part of a long journey to make sure that working people can live and thrive in our city,” he said.

Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn and a Democrat who is running for mayor, said he was disappointed by the modifications.

“Every housing unit cut from this proposal represents another family that will have to leave New York City,” he said.