City Council Releases a Housing Plan in Response to 'City of Yes'

By Ethan Stark-Miller, amNY

The City Council on Friday released a comprehensive package of reforms designed to tackle various parts of the city’s housing affordability crisis as its response to Mayor Eric Adams’ City of Yes zoning proposal aimed at loosening restrictions around residential development.

City Council leaders are pitching their plan, dubbed “City for All,” as a way to address areas of the Big Apple’s housing shortage they feel are left untouched by the mayor’s plan.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, in a statement, said that while City of Yes would lead to more housing production, “affordability, homeownership opportunities, housing security and stability, and neighborhood investments are equally important to help working- and middle-class residents in our city.”

“I am proud to join with my colleagues and advocates to announce City for All, the Council’s housing plan to meet the full range of housing needs of New Yorkers,” she added. “Taken together, these actions and investments can help ease the challenges facing New Yorkers, allowing our city to become more affordable, livable, and sustainable.”

The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, as the mayor’s plan is known, is a suite of zoning changes that would update decades-old rules to allow for building “a little more housing in every neighborhood.” It would allow developers to build small apartment buildings near train stations and above storefronts along commercial corridors, eliminate a mandate that new housing construction include off-street parking, and give builders the option to add at least 20 percent more housing to any project as long as it is affordable.

The council’s plan would require developers to build more deeply affordable units in new housing, boost funding for the city’s homeownership assistance programs, put more dollars toward improving infrastructure in neighborhoods that will see new construction under City of Yes, and strengthen tenant protection programs.

Specifically, it would require affordable units be included in developments around train stations and above storefronts. As well, the city council committed capital funding to improve sewer infrastructure to prevent flooding. They also put significantly more funding toward the city’s program that provides free housing lawyers to tenants facing eviction.

City lawmakers released City for All a little over a week after it held a marathon two days of hearings on City of Yes, where the body heard feedback from both city agency leaders and the public on the zoning updates. The council’s plan appears to incorporate both priorities that it had announced before the hearing and issues raised by council members and the public.

“During last week’s hearings, we heard from New Yorkers on all sides, and their concerns shaped this approach,” Council Member Kevin Riley, a Democrat from the Bronx who is chair of the body’s zoning subcommittee, said in a statement. “Focusing on true opportunities for affordable homeownership, investing in critical infrastructure like sewage systems to support sustainable growth, and ensuring deep affordability are crucial steps.”

Most council members will likely stake their support for City of Yes on some version of their plan being included in a final deal. Mayor Adams, meanwhile, may be more receptive to the body’s demands given his own diminished political capital stemming from his federal indictment.

With the City of Yes hearings done and the council having released its plan, the administration and lawmakers will now negotiate over what will be in the final package. A vote on the City of Yes is expected before the end of the year.

Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in amNY. Click here to see the original story.

Related Stories

• Adams’ ‘City of Yes’ Spurs Clash on How to Get Needed Affordable Housing
• City Council Asks About Affordability at City of Yes Hearing
• ‘City of Yes’ for Housing Gets Thumbs Up From City Planning Commission

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