NYC Mayor Nears Deal With Lawmakers for Historic Housing Push

(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council are nearing a deal on a landmark rezoning plan that would spur construction of tens of thousands of new homes amid the worst housing shortage in five decades, according to people with knowledge of the talks.

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Negotiations on Adams’ proposal, known as the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, are ongoing and there’s no guarantee a deal will be struck, the people said. If the bill clears a committee vote this week, the full City Council is expected to vote on it in early December.

Talks have included a pledge by the city with backing from the state to spend $5 billion on affordable housing in exchange for approval of the plan, which includes zoning changes that would lead to the construction of about 80,000 new units, mostly at market rate, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

While that would fall short of Adams’ original top-end goal of creating 109,000 new units within 15 years, it would still be a bright spot in an administration plagued by the mayor’s indictment on federal fraud charges and a stream of departures and resignations.

“It’s a big deal,” said Marcel Negret, director of land use at the Regional Plan Association, an urban planning nonprofit. But, he said, “there will still be more work left afterward” to solve the housing crisis.

A spokesman for City Hall didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The deal includes $5 billion in funding for affordable housing and infrastructure, with $1 billion of that total contributed by Governor Kathy Hochul as part of next year’s state budget, according to people involved in the negotiations.

The deal will most likely include some concessions on Adams’ call for removing parking mandates and allowing accessory dwelling units. The change followed an outcry from council members representing low-density neighborhoods in Staten Island and Queens, the people said.

The original plan had called for lifting parking-space requirements to ease approval of developments and make them cheaper to build, which developers have said make housing more expensive or scarce. Other US cities, including Austin and San Francisco, have eliminated parking minimums for new developments.

The zoning plan had also called for the removal of restrictions against attic apartments or converted garages that homeowners can build on their property to create more housing supply. It permitted more housing on top of storefronts and expands the number of buildings eligible for converting unused offices into apartments.

Critics say the rezoning will lead to over-development that would further strain sewers, crowd schools and increase gridlock.

“It’s a developer’s dream and a neighborhood nightmare,” said Council Member Robert Holden of Queens. “It’s gotten so bad in parts of my district, including Maspeth, Middle Village and Ridgewood, that the firehouses are telling me when they go to a fire they can’t find the hydrant because it’s blocked by somebody parking.”

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