Rezoning Changing NYC

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
https://therealdeal.com/2022/02/28/...gowanus-rezoning-three-months-after-approval/
Lawsuit seeks to void Gowanus rezoning three months after approval

Groups that challenged rezoning last year claim city sidestepped environmental laws​

If at first you don’t succeed, try to get a judge to annul a neighborhood rezoning.
That’s the strategy taken up by Voice of Gowanus and Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, two groups that filed a new lawsuit against the city Monday to challenge the Brooklyn neighborhood’s rezoning.

The complaint alleges that the city violated various state and federal environmental laws when it approved a measure in November allowing mixed-use buildings in the 82-block area, which had previously been mostly restricted to manufacturing use.
The same groups sued last year to prevent the proposal from moving forward, arguing that the City Planning Commission could not legally hold rezoning hearings virtually, even during the height of the pandemic. That effort forced the city to hold a hybrid in-person and virtual hearing, but the rezoning ultimately moved forward.

The groups’ latest challenge claims that the city did not adequately study the environmental consequences of the rezoning, failed to involve the Environmental Protection Agency in the rezoning process and did not take into account the impact of the upzoning on local infrastructure in the context of multiple large-scale developments underway in other parts of the borough.
“The Gowanus rezoning involves an exceptionally egregious set of failures to comply with the law,” wrote Richard Lippes, an attorney for Voice of Gowanus, in a statement. “This is one of the most complex cases I have seen: the cascading, overlapping failures to comply with state and federal laws is stunning.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department called the lawsuit “meritless.”

“The approval process and environmental review were thorough and reflect years of deep community engagement around a vision and plan to make Gowanus a more sustainable and thriving neighborhood,” said Nicholas Paolucci, the city spokesperson, in a statement.
City officials have estimated that the rezoning will pave the way for the construction of more than 8,500 apartments, 3,000 of which would be set aside for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. The administration is also fending off a separate lawsuit filed this month, seeking to undo the recent rezoning of Soho and Noho.
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

City Planning head talks 421a, easing into rezonings

Dan Garodnick says Adams administration will be deferential with communities​

City Planning is not exactly itching to tackle another neighborhood rezoning.
Instead, the agency is focused on community-specific investments in infrastructure and public space, and overall, “waiting and sitting back to be guided by communities,” said its new leader, Dan Garodnick.

In an interview with The Real Deal, Garodnick said the Department of City Planning does not plan to “lead” with neighborhood rezonings, but will work on at least two over the next several months.

Garodnick later clarified his remarks, saying in a statement: “The department intends to work with communities on rezonings rather than announcing them first and selling them later.”
The agency has committed to moving forward with a neighborhood plan centered around Atlantic Avenue in Crown and Prospect Heights, along with a proposal, dubbed M-Crown, to change manufacturing zones in the area to allow more residential use.

City Planning also hopes to certify a neighborhood plan in Morris Park in the Bronx by 2023. The agency is also committed to making changes in Parkchester near one of the new Metro-North stations planned for the borough.
Any lack of urgency on rezoning would disappoint groups that see it as crucial to alleviating the city’s housing crunch and providing opportunities for ordinary New Yorkers to live in high-income neighborhoods.

Garodnick, who was appointed in January to the dual roles of director of the Department of City Planning and chair of the City Planning Commission, was a Manhattan City Council member for 12 years. During that time, he oversaw the rezoning of more than 70 blocks in Midtown East to encourage the creation of millions of square feet of new office space.

His agency is now looking into ways to allow other types of construction in that neighborhood and others — an acknowledgment of how the office market has changed during the pandemic and of the city’s continued need for affordable housing.
City Planning’s priorities under the Adams administration are just starting to take shape. Here’s what Garodnick had to say in his first media interview since being appointed.

What do you plan to do differently than your predecessors?​

We are at a critical moment in the city’s history. We are coming out of a serious health crisis, and we continue to face the issues of affordability throughout the whole city.
We want to take a new approach and take on longstanding problems and embrace new opportunities that have presented themselves. For example, people are changing their patterns — in the way they work, the way they spend their time and their money. We want to embrace that through our rules, and to encourage new business areas that previously did not see as much activity. We want to explore loosening the rules to allow building uses to change.

The state budget did not ease zoning rules to allow more conversions of commercial space into housing. What can the city do?​

There is an opportunity for adaptive reuse of obsolete office space. In some cases it is the state’s multiple dwelling law that is our limiting factor. In other cases it is zoning.
For instance, zoning could extend more flexibility to buildings that were built before 1977. It was something that was done in Lower Manhattan 25 years ago. In some areas of the city, a building that was built before 1961 can already convert if it complies with the state law, and it is in an area where residential is already permitted.

So we are going to take a look at these rules. Obviously, we still fully embrace our core commercial districts and high-performing buildings. But in some cases, if they are not living up to their potential, we would like to afford some flexibility.

You have identified Midtown East, Times Square and Midtown as areas where the city could encourage housing. Midtown East was just rezoned to encourage commercial development. Have you identified properties that may benefit from going residential instead?​

We have not cherry-picked buildings here for this purpose. In fact, we are starting our exploration about the rules more generally. The East Midtown rezoning has proven to be an enormous success in that the real estate world continues to bet on the future of that neighborhood. Why? Because it is right next to one of the most important transit hubs.

A proposal to replace 421a was left out of the state budget. The city’s mandatory inclusionary housing program works in tandem with the tax break. What happens to the program without 421a or something like it?​

A tax incentive is hugely important for mixed-income rental development. It is hard to speculate about what will or will not happen at the state level. 421a has lapsed before. I don’t think anyone needs reminding, but we are in a housing crisis. We have accumulated a shortage over decades of inadequate production. We need the tools that enable us to not only incentivize housing, but also to incentivize affordable housing, and that’s why this conversation is so important.

Is there a contingency plan if the program ends?​

I don’t think we are quite there yet. There are a lot of productive conversations happening, and we are hopeful that this will come to a positive resolution.

What neighborhood will City Planning seek to rezone next?​

We are going to take a different approach in how we embark on this journey. We want to work with communities and Council members and other willing partners who are looking to see positive neighborhood change.

“Planners have an admirable purity to them. Politics is a little messier.”
We are looking, and the mayor is committed to, finding catalytic investments that not only correct historic disinvestment but spur growth and economic activity throughout the city. And we are going to do this with or without a rezoning presence because it is the right thing to do.

We are focusing some of our early energy here on infrastructure investments across the city that we believe, themselves, will spur positive change and correct historic imbalances. Zoning is not the only tool that we have in our toolbox. We also of course are open to finding zoning opportunities as well, but we are not leading with that.

What type of projects are being considered?​

Projects that allow for public realm improvements in connection to transit access — that would promote outdoor gathering. Investments that support working parents, like daycares, libraries and playgrounds.

We’re interested in investments that enliven commercial corridors by investing in better public spaces that promote walkability and a sense of place. Overall we want to create opportunity for families that have fewer means, whether that is in creating open space, jobs or housing.

You are the first City Council member to become the head of City Planning, in recent memory at least. How does that affect how you approach the job?​

I understand the considerations of having a constituency that is making demands. It is complicated, and you have to balance a lot. Planners have an admirable purity to them. Politics is a little messier. And I know how to talk to Council members because I have lived that experience.

How do you feel about the tradition of member deference?​

I always liked it when my Council colleagues deferred to me. I think in some cases, it is perfectly reasonable. In those situations that have a broader or citywide impact, I think it is also important for the Council as a whole to weigh in. Like everything else, it is a balance.

The state did not adopt a proposal to lift the cap on residential floor-area ratio in the city. Is this something City Planning supports?​

We are interested in this one because we have such a housing crunch in the city. But it is important for people to remember that just because that cap is lifted does not mean that all planning principles go out the door. We would still need to evaluate the areas where that would be appropriate, consider context and to enable higher densities in a thoughtful way.

Mayor Adams has said streamlining processes is a priority. Is City Planning looking at any aspect of the land use review process?​

Yes. We are determined to find ways to shorten the precertification process to be user-friendly for applicants, and to not sacrifice quality in the process. This is really important.
Frequently applicants get frustrated on one hand by the amount of time City Planning takes to get their projects to the starting gate, and on the other hand, community boards are frustrated because they feel like City Planning is handing them a private project without sufficient consultation.

So we are going to try to shorten the process upfront and make it easier for applicants, and on the back end, encourage more robust and more thoughtful communication with communities around the city.
user-matching
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

Mayor outlines sweeping rezoning plan​

City Council stands between Adams’ aspirations and reality​

Mayor Eric Adams released a three-pronged plan Wednesday to retool zoning rules to diversify businesses in neighborhoods and boost affordable housing.
But the path to approval is laced with irony.

If the City Council ultimately supports the mayor’s text amendments, certain rezonings could progress without slogging through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a seven-month gauntlet known as Ulurp.
The irony is that his amendments first need to pass through that very process.
Here’s what’s on the docket for zoning tweaks:

A boost to business​

Adams has made New York’s comeback a cornerstone of his agenda and fittingly, his first amendment — Zoning for Economic Opportunity — would make it easier for some business owners to set up shop across a wider reach of the city.

Under the plan, lab and research centers, custom manufacturing, “maker-retail” and nightlife could pop up in areas previously limited by inclusive zoning.
The proposal would be a green light for the growing life sciences sector, which leased a record 443,000 square feet in 2021.
Long Island City has become a hot spot for the industry, pulling fast-growing tenants such as robot-maker Opentrons to the life sciences hub Innolabs. The Queens neighborhood is more heavily zoned for biotech than Manhattan is, according to Innolabs.
Adams’ amendment aims to bring lab space to the other boroughs.
Within that vein, the proposal could also introduce nightclubs to residential blocks that aren’t zoned for dancing.

That measure may be a move to rid the city fo the remnants of the Cabaret Law, a near-century-old measure passed to tamp down on interracial dancing at Black jazz clubs during the Harlem Renaissance. The city repealed the law in 2017; however, the city’s Zoning Resolution still bans dancing in areas zoned for commercial and residential use.
City lawmakers, including City Council Majority Leader Keith Powers backed the nightlife change.
“This is a great dance, dance resolution,” quipped Powers in a statement, referencing the interactive video game.

But as with all of the mayor’s amendments, the nightlife tweak will go before 59 community boards for public hearings and advisory opinions. It’s likely many New Yorkers won’t embrace the thought of booming house music and inebriated patrons spilling out onto their blocks.

“You do wonder if the nightlife measure is something that will survive the process,” said Valerie Campbell, a partner at law firm Kramer Levin specializing in land use and zoning.
A spokesperson for the Department of City Planning clarified that the city included the measure to address dancing bans in commercial districts where bars and restaurants are most heavily concentrated, as opposed to residential areas that rarely allow such establishments.
For the citywide proposals, a public airing is just the first step in Ulurp, which then requires a recommendation from each community board, then from every borough president, a yes vote by the city planning commission (filled by mayoral appointees), and finally, the City Council.

Another facet of Adams’ Economic Opportunity amendment could see wide variations in support: the elimination of additional parking requirements for expanding businesses.
While residents in transit deserts — much of Queens, for example — will push back against the idea, it’s possible most City Council members would be hip to the change. A number of Brooklyn members are already pushing to end mandatory parking minimums in new developments, according to Streetsblog.

More affordability​

Adams’ second text amendment looks to foster more affordable housing in the midst of a shortage of homes and soaring market-rate rents.

The proposal, named Zoning for Housing Opportunity, would allow for more dense affordable housing projects. Minimum unit sizes would be more in line with the 325 square feet required for affordable senior apartments. Decades ago, the city raised the minimum, thinking it would give New Yorkers better living conditions, but the move raised costs and left thousands without any homes at all.
Higher density does lower per-unit construction costs, but affordable housing still needs subsidies to pencil out. Adams has pledged $5 billion to fund affordable housing production over the next decade — $3.6 for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and $1.2 billion for NYCHA.
Policy wonks have criticized that as a low-ball number, considering NYCHA spent over $4 billion last year and needs 10 times as much to clear its repair backlog.

“I guess the question will be whether the affordable housing requirements are so significant that they really can’t be achieved without public funding,” Campbell said.
Campbell said the proposal will likely meet resistance, too, as residents in some neighborhoods may be “very opposed to the increase in floor-area ratio.”
Neighborhood groups, such as Village Preservation, criticized a state proposal included in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s preliminary budget that would have lifted the cap on the floor-to-area ratio limiting New York City multifamily buildings. Detractors claimed the legislation would usher in development that dwarfs the supertalls of Billionaire’s Row.
Hochul dropped the proposal from the budget.

A separate piece of the housing plans that may work better on paper than in practice is an initiative to spur adaptive reuse: The mayor aims to ease conversions of underutilized commercial buildings into homes.
The city’s been toying with turning vacant hotels and underused offices into housing for years, a consideration amplified by the pandemic.
For offices, the catch has been layouts. Multifamily buildings by law must have a window at least 30 feet from any room. Office towers’ interior rooms often lack an outside view. Under current building codes, such conversions tend to be cost-prohibitive.
Carving a light shaft down the center of an office tower is pricey in and of itself. And after that, the building would still need a rehabbed HVAC system, electric and plumbing, Slate reported.

Adams’ housing amendment would also allow for a wider variety of housing sizes to address the mismatch between New Yorkers’ lifestyles and the city’s dwellings. Broadly speaking, there are too few studios and one-bedrooms and too much underground parking.

A vague, green new deal​

Last, Adams took a crack at cutting the city’s carbon emissions, the majority of which derives from real estate.
His “Zoning for Zero Carbon” proposal would dedicate more rooftop space to solar panels. Among other limitations, the Fire Department demands a fair amount of unfettered space on city roofs.
Zoning changes aside, landlords would still need to navigate the bureaucracies of Con Edison, the Department of Buildings and the state Energy Research and Development Authority before installing panels, as Gothamist explained.

The carbon-cutting proposal also seeks to eliminate barriers to the electrification of buildings through heat pump installations or more efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
It’s unclear how, exactly, the mayor would use rezoning to knock down those barriers. Campbell speculated that some neighborhoods may restrict how much roof space mechanical equipment such as HVAC units can occupy.
Overall, though, she sees the mayor’s climate-friendly initiatives being an easier sell to stakeholders.
“I don’t know that anyone is going to object to zoning for zero carbon unless it’s going to increase their cost,” Campbell said.

Streamlining Ulurp​

Tucked into Adams’ triad of text amendments is the creation of the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining or BLAST, a task force to cut through red tape and speed rezonings.

Though Adams’ amendments are also subject to Ulurp, Campbell said the idea is to fast-track private applications that “tend to get bogged down in one or more city agencies.”
“The city kind of has a built-in BLAST,” she said. “If the mayor is working on something, all the agencies will work to make sure it’s done.”
But to date, the mayor’s focus has been on crime, not housing and zoning. The jury is out on how much political capital and time he will devote to seeing his real estate proposals through.
Campbell couldn’t estimate how long the path to approval might be. But she cautioned that the city has yet to release text to accompany its press release and a speech by the mayor at the Association for a Better New York even Wednesday morning.

Not one of his proposals is listed as a current initiative on the city planning website.
“I have no doubt that that’s coming but it’s not there yet,” Campbell said. “So, it’s obviously early days in this process.”
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

The rezoning conundrum​

Everyone agrees the process is broken. So why can’t we fix it?​

There are two kinds of places in this country: those with zoning and those without. Houston is the best known zoning-free city, but it’s not alone. Drive through upstate New York and you’ll see “NO ZONING” signs sparked by efforts to regulate land use.
Americans take zoning for granted, but for most of the nation’s history, people could do whatever they wanted with their property. Eventually, we realized that without zoning, development can be very haphazard. Noisy, truck-attracting industrial properties can end up next to schools and homes, for example.

But zoning also creates problems. Big ones.
It is used to segregate and discriminate against people based on their class, race or culture. It can dramatically raise the cost of housing by preventing development from matching population growth. It can lock cities and towns in a bygone era, keeping them from adapting to a changing world. New York City’s last zoning overhaul was in 1961.
view
view
view
view

That’s why every place with zoning also has a process to get around it. New York’s is called Ulurp, for Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. As ugly as the acronym is, the process is uglier.
After a rezoning application is certified by the Department of City Planning, it runs a gauntlet that starts with the local community board and borough president, even though their opinions are not binding.
Next is the City Planning Commission, which nearly always votes yes because it is controlled by the mayor, without whose support the project would not have been certified in the first place.
The final outcome might be shaped by those steps, but it almost always boils down to the whims of a single person: the City Council member whose district the project is in.

Fortunately, City Council members are unbiased, experienced people who study issues extensively and do what’s best for the city regardless of the consequences for their careers.
That was a joke, obviously. All politicians’ decisions are made with the next election in mind.
That’s problematic when it comes to projects, because constituents have strong incentives to oppose them. Limiting development enhances their property values, preserves their views, avoids construction hassles and keeps new neighbors away.

The people who would benefit most from more housing, however, are busy going about their lives, not attending rezoning hearings. At best, some construction unions or members of pro-housing group Open New York will publicly support a project. But otherwise it’s the developer’s besuited team against the pitchforks.

The loudest voices belong to the objectors — Nimbys, ideologues or people who simply fear change. The diversity of project opponents is impressive. What else besides resisting development unites Trumpers, wealthy liberals and socialists?
Rare is the Council member who will defy such motivated voters. In the Bronx, Marjorie Velázquez has been siding with opponents of a Bruckner Boulevard project even though they literally scared her into hiding.
Council members who might have the fortitude to defy protesters tend to agree with them. Blame shared ignorance: Some lack private-sector experience, don’t understand housing economics and have no memory of New York City in decline.

Until the late 2000s, projects were widely cheered for creating jobs, tax revenue and places to live. Now they are accused of displacing people, destroying culture and raising rents. It’s amazing any rezonings get approved. About 40 percent of them don’t, according to a new Citizens Budget Commission report.
That’s a lot of housing left on the drawing board. Much more never even makes it that far because many property owners want no part of the rezoning process. Instead they build what’s allowed, even if it’s less profitable — and less valuable to the city.
Even with all of these negatives, the public review has one huge benefit: deadlines. That’s not the case before it begins, when applications must slog through city agencies that were understaffed even before the Great Resignation.

Back when Bill de Blasio was the public advocate, I interviewed him about this very issue on stage at the Regional Plan Association’s annual assembly. The solution, he said, is to add staff so projects get certified faster. Well, of course it is.
Unfortunately, shortening pre-certification is not a sexy issue like universal pre-K or right to counsel. In the aftermath of de Blasio’s eight-year mayoralty, the problem is worse than ever. City housing and planning agencies are riddled with vacancies. Mayor Eric Adams’ work-from-home ban isn’t helping.
Developers — for whom rezoning adds about $70,000 to the cost of each apartment — would gladly pay for more agency staff if the city would let them.

The bottom line: Most of New York’s zoning is archaic and mismatched to the city’s needs, but constituencies have formed to preserve it, and the process to change it runs through them. To overcome this is expensive, takes forever and often fails. We’re in a maze, and all the passageways lead back to the beginning.
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
It takes a lot of... something... to make a video extolling the "landmarked protected views which will never be developed" West over Soho from your penthouse listing to the East when the ink on the Soho/Noho upzoning isn't even dry yet.
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
Developers continue to gripe about how much it costs them in fees for getting around the zoning everyone else needs to abide by. Imagine when the little guys actually have to stick with the zoning that the law commands?

Rezoning for more housing costs developers a fortune: report​

A new report by the Citizens Budget Commission floats changes to Ulurp, environmental review​


Rezoning in New York City will cost you — adding as much as $45 million to a high-rise apartment project.
That is according to a new report by the Citizens Budget Commission, which recommends changing the city’s review process to cut down on time and money spent by developers and reduce the cost of housing.

The report, which examined 171 private zoning applications filed between 2014 and 2017, found that the median time for a land use application to finish the city’s approval process was two and a half years. Some 80 percent of that was spent on pre-certification and environmental review.
A process of this length can increase development costs by 11 to 16 percent — $63,000 per unit in a low-rise multifamily project and $76,000 per unit in a high-rise. That’s $45 million on larger projects, when accounting for inflation, according to the watchdog group.
Its report recommends several changes to the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or Ulurp, and the lengthy pre-certification process.
Before an application is certified and begins Ulurp, a months-long process that culminates in a City Council vote, developers must complete a study of their project’s potential impact on the surrounding neighborhood. The Citizens Budget Commission offers a range of suggestions for revising the state-governed environmental review process, calling it is the most expensive and time-consuming part of land use reviews.
The organization pitches limiting the kind of projects that are subject to environmental review and even floats the idea of exempting all land use applications, noting that other local, state and federal laws govern issues such as stormwater management, building emissions, coastal resiliency and brownfield remediation.
New York is one of seven states that mandates environmental review for discretionary land use actions. It has the longest median timeline for approvals among cities that have similar requirements, according to the report.
The report also takes aim at the City Council’s custom of member deference, in which it votes on land use issues based on the opinion of the local member. The watchdog suggests the city weaken an individual member’s ability to kill a project by creating an appeal process for rejected applications or requiring a supermajority vote to override approvals by the City Planning Commission.
These would require changes to the City Charter and would likely face fierce pushback by the City Council. Members are generally supportive of member deference, only defying it twice in recent memory (last year and in 2009).
The report’s author, Sean Campion, CBC’s director of housing and economic development studies, acknowledged that the change would be a tough sell.
“It is hard to change something that has evolved by custom,” he said. “None of the solutions are fast or easy or quick.” He added that the report’s recommendations are aimed at better communicating the potential benefits of a project and how they further the city’s housing and economic development goals.

The report also recommends removing the borough president and community board reviews of applications from Ulurp, instead having them coincide with the start of environmental reviews. This could give borough presidents and community boards more influence over a project. Currently, they hold hearings on an application at a point where any significant changes would require a developer to re-do the environmental review.
The Adams administration has pushed for removing “unnecessary barriers to development,” and formed the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce, or BLAST, to come up with ways to make the permitting process more efficient. It cheered the nonprofit for chiming in.
“City Planning is determined to cut time and red tape out of the land use process, which has become too long, too cumbersome, and has the unfortunate effect of discouraging investment,” Dan Garodnick, head of City Planning, said in a statement. “We are already making strides, and as we prepare to publicly share DCP’s reforms, we are very happy that New York City advocacy groups are engaging on these central issues.”
Mitch Korbey, chair of Herrick’s land use and zoning group and a former City Planning official, commended the report for its comprehensive look at private applications, but noted that it ignored government-led rezonings, which can drag on for longer than two years and tend to have much more of an impact on the city as a whole.
He added that he doesn’t see two years for a significant rezoning to be “particularly onerous.”
“I think most developers understand that it takes time,” he said. “I don’t think it is fair to compare New York to other places in terms of how long these things take.”
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

Another rezoning gets through, but housing is shrunk​

City Council slashes plan to rezone Gowanus site​


Just because an area is rezoned to encourage affordable housing does not mean it will be built.
That is the concern voiced by the City Planning Commission to changes made to a proposed rezoning of Ninth Street in Gowanus negotiated by the local City Council member.
The deal saves the rezoning, which faced local opposition, but will result in fewer affordable apartments than proposed — and potentially none at all.
The City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises and the Committee on Land Use on Tuesday approved the changes, which pairs the area’s industrial zoning with lower density residential than the developer sought.
During a hearing Monday, City Planning representatives said the changes orchestrated by Council member Shanaha Hanif would trim 25 to 35 apartments, including seven to 10 affordable units, from a mixed-use development planned for 153-157 Ninth Street.
The proposed rezoning, now a fait accomplis, would apply to 16 privately owned, midblock tax lots between Second and Third avenues.

The rezoning applicant, the Angelina Gatto Trust, had proposed a nine-story building with 48 apartments, 13 of which would be affordable through the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, as well as ground-floor commercial space.
But under the Council’s amendments, the project would rise five stories and have 13 to 23 apartments, with three to six renting below market rate, according to City Planning.
An attorney representing the project, Paul Proulx, said it will move forward in its downsized state.
“We appreciate the Council member’s willingness to legalize the use in this predominantly residential area,” he said in a statement, alluding to the project’s location across the street from an industrial business zone. “Her decision will have long-term benefits for the neighborhood.”
Hanif’s support ensures the rezoning modifications will be approved by the full Council, under its tradition of member deference.
In a statement, the first-term member said the original plan would have put “significant development pressure on a narrow stretch of Ninth Street with existing active industrial uses” and would have had more luxury housing. But cutting down that housing also slashed the number of affordable units.
“I deeply respect and support the push from many in our community to increase affordable housing — particularly deeply affordable housing — in our district,” she said. “I also recognize the concerns from the industrial business community about continued erosion of manufacturing space without industrial zoning protections and investments in the IBZ.”
The project site, however, is not in the industrial business zone.
City Planning also estimated that the potential redevelopment of a second site at 165-187 Ninth Street would be reduced from a project with 37 residential units, with nine affordable, to one with 12 apartments, of which four would be affordable.
Commission reps noted Monday that because many of the sites within the rezoning area are narrow, they would likely be redeveloped below the threshold that requires below-market units under the city’s mandatory inclusionary housing law. The affordability requirements apply to projects with more than 10 units or that have more than 12,500 square feet of residential space, and benefit from rezoning.
Council member Rafael Salamanca Jr., who chairs the Land Use Committee, said the reduction in density from a maximum residential floor-area-ratio to 2.2 from 4.6 was to “better reflect the [low-rise] character of this block.”
The changes underscore the pitfalls of relying on small, private rezoning proposals to beef up the city’s housing stock. Such applications are nearly always substantially reduced by the local Council member.
During Monday’s hearing, some members of the City Planning Commission voiced concern about the potential reduction of affordable housing units.
“Going from 13 affordable units to three – it’s a huge, missed opportunity when we need to try to generate more affordable units on private land,” said commissioner Leila Bozorg.
Chair Dan Garodnick agreed, saying the changes represented a significant loss “at a moment when we’re struggling at all fronts to put people in homes.”
The commission is scheduled to review the modifications Wednesday, but has little choice but to approve them because any other action would likely doom the project.
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
Adams’ first rezoning plan centers on 46-block stretch of the Bronx

Application expected to start ULURP next year​

The city’s rezoning plans in the Bronx and Brooklyn are quickly coming into focus as the mayor announces the first steps to his “moonshot” goal.
The city’s proposed rezoning of a 46-block stretch of the borough is already kicking into high gear, City Limits reported. The Department of City Planning is starting public hearings this week and the application is expected to begin the Universal Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) by the summer.

The largest area impacted by the proposed rezoning is a 28-block swath bound by Baker Avenue and Van Nest Avenue to the north, East Tremont Avenue to the south, Silver Street to the east and St. Lawrence Avenue to the west. Another 18-block stretch is bound by Pelham Parkway to the north, Williamsbridge Road to the south, Marconi Street to the east and Tenbroeck Avenue to the west.

The affected areas line up with planned Metro-North train stations planned for Parkchester/Van Nest and Morris Park. Those stations are scheduled to open in 2027.
The Bronx rezoning area is also adjacent to the campuses of the Jacobi, Calvary and Montefiore hospitals. Some manufacturing and commercial sections would be rezoned for residential use, while residential density will be increased in select sections.

The administration is also eyeing a mixed-use rezoning plan on Atlantic Avenue in Central Brooklyn. The proposal, debated in the area for a decade, would “increase available density for commercial/manufacturing uses mixed with residential” and “market rate residential development to cross-subsidize affordable housing and manufacturing,” according to a 2018 report from Community Board 8.

That plan isn’t expected to begin ULURP until 2024.
Bronx council member Marjorie Velázquez backs the mayor’s housing plan. Some officials, however, have bemoaned their lack of input in the plan or notice of its announcement despite administration officials publicly discussing plans early this year.
Adams last week announced a “moonshot” goal to build 500,000 housing units in the next decade to meet growing demand in the city. That goal includes 6,000 homes planned near Metro-North stations in the Bronx, 25 percent of which designated affordable.
Adams’ “Get Stuff Built” report outlined 111 ways “the city’s administration of development is broken” and how it can be fixed. Adams estimated proposed changes could cut city agencies’ processing times in half.’’
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
https://mail.yahoo.com/m/folders/1/...htM9npIGHQP5tOLG_Yze-ZfXG37AqGtDyjpGFJ5XfzA5k
The Daily Dirt: Saving Manhattan from skyscrapers
  • 50x50_trdny.png


    The Daily Dirt
    ToDavid Goldsmith
    Mar 24 at 10:00 PM
    therealdeal.com
    Image
    FOR SUBSCRIBERS | ANALYSIS OF NEW YORK'S TOP REAL ESTATE NEWS
    Lawmakers outside 250 Broadway (Photo by Leon Christopher Johnson)
    mail
    By Erik Engquist
    Manhattan politicians are rallying against tall buildings.
    A brave group of elected officials held a press conference Friday to blast the proposed lifting of a citywide density cap on residential buildings. Brave, that is, because they subjected themselves to well-deserved ridicule and snarky headlines like the ones above.
    But really, who could resist? It’s kind of obligatory to point out the absurdity of Manhattanites complaining about skyscrapers. What’s next on their list? Broadway? Pizza?
    The reactions on Twitter were precious.
    “Tall buildings in Manhattan?” one observer posted. “Clearly out of character for **squints** the largest concentration of tall buildings in the USA.”
    “250 Broadway is a 30-story, 476k sf building on a 23k sf lot,” Ben Carlos Thypin tweeted, referring to the lawmakers’ offices, where the presser was held. “These people think that it's ok if buildings this large are used as offices but not as homes for New Yorkers.”
    Yes, that’s right: the floor-area ratio cap only applies to residential properties. The idea of limiting resi but not office makes even less sense when you consider that New York City’s housing market is infamously tight, but it has a surplus of office space.
    “I expected this much from most of these ghouls,” Thypin added of the politicians who gathered, “but it's sad to see @LizKrueger debase herself like this.” Sen. Krueger, at the far right in the photo above, is regarded as one of New York’s more intelligent lawmakers and not as prone to pandering as her colleagues.
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

A year without 421a: Project sales, lawsuits and wasted rezonings​

Dramatic storylines have emerged from tax break’s expiration

The seers of New York City real estate predict it will take a few years of stalled housing production for lawmakers to revive a key property tax break.
But Nostradamus is not needed to forecast the immediate effects of 421a’s demise. They are already upon us.

Since state legislators let the property tax break expire last June, filings for multifamily construction have plunged. Some developers, fearing they will miss a critical construction deadline to receive the tax break, have offloaded projects. Others have struggled to make a sale.
And in at least one instance, investors are suing developers for allegedly overstating their ability to qualify a Brooklyn project for the program before it slipped away.

The state Senate and Assembly are not eager to extend the construction deadline for 421a, let alone replace the program, before they adjourn for the year on June 8. Critics have called the 35-year exemption — which requires developers to rent out 25 to 30 percent of a project’s units at below market rates — a giveaway that does not require enough affordable housing.
To qualify for the incentive, developers needed to have foundation footings in the ground by June 15, 2022, and be completed by June 15, 2026. Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed adding four years to that second deadline, but key lawmakers would only support an extension for certain projects. Even that hasn’t happened yet.
The fate of the issue may be tied to several other housing policies. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins reportedly indicated this week that any housing legislation should be passed as part of a package that includes tenant protections, presumably a reference to some version of good cause eviction.
Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, said it would be a “huge blow” to affordable housing if lawmakers do not extend the construction deadline for 421a.
She said there is a lot of attention around the 2021 Gowanus rezoning and that housing projects in the neighborhood will likely not move forward without a tax break in place. The rezoning was supposed to generate 8,000 housing units, 3,000 of which would be affordable.

The housing goals of the 2021 Soho rezoning may also be toast without 421a, as would three major projects in Astoria and one in Throggs Neck. The city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law still requires affordable units in projects that benefit from rezoning, but the state tax break it was paired with is gone.
“I think these discussions are happening right now, and it is not really clear if Albany is willing to advance anything on housing,” Fee said. “I feel like, especially for the [Mandatory Inclusionary Housing] projects, the legislators understand that they are blocking housing from being built.”
“It is about to come to a head, real fast. We barely made it.”
TUCKER REED, TOTEM
Ahead of the Gowanus rezoning, developers rushed to file plans for apartment projects, knowing they needed to meet those two 421a deadlines. Some have since sold their sites, using the exemption as a selling point, or taken on partners — with the completion deadline a likely motivator.
Property Markets Group just sold development sites at 267 Bond Street and 498 Sackett Street to Carlyle for $100 million. The Brodsky Organization recently bought a majority stake in a 350-unit project at 499 President Street from Avery Hall Investments, which retained a piece.

Elsewhere in Brooklyn, Douglaston Development paid Totem $66 million for a site at 1057 Atlantic Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where the firm plans a 456-unit rental building. The developer secured a $185 million loan from Wells Fargo and M&T Bank for the project.

Douglaston’s Jeff Levine told The Real Deal that it is likely one of the final sites to qualify for 421a. Lenders have been requiring developers to guarantee that they will finish their projects well ahead of the 2026 deadline, in some cases mandating a one-year buffer. Starting a project today gives developers a little more than two years.
Tucker Reed, co-founder and principal of Totem Group, said projects without financing in place and shovels in the ground in the next 30 to 60 days will likely not move forward.
“It is about to come to a head, real fast,” Reed said. “We barely made it. I’m sure there are a bunch of other owners out there who are not able to thread that needle.”

One that did not, according to a lawsuit filed by its own investors, was for a 64-unit rental project in Crown Heights.
Ahron Gluck filed plans for the project in March 2022, and developers Joseph Rubin and Samuel Haikins bought the site in May, helped by an $8 million investment from three Ohioans. A Google photo shows demolition in progress the same month that 421a lapsed.
The Midwesterners’ suit claims that footings were not put in place before the deadline, and nothing has happened at the site since. Missing the 35-year property tax break drastically alters the finances of a project, which can make it impossible to get a construction loan.
The Real Estate Board of New York projected that some 32,000 planned apartments would not be built without an extension to the construction deadline. The trade group has also been tracking the decline in multifamily building filings.
According to its latest report, developers only requested permits to lay foundations for 22 multifamily buildings — the fifth straight month of fewer than 30. In the six months leading up to 421a’s expiration, an average of 77 foundation applications were filed.

“New York City’s rental production numbers are anemic and getting worse,” said the Real Estate Board of New York’s Basha Gerhards.
On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams, members of his administration and housing and labor groups held a press conference at Monadnock Development’s 300-unit housing project at 155 Third Street in Gowanus, which is in jeopardy if the 421a construction deadline is not extended. Adams lamented rising rents, shrinking inventory and “the total slowdown in construction.”
“We need lawmakers to respond now. We need to pass the housing package,” he said. The city has been pushing for that extension, as well as changes to enable more office-to-residential conversions, a proposal to lift the city’s residential floor-area-ratio cap and a new J-51 tax break.
Reed said his company is exploring its options for its other 421a sites. He is hopeful, given that lawmakers have not proposed property tax reform in 421a’s absence, that Albany will replace it.
“We’re optimistic that policy makers will wake up and do the right thing,” he said.

Asked if the timeframe for that was within the next week, he said, “I have a very high risk tolerance, but I would not take that bet.”

 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

Al Laboz proposes first project to use controversial SoHo rezoning​

Developer looks to convert historic commercial building into apartments
Bill de Blasio’s contentious Soho upzoning may be reaping a reward two years after his mayoral exit.
Al Laboz’s United American Land is presenting SoHo’s first affordable housing project under the new zoning Thursday to Community District 2’s Landmarks Committee.

The project, designed by Morris Adjmi Architects, would add 10 stories to the three-story Oltarsh Building at 277 Canal Street, transforming the commercial space into 100 apartments. A quarter of those units will be designated affordable, as required by the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law.
The proposal promises to maintain the three-story facade at the building’s base and replicate its appearance upwards in order to blend in with the historic neighborhood’s aesthetic.

It’s not Laboz’s first stab at rehabbing a building in the area.
The developer has been awarded several prizes from the New York Landmarks Conservancy for restoring centuries-old buildings in the Cast Iron District. Those projects included a five-year restoration on the facade of 55 Reade Street and a complete rehab of the three-story residences at 321 and 323 Canal Street.

Laboz’s latest SoHo development site sits at the intersection of Canal and Broadway and is above an opening into New York’s underground. New renderings suggest that the corridor into the N, Q, R, W Canal Street Station could also be renovated.
United American Land has not responded to a request for comment.

Should the proposal pass muster with the Landmarks Preservation Commission and come to fruition, it will mark a new chapter for a neighborhood that hadn’t seen a change to its exclusive zoning in more than half a century.
The controversial rezoning initiative — the SoHo/NoHo Neighborhood Plan, which aimed to add 3,500 affordable units — was one of de Blasio’s last hurrahs in the final months of his term, and an effort to cement a legacy of creating more affordable housing in one of the nation’s most expensive cities.

 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
I wasn't sure where to post more from Real Estate's leading boot licking toady

State of NIMBY: The battle to build in NY​

Anti-housing activists pop up from the burbs to Alphabet City

The contrast couldn’t be more striking.
In Sayville, Long Island developers Mitchell and Gregg Rechler proposed an apartment complex with a buffer of single-family homes. The Rechlers shielded the multifamily buildings from view to placate locals who equate rentals with poverty, crime and lower property values.

The leader of the opposition explained her group’s rationale: “These are people that live in this community, they have their hearts and souls here, they’re raising their families here.”
Fifty miles away, but in an entirely different universe, Manhattan politicians demanded that the seller of four East 17th Street buildings require buyers to make at least 25 percent of units affordable at the properties. They equate market-rate development with culture change, displacement and rent increases.

“We want to ensure that if these properties are being sold, we are minimizing the harm and do not further destabilize our neighborhood,” wrote Assembly member Harvey Epstein, Sen. Kristen Gonzalez and City Council member Carlina Rivera to the owner, Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
So: In the suburbs, people think affordable housing will destabilize their neighborhood, and on the East Side, people think luxury housing will. A striking contrast indeed, but both positions are anti-housing.
Certainly, not everyone in these places holds these opinions. But a good many — probably most of them — do. They are the ones who make the most noise, which is a big reason New York has a housing shortage.
It is tempting to demonize these folks. For liberals, calling conservative suburbanites selfish, paranoid and racist releases dopamine that lights up a happy place in the brain. For conservatives, so does blasting liberal Manhattanites who see six-figure earners as a destructive force rather than economy-boosting taxpayers.
Why do we get angry at the not-in-my-backyard crowd? Anger releases brain chemicals that make us feel good, at least for a moment. But it doesn’t solve anything, let alone a housing crisis.

Less satisfying in the short term, but ultimately more productive than belittling them on social media, is to engage people in rational discussions about housing.
This is easier said than done, of course. How do you reason with lawn and picket-fence lovers who reject multifamily housing because, hey, they are “raising their families here” and don’t want their leafy suburbs to become the South Bronx?
How do you reason with gentrification fearmongers who see gainfully employed newcomers as a “destabilizing” force? Next thing you know, a restaurant with tablecloths will open, the school’s PTA will start a French club and life as we know it will end.
Sorry. Those were two paragraphs of pure dopamine. When NIMBY literally begins and ends with NY, it’s hard to resist lashing out.

But resist we must. Gov. Kathy Hochul has been doing a fine job of that as she makes a case for more housing. Rechler Equity Partners’ plan for 925 homes doesn’t quite reflect Hochul’s transit-oriented Housing Compact — the site is a 20-minute walk from the Sayville train station — but it’s close enough.

Hochul could sit down with Greater Islip Association leaders and make a case that a mixed-income apartment complex is better for Sayville than the former golf course it would replace. Wouldn’t it be nice if their kids could afford to live somewhere in Sayville besides their old bedrooms when they reach their 20s?
The governor could also remind Epstein, Gonzalez and Rivera that they could advocate for affordable housing without making sensationalist claims that market-rate units would destabilize the area around Stuy Town.
Perpetuating that myth only makes housing harder to build. It’s hard enough already.

 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member


The Daily Dirt: NYC’s basement apartment problem​

City still hasn't figured out how to make the units safe

New York still hasn’t figured out how to make hazardous basement apartments safe.

Two years ago, floods killed 11 people in basement apartments. The deaths inspired conversations about improving and legalizing such apartments, but proposed legislative solutions fizzled out.

In January, the Adams administration testified that only five of the 800 apartment owners who expressed interest in a basement apartment pilot program in East New York ultimately participated. The cost of converting these units — in some cases jacked up by the state’s multiple dwelling law — deterred many owners from moving forward. These renovations can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
As part of his Zoning for Housing Opportunity text amendment, Mayor Eric Adams has promoted changes to allow for accessory dwelling units, including some basement apartments. However, those changes still do not address things like ceiling height and other rules that are typically barriers to converting subterranean units.

Anytime New York City experiences severe flooding, I can’t help but think of residents at risk in these apartments. I also can’t help but think that state lawmakers have repeatedly pitched creating a pathway for legalizing apartments — even by simply giving the city the authority to take action — and then failed to do so.
In response to last week’s flooding, the BASE Coalition admonished city and state leaders for their inaction on the issue.
”As New York City continues to face concurrent housing and climate crises, basement apartments remain a vital source of affordable housing for New Yorkers. Yet in the two years since Hurricane Ida’s deadly floods, Albany has refused to move legislation that would allow New York City to convert safe basement and cellar apartments,” the group said in a statement.
Creating an amnesty program for basement apartments would also give the city a better idea of where illegal apartments are, and could help protect residents when dangerous weather is forecast.
I don’t mean to oversimplify this problem: Obviously converting these units is complicated and risks displacing tenants while renovations are underway and later if the legalized units cannot accommodate the same number of residents. And passing legislation won’t change things for basement residents overnight.

But last week’s flooding, and the inevitability of future severe weather, show that city action is long overdue, and state action on this issue is still needed.

 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

Zoning wars: City’s developers, future at mercy of politics​

City Council’s appetite for housing construction faces big tests

It is no exaggeration to say the future of New York City and its real estate industry depend on zoning.
Seeds of their prosperity or decline will be laid in the next year as rezonings play out along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, around four Metro-North stations in the Bronx, in Manhattan’s Garment District and perhaps in western Queens.

Zoning largely dictates what gets built. That, in turn, affects what people pay for housing and where they live — which heavily influences how their lives play out.
The impact on real estate is also profound. Zoning that allows more housing helps developers. Restrictive zoning helps landlords by limiting competition for their rentals.

But what determines zoning? Politics, ideology and ignorance. Mostly politics.
If city planners controlled zoning, they would shape the five boroughs’ future based on research and economics. Instead they must get approval from the City Council — typically from the member who represents the area being rezoned.
That is where things get dicey.
The science of urban planning is often overwhelmed by NIMBYism, race, ideology and politicians’ fear of losing their seats. Even progressive Council members who call affordable housing a priority will bend to voters’ opposition, as Selvena Brooks-Powers did in Queens and Shahana Hanif did in Brooklyn. Socialists who oppose for-profit housing can stop projects, as Kristin Richardson-Jordan did in Harlem.
In high-income, predominantly white neighborhoods, however, progressive members usually approve rezonings that promise to create diversity and affordability. Gowanus and Soho, both rezoned in late 2021, were examples. The politics aligned and, despite some not-in-my-backyard opposition, de Blasio administration planners had willing partners in Council members Brad Lander, Margaret Chin and Carlina Rivera.

The Gowanus zoning has already unleashed a slew of projects that will provide more than 8,000 units of desperately needed housing, including 3,000 income-restricted units. An Inwood rezoning will yield thousands more.
Builders and lenders will make money, new businesses will open, the city will reap tax revenue and New Yorkers will move into new apartments rather than displace existing residents or flee to the suburbs or the South.
By itself, rezoning isn’t enough. High property taxes on rentals (previously offset by the now-expired 421a tax break) could undermine both the Soho rezoning and projects that received spot rezonings in Long Island City, Astoria and Throggs Neck. The 2016 rezoning of East New York hasn’t produced much housing because demand to live there is weak and projects must be 25 percent affordable, which depletes profits.
But without rezoning, projects never even make it to the drawing board. If the City Council screws up the Atlantic Avenue, Bronx and Garment District rezonings, thousands of apartments would go unbuilt, keeping housing supply low and rents high.

Why would they do this? Again, politics — with a dash of ideology and ignorance.

Take Atlantic Avenue. City planners are optimistic because Council member Hudson initiated the process. Upon taking office, she was confronted with applications from developers seeking spot rezonings to replace underperforming properties with apartments. Hudson realized a proactive, sweeping rezoning made more sense than reacting to proposals one by one.
Yet when the Adams administration released the plan, she immediately distanced herself from it. That doesn’t mean she’s against it. This is part of the political theater essential to New York City rezonings.
Elected officials don’t call it theater, of course. They call it community participation. The separation Hudson created from the city’s proposal allows her to negotiate based on her constituents’ reactions.
But if she responds by demanding more affordability than the market and the city can subsidize, little housing will be built. East New York is a case study.
Complicating matters, the Atlantic Avenue rezoning area, like East New York, is not mostly white and wealthy like Soho and Gowanus. It’s a working-class community of color. Locals will undoubtedly testify at public hearings that adding mixed-income housing would attract yuppies who push up rents and displace Black and Latino tenants.

This is contradicted by research, but is still a powerful, emotional argument. People dismayed by the exodus of Black New Yorkers from their traditional strongholds — Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in particular — often blame the real estate industry for pricing them out. No politician is going to stand before these folks and disagree, even one who knows the explanation is a thousand times more complicated.
Facts matter, though. The industry does not create market conditions, it reacts to them. It charges prices that people are willing to pay, which rise when demand outstrips supply. And prices did rise in Harlem, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights and other traditionally Black neighborhoods — and many majority-white ones — that weren’t rezoned for more housing.
In tight markets, economically disadvantaged groups lose out. Consider that 70 percent of Black babies in the U.S. are born to unmarried parents (versus 40 percent of all babies). Competing for scarce New York housing while raising children with one income and one set of hands is exceedingly difficult. It’s no wonder Black families moved to North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and other inexpensive states.
City Council members must put emotion aside and rezone based on reality, not on the fantasy that developers can build housing as affordable as politicians want or that the government will shower projects with endless subsidies.
Reality-based zoning entails displeasing some very loud constituents, as Rivera, Chin and Lander did. It may require changing long-held notions about housing markets and development, as some politicians have. And it will definitely involve theater.

But the scripts for success and failure have been written. The question is which one will Council members follow.

 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member

Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams Celebrate Passage of Zoning Changes that Fights Climate Change by Opening Doors to Cleaner Air, Lower Energy Costs​

December 6, 2023
“City of Yes” Initiative Will Deliver Clean Energy, Lower Emissions, More Convenient EV Charging to New Yorkers
NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Dan Garodnick today celebrated the New York City Council’s approval of the “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” proposal, a historic set of citywide zoning changes that will facilitate climate action, clean energy, and resiliency by removing barriers to greener and more efficient energy systems, buildings, transportation, and water and waste systems. The updates to the zoning code will help reduce New York City’s operational carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, in accordance with the Paris Climate Accords. This initiative is the first of three “City of Yes” proposals to update New York’s zoning for the 21st century and foster a more sustainable, prosperous, and equitable city. Its passage comes as the next two proposals — “City of Yes for Economic Opportunity” and “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” focused on economic opportunity and housing, respectively — undergo public and environmental review.
“New York City is a ‘City of Yes,’ and this historic proposal will pave the way for a more sustainable future,” said Mayor Adams. “By modernizing our city’s zoning code, we have taken a bold step forward in fighting climate change, while delivering cleaner air, lower energy costs, smarter waste management, and better access to EV technologies to New Yorkers across the city. We are grateful to our partners in the New York City Council for their support on this once-in-a-generation initiative and look forward to working together to advance our next two ‘City of Yes’ proposals to build a more equitable economy and combat the housing crisis.”
"Removing barriers to creating a greener, more sustainable city is vital to fighting climate change and preparing our city for the long-term future,” said Speaker Adams. "By approving citywide zoning changes that facilitate more energy efficient buildings, transportation, and green infrastructure, the Council is equipping our city and New Yorkers with the tools to create lasting change for our communities. This initiative is critical to New York City’s success, and I thank my colleagues and the administration for their partnership.”
“Our city — and our world — is facing a climate emergency, and these urgent reforms show that the city is rising to meet the moment,” said Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer. “New York is a ‘City of Yes,’ and that means yes to solar panels, energy storage, and green infrastructure in every neighborhood. We are grateful to Speaker Adams and her colleagues in the City Council for their partnership on these historic reforms.”
“We all have a part to play in ensuring New York leads the way in fighting climate change. We can make meaningful progress towards climate neutrality with the help of the people and institutions building and maintaining New York’s infrastructure,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi. “Zoning changes within the ‘City of Yes’ are the special sauce that will make our ambitious goals possible. Thank you to our partners in the New York City Council for putting the environment first.”
“This is the most ambitious, far-reaching initiative in the history of New York’s zoning to combat climate change,” said DCP Director Garodnick. “From solar panels to energy storage and EV charging to building retrofits, these changes will unlock a massive increase in green infrastructure in all corners of our city. This puts us on a path for a more sustainable future for ourselves, our children, and generations to come.”
“One of the most significant changes to zoning in New York City history, the passage of the City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality is critical to the city and state reaching our ambitious climate and emissions reduction mandates,” said Chief Climate Officer and New York City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit T. Aggarwala. “When we drew up the plans to green our buildings, we also committed to providing New Yorkers with the tools they would need to comply with those mandates, and the changes approved by the City Council today are how we are ‘Getting Sustainability Done.’ The fulfillment of this PlaNYC commitment is how we, New Yorkers, are taking the deliberate steps necessary to meet the challenge of the climate crisis.”
“Modernizing our aging infrastructure network is critically important to build a stronger and more resilient system and minimize the impacts we face year after year due to extreme weather events,” said New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol. “Today’s achievement is a key element of what Mayor Adams’ administration is undertaking for New York City — by prioritizing greener, more efficient energy, transportation, and water systems for New Yorkers.”
“Ambitious and modern solutions are what New York City needs to create a smarter and healthier city for future generations — that is exactly what we see here today in the ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality,’" said New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr. “With these citywide zoning changes, New Yorkers can expect a greener, more resilient, more prosperous, and more affordable city, with energy efficiency in our buildings, in our transportation systems, and throughout our neighborhoods.”
“The City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality will drive both meaningful climate action and economic growth by facilitating clean and green infrastructure investments throughout the five boroughs,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimball. “NYCEDC is thrilled that the City Council approved this measure, and we look forward to seeing its positive sustainable impact on our future projects.”
“Electrifying transportation is key to meeting the city’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. City of Yes will help ensure every New Yorker will be living within 2.5 miles of a fast charger by 2035 — boosting electric vehicle adoption and expanding charging infrastructure to where for-hire vehicle drivers live and work,” said New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “We thank Mayor Adams, our sister agencies, and the City Council for their support of this holistic approach to achieving carbon neutrality.”
“The vote for City of Yes is a big step towards addressing the increasing threat of climate change and will help create a healthier, safer, and more sustainable city for all of us,” said Fire Department of the City of New York Commissioner Laura Kavangah. “Our first responders have seen the increasingly destructive impact of natural disasters on our city, and this initiative will help protect our communities throughout the five boroughs.”
“In just a few short weeks, the Local Law 97 carbon emission caps for our city’s largest buildings go into effect — and planned energy efficiency retrofits needed to meet those limits are often hindered by conventional zoning restrictions,” said New York City Department of Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo. “This administration has been clear that in order to meet our city’s ambitious climate goals, we must provide support to property owners as they undertake this necessary work. The City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality plan brings innovative updates to our city’s zoning regulations — removing regulatory barriers for building owners looking to implement green building retrofits and smoothing their path on the road to comply with Local Law 97.”
“With today’s actions, Mayor Adams and DCP continue to set the course for a more sustainable city — making critical investments that will accelerate New York’s path towards carbon neutrality,” said New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll. “Landmark-designated buildings can and should become more climate resilient and energy efficient, and the plan passed today demonstrates the strength of this administration’s commitment to sustainability, providing new pathways for New Yorkers to retrofit their homes, and helping unlock the potential of our landmark buildings as they evolve to meet modern environmental standards and needs.”
“Updating New York City’s old zoning rules is an important step in the transformation into a more climate-ready future and assists us with ensuring no one is left behind in this transition away from fossil fuels,” said New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah M. Hutchinson. “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality will help us advance our commitment to cut transportation emissions in half, support access to local clean energy, and make our homes, businesses, and even waste streams much cleaner. Reducing regulatory burdens can bring needed housing, quality jobs, and healthier communities in the areas of New York City that need it most.”
With today’s approval, “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” will go into effect within five days. The initiative updates outdated regulations that created major roadblocks for New Yorkers who hoped to retrofit their homes for energy efficiency or resiliency, install heat pumps or solar panels, switch to electric vehicles, or compost and recycle — all critical steps for New York City to reach its ambitious environmental goals. Among others, its 17 policies include:
  • Facilitating a Renewable Energy Grid: Removing zoning obstacles that severely limit how much rooftop space can be covered by solar panels, unnecessarily slowing the city’s shift towards renewable energy sources. This policy makes it easier to install energy storage infrastructure needed for solar energy and facilitate standalone, grid-supporting solar and community microgrids — particularly in low-income communities — that are currently banned in residential areas. These changes will open over 8,500 acres of parking lots across the city for potential use of solar panels. If fully built out, these solar panels could power more than 130,000 homes.
  • Creating Cleaner Buildings: Lightening onerous restrictions on the height and thickness of walls that restrict building electrification and retrofits for greater efficiency. This policy will add flexibility, making these modifications possible while maintaining the look and feel of the city’s neighborhoods. These changes will facilitate environmentally-friendly retrofits for over 50,000 buildings, including more than 1 million homes where retrofits are currently infeasible and restricted by city zoning.
  • Supporting Electric Vehicles and Micromobility: More than doubling commercially-zoned land where electric-vehicle charging facilities can be located. This policy also clarifies regulations and facilitates safe bicycle and e-mobility parking. These changes mean that electric vehicle charging is now possible in more than 400 million additional square feet of space throughout the city.
  • Modernizing Water, Compost, and Recycling Regulations: Expanding the use of permeable pavement and rain gardens will cut red tape and eliminate uncertainty for recycling and composting and encourage rooftop food production. These changes will help divert the 34 percent of New York City’s residential waste — and as much as 45 percent of all solid waste — that is organic material from landfills to beneficial use.
In the lead-up to the City Council’s approval, “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” received positive recommendations from 25 Community Boards, as well as from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens borough presidents, and the Bronx and Manhattan Borough Boards. It also received an 11-1 vote in support at the City Planning Commission. “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” is the first component of Mayor Adams’ three-part “City of Yes” plan, comprised of three bold, citywide zoning text amendments that will modernize the city’s zoning to foster a greener, more affordable, more prosperous city — instead of allowing outdated zoning rules to hinder the city’s goals and growth. The second, “City of Yes for Economic Opportunity,” entered the formal public review process last month and is currently being reviewed by the city’s Community Boards, borough presidents, and Borough Boards. The third, “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” is undergoing environmental review and will be referred for public review in spring 2024.
“With the passage of City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality, New York City is taking a step toward a greener, healthier, and more resilient future for New York City,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “I’m pleased to see the passage of City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality and look forward to continuing to work with Mayor Adams and colleagues in government on ensuring that in New York City land use decisions center equity and environmental justice principles.”
“Today is a huge win for a greener New York, paving the way for more sustainable energy grids, buildings, transportation, and water and waste systems,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “With climate change intensifying every year, it’s critical that we do everything we can to create a greener, more resilient city.”
“Queens knows all too well the devastating impacts of climate change and our society’s untenable reliance on fossil fuels. But we’re turning our shared pain into progress with today’s critical vote,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. “I thank the City Council for its leadership in passing the “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” package of zoning changes, which represents a massive step forward in that mission to turn New York City into an unquestioned global leader in clean energy, sustainability and resiliency.”
New York City has long way to go in meeting our ambitious climate and environmental goals,” said New York City Councilmember Sandy Nurse, chair of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management. “‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ is an important milestone on this path that addresses various zoning barriers to green project development. I am hopeful these changes will serve to accelerate renewable energy, energy storage, green infrastructure, composting, and more – particularly in environmental justice communities."
“Today’s approval of the ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ is a landmark moment in advancing our climate and sustainability goals,” said New York City Council Majority Leader Keith Powers. “Our 20th century zoning laws were not designed to tackle 21st century challenges like climate change, but today’s comprehensive update changes that. The reforms unlock the potential of our built environment to support green infrastructure and create a better city for ourselves and future New Yorkers.”
“Representing the South Bronx, an area that suffers from the highest asthma rates in the country due to the prevalence of pollution from heavy industrial usage, ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ will chart the city on a course for cleaner air quality,” said New York City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca, chair, Committee on Land Use. “If we truly mean to provide cleaner and healthier environments for NYC residents, then we must take these important steps towards addressing the environmental barriers that are being exacerbated by climate change. I am grateful to Mayor Adams and NYC DCP for spearheading this positive initiative that will greatly improve the quality of life in the South Bronx.”
"I applaud my colleagues in the New York City Council for voting to approve the ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality,’ which will propel us towards a sustainable and resilient future,” said New York City Councilmember James F. Gennaro, chair of the New York City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency & Waterfronts. “This landmark legislation not only removes obstacles to cleaner energy systems, efficient buildings, and eco-friendly transportation, but also signifies a bold commitment to combating climate change and a greener New York City.”
“I commend Mayor Adams and City Planning Chair Dan Garodnick on the successful passage of the “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” zoning initiative,” said New York City Councilmember Hanks. “These citywide changes represent a significant stride towards a more sustainable New York, unlocking opportunities for clean energy, lower emissions, and enhanced infrastructure. This initiative is a testament to our commitment to combating climate change and creating a greener future for our city.”
“The City Council took a big step in the fight against climate change today by passing the ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ zoning amendment, a top NYLCV priority. Simplifying the process to implement green technologies and retrofit buildings for clean energy solutions will mean fewer emissions and better air quality, and it is absolutely essential to meeting the city’s ambitious climate goals,” said Alia Soomro, deputy director, New York City policy, New York League of Conservation Voters. “We applaud Mayor Adams, DCP Director Dan Garodnick and the City Council for coming together to get this climate friendly measure over the finish line,”
"New York City's commitment to ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ is a pivotal step toward a sustainable future,” said Gregory Elcock, vice president, customer clean energy program, Con Edison. “By removing zoning barriers, we accelerate our transition to renewable energy by focusing on enhancing the grid, empowering communities and fostering a cleaner, greener tomorrow for all."
“Today marks a transformative step towards the city of tomorrow, one that not only meets but anticipates the demands of our rapidly changing climate,” said Rafael Espinal, president, Freelancers Union. “The ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ is more than a package of zoning changes, it’s a bold commitment to the future. A big congrats to City Planning and Mayor Adams, for this initiative sets an inspiring precedent for cities worldwide.”
“Outdated regulations piling up over decades can frustrate innovation. The biggest issues we face today – sustainability, affordability – require thoughtful and painstaking attention to zoning and other regulations to ensure that they are aligned with our most important objectives today and looking forward,” said Sarah Watson, deputy director, Citizens Housing and Planning Council. “We applaud the administration and the Council for these changes, and for demonstrating that the city can make the kinds of changes needed to achieve our ambitious goals.”
“Urban Green applauds these comprehensive, common sense zoning measures that will accelerate decarbonization in NYC,” said John Mandyck, CEO, Urban Green Council. “We were proud to partner with DCP to facilitate stakeholder input to guide and support this outcome. This package is a reminder that the boldest climate action requires detailed implementation to be successful, and we’re grateful that implementation is underway in NYC.”
"The future of New York City and the entire region faces unprecedented challenges due to the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels. We applaud Mayor Eric Adams, NYC DCP Director and CPC Chair Dan Garodnick, and the entire Adams administration for boldly addressing these problems and striving for a carbon-neutral city,” said Maulin Mehta, New York director, Regional Plan Association. “Modernizing and streamlining our zoning code through reforms that will encourage adding solar trellises, heat pumps, EV charging stations, and more green retrofits across the city are particularly critical to help us act to counter the difficult reality ahead, and we look forward to helping them be swiftly implemented.”
“Today’s approval of the ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ is a historic milestone, moving New York City forward in reaching its ambitious decarbonization goals, a critical step forward in improving our resilience to the effects of climate change. Updates to New York City’s zoning laws, as approved by the New York City Council, will provide the city flexible tools needed to meet the impacts of climate change such as coastal flooding and extreme heat, all of which are serious threats to New Yorkers’ public health and safety. Today's historic accomplishment is a win for New Yorkers,” said Chad Purkey, vice president, Association for a Better New York.
"Today, NYC took a major step forward towards meeting our emission reduction goals by removing existing barriers and expanding opportunities for decarbonization projects," said Jesse Lazar, executive director, American Institute of Architects, New York. "AIANY commends Mayor Adams, the City Council, and DCP on working to make the goals in the ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ zoning text amendment both ambitious and achievable. These changes will be pivotal for decarbonizing building stock, deploying renewables, and enabling New Yorkers to access a wide variety of low-carbon transportation options.”
“The ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ initiative will help New York City fight climate change and modernize many aging affordable buildings by allowing full roofs to be covered with elevated solar panels, building retrofits with exterior insulating panels, and encouraging electrification of our affordable housing stock,” said Jolie Milstein, president and CEO, New York State Association for Affordable Housing. “We applaud both the Adams administration for its leadership on this important issue and the City Council for making it a reality with today’s approval.”
NYSERDA is pleased to see the passage of ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ adopting citywide zoning changes. This initiative will expand access to solar and energy storage in New York City, accelerate building modernization and deployment of electric vehicle charging stations while helping to create a healthier city for all,” said Susanne DesRoches, vice president of clean resilient buildings, New York State Research and Development Authority.
“’City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ will facilitate efforts by government and the private sector to address the rapidly shifting demands that climate change is placing on the city, its residents, and businesses,” said Kathryn Wylde, president & CEO, Partnership for New York City.
“We applaud the New York City Council for approving Mayor Adams’ ‘City of Yes’ for Carbon Neutrality proposal,” said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director, WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “This bold move will help address decades of environmental racism by removing barriers that would otherwise delay the decarbonization of our buildings, greening our neighborhoods, transforming our energy system, and so much more. The climate crisis disproportionately impacts communities of color and low-income, and we are hopeful with these changes we can take bold steps to build resilient communities. Modernizing the city's zoning will help facilitate equitable climate action, reducing the emissions that have been harming our communities for generations.”
“’City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ will not only remove outdated zoning that hinders decarbonization projects but will also reinforce New York City’s commitment to expanding equitable housing opportunities,” said Nicole Campo, technical director of land use planning, Matrix New World Engineering.New York is and must continue to be a global leader in combating climate change. This important text amendment will help solidify the city’s commitment to meeting ambitious renewable energy goals and greenhouse gas reduction targets.”
“Building climate solutions, like solar power and battery storage, often comes down to the nuts and bolts of permitting and zoning, and we are so thrilled that the New York City Council and the city administration are recognizing this through the ‘City of Yes’ initiative,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director, Alliance for Clean Energy New York. “We need to overcome the barriers to deploying clean power solutions, and today’s passage is a great step.”
“Climate change impacts everyone, therefore we all are responsible for curbing its effects and taking action now to create a greener future,” said Justin Rodgers, president & CEO, Greater Jamaica Development Corporation. “While there are things we can do individually, the significant steps begin with government. We applaud the Adams administration and the Department of City Planning for the ‘City of Yes’ initiative and their leadership on addressing climate change.”
“The ‘City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ builds on the success of the influential Zone Green area bonus by restructuring it to focus on whole-building energy use,” said George Kontaroudis, vice chair, New York Passive House. “This change will incentivize the incorporation of a wider variety of low-energy building systems, from HVAC, to façade, and on-site renewable energy generation. Our city has demonstrated time and again that when we incentivize high-performance buildings, we expedite the adoption of the systems and standards that make them possible, the rapid increase in the adoption of the Passive House building standard being one example. This holistic approach tied to economic benefits will facilitate wider adoption of the technologies and passive concepts our city needs to decarbonize.”
“’City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality’ promises to bring more solar power to rooftops and parking lots across the city, creating good jobs and clean energy right in our backyard,” said Noah Ginsburg, executive director, New York Solar Energy Industries Association. “It will also ease permitting for safe battery energy storage systems, thereby strengthening the electric grid and protecting New Yorkers' lungs from hazardous air pollution emitted by our aging fossil fuel power plants. New York's distributed solar and storage industry applauds the city for its clean energy leadership.”

 
Top