New York City Expedites Affordable Housing Development

 

Besides electing Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor earlier this month, New York City voters also approved all three affordable housing-related proposals on their ballots. The set of green-lit changes all shorten the review process for affordable units—or at least encourage developers to propose projects in places that have historically been unwelcoming.

The proposals mostly modify the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP. The seven-month process is by and large how New York City rezones individual pieces of land for housing.

“We like to do things bit by bit, block by block, project by project,” says David J. Rosenberg, counsel at the real estate firm Rosenberg & Estis.

An analysis by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University found that about a third of all housing built from 2010 to 2023 were on recently-rezoned parcels.

Policy Changes Explained

The first proposal approved tackles the seven-month rezoning review with two programs. One lets the Board of Standards and Appeals waive publicly-financed affordable housing developments through the ULURP process. After 60 days with the relevant Community Board and 30 days with the Board of Standards and Appeals, the latter can issue its approval so long as the project meets a few qualifications. The builder has to be a company that only develops low-income housing and the project can’t “clash with the surrounding neighborhood,” according to city abstracts of the approved amendments.

The same ballot item also aims to prompt more affordable housing throughout the city. Projects that include affordable housing and sit in the 12 community districts building the lowest levels of these units will have a new review process. Instead of a seven-month ULURP, it will be 90 days.

Some of the time savings comes from cutting out the last reviewer—the City Council. Historically, the governing body has approached housing with “member deference,” or the idea that if a representative doesn’t want a proposed project in their district, other councilmembers will vote accordingly. Developers often have to sniff out possible political opposition to proposals, and Rosenberg’s clients often find themselves still unsure about the final outcome after years of environmental and rezoning review.

“As the public review gets started, you kind of see what you’re getting from city planning long before you get there,” he said, “whereas the City Council—they are entirely mum until right down to the end.”

Housing Preservation and Development along with the Dept. of City Planning will release the formula used to determine these lowest-building areas in October 2026. The departments will also re-calculate the bottom 12 every five years. Staten Island, southern Brooklyn, and parts of Queens are likely contenders for this first wave of districts with an altered review process.

It’s possible some of the math could try to strategically leave out low-build districts that have less extra space to begin with, but ultimately, the city departments will have to defend the calculations they choose, said Brad Greenburg, deputy director at NYU’s Furman Center.

City voters also approved a pared-down rezoning process in a different ballot measure addressing a mix of developments: Certain types of housing changes, the creation of open space, and resiliency projects like changing street grades or adding solar panels. Here too the City Council will lose its opportunity to weigh-in, save in places where city land could go to Housing Development Fund Companies.

For housing developers, this modified rezoning process could kick in after construction has already begun. Medium and high-density areas can move through this 90-day review if the housing development adds up to 30% more residential space.

“By the time you’ve gotten your site to the point where you’re ready to top out, you’ll have your approval to just keep going up,” said Rosenberg, adding that projects that “categorically lack potential significant adverse environmental impacts on communities,” however, aren’t candidates for this faster review process.

The final approved ballot measure related to affordable housing creates a panel that can reverse a city council “no” to these kinds of projects that move through ULURP. Called the Affordable Housing Appeals Board, two of the three members—the mayor, the speaker of the City Council, and the appropriate borough president—have to agree for the project to be approved. Rosenberg thinks the new Board will make these reversal decisions less often than people anticipate.

Though the changes approved by voters can make the private development process easier, the new rules are ones the city gets to play by, too, which could matter for projects like flood infrastructure that need, say, street setback requirements to change.

“Maybe some of this is for city agencies themselves to operate faster,” Greenburg said.

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