City of Yes clears Council committees with substantial changes
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Two New York City Council committees voted to approve an amended version of the mayor’s City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan. Photo via Mayoral Photography Unit
By Ryan Schwach
The mayor’s sprawling and controversial plan to rework the city’s zoning laws in an effort to encourage more housing construction cleared a major hurdle Thursday after undergoing some significant changes.
On Thursday, the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity was passed by two City Council committees after lawmakers spent most of the day negotiating over the finer points of the proposal with Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
The housing platform, which may well end up as Adams’ signature policy, will now head to the full Council for a final vote, which is expected to come at some point in December.
The proposal will head to the full Council only after consequential changes to the plan were made to appease on-the-fence councilmembers and communities, like many in eastern, northern and southern Queens, who have long rejected the proposal.
The modified proposal will no longer eliminate parking mandates citywide, which currently require developers to build a certain number of parking spots alongside any new development. Under the new City of Yes proposal, parking mandates will remain in community districts that don’t have access to ample public transit.
The Council also scaled back the amount of accessory dwelling units that can be built in backyards or garages.
Also part of the deal between the mayor and the Council was a commitment from the city and state to fund up to $5 billion in affordable housing construction.
Both the Council Committee on Housing & Buildings and Subcommittee on Zoning & Franchises passed the proposal – eight to two with one abstention and four to three respectively – sending it to a full Council vote expected next month.
There are only three Queens Coucilmembers between those committees, Selvena Brooks-Powers and Lynn Schulman were both on the fence heading into the vote. Schulman voted no, and Brooks-Powers, who serves as majority whip, abstained. Francisco Moya, one of the mayor’s biggest allies on the Council, voted yes.
“This is a major undertaking, and it's being rushed through, I think, in a lot of different ways,” Schulman said during the subcommittee vote. “I still have major reservations about it, just like Robert Moses, way back, was thought to be a miracle worker when he changed the infrastructure of New York City, and now we're in the process of trying to undo some of the damage that was done. I don't want to see the same damage done with the City of Yes.”
Brooks-Powers did not explain her abstention, and her office did not immediately respond to the Eagle on Thursday night.
Inside City Hall, negotiations on the platform, which is intended to encourage developers to build more housing and help put a dent in the city’s housing crisis, went well into the afternoon, resulting in sweeping changes to the initial text that was brought before the Council.
During the Council’s October hearing on the proposal, many in the Council, including Speaker Adrienne Adams, argued that while the plan was wide-reaching, it did not do enough to ensure that new housing would be affordable.
Lawmakers also said that the elimination of parking mandates for new buildings was one of the most controversial aspects of the City of Yes plan.
While advocates argued it would kickstart a bulk of the housing construction under the plan, detractors argued it would hurt the city’s far-flung neighborhoods – like in Queens – whose residents depend on cars to get to where they need to go.
The compromise is a three-zone system, where some areas will retain parking mandates, others have some mandates and some will have none at all.
The first zone will have parking mandates eliminated entirely, meaning no new development will have a required mandate for parking.
The second zone will include areas of the city with access to public transit, but different commuting habits than the first zone. Zone 2 will have mandates reduced on multi-family developments and kept in place on smaller developments like one- and two-family homes.
In parts of Queens, locals have protested the City of Yes out of fears it could drastically change the character of their suburban and low density neighborhoods. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach
In the third zone, councilmembers said that parking requirements will stay in place, but will be “modest.”
Queens Community Districts 1 and 2, which include neighborhoods like Astoria and Long Island City, will be the only in the borough that will have parking mandates eliminated entirely.
The City of Yes proposal to allow for Accessory Dwelling Units, also a major sticking point from many in low-density areas, also saw some modifications.
Basement and attached ADUs will not be allowed in areas with flooding issues or in coastal zones, and backyard and attached ADUs will not be allowed in historic districts or some low-density areas unless near transit.
ADU’s may also not exceed one story, unless they provide parking on the first story. They may also not be built to take up more than a third of a backyard.
The town center zoning proposal, which would have put more housing units over one-story commercial storefronts, will also be limited to one additional story in some areas, and not allowed entirely in other areas.
Also, the transit-oriented development aspect of the plan, which was intended to build housing more near transit stations, will have a smaller reach. The transit-oriented housing will only span a quarter miles from LIRR and Metro-North stations, rather than the proposed half mile. It will also be removed entirely from single-family zoning areas.
Overall, while the Department of City Planning estimated the City of Yes would have resulted in 50,000 to 109,000 new units over the next 15 years. With the Council’s modifications, that estimate was reduced to 80,000.
The eleventh-hour negotiations also led to a promise of $4 billion from Adams to fund the City Council’s goal of building more affordable housing, as well as $1 billion from the state’s budget through Governor Kathy Hochul.
“I hope your main takeaway today is that we listen to our communities and that we carefully review the administration's proposal and that we are recommending modifications to reflect the actual live reality of New Yorkers',” said Zoning and Franchises Committee Chair Kevin Riley. “Plans should not be a theoretical exercise or wishful thinking. It needs to reflect the actual built environment of our neighborhoods and be responsive to the challenges our constituents face every day.”
Many of the changes came after pushback to the City of Yes platform from both those who said the proposal went too far in its effort to encourage housing development and those who said it didn’t go far enough.
Despite the reduction in anticipated housing growth, advocates and developers celebrated the plan’s passage on Thursday night.
Pro-housing advocates told the Eagle that the coalition rallying for City of Yes’ passage had no serious gripes with the Council’s changes.
“The agreement announced today shows that our city government has heard New Yorkers loud and clear: we need to build more homes,” said Annemarie Gray, executive director of Open New York, a pro-housing advocacy group. “This progress would not have been possible without the tireless organizing of advocates, residents, and community leaders who have kept the housing shortage at the forefront. If passed, this package will represent a historic step toward addressing New York City's housing needs and the clearest sign yet that our leadership is capable of taking on big challenges. Our coalition of labor, advocates, renters, and homeowners will continue to fight for its final approval by the full City Council.”
City Planning Director Dan Garodnick, a major architect of the proposal, called the Council’s amendments “thoughtful.”
“As modified, it enables 80K units while respecting neighborhood context, keeps every core component of the initial proposal, and ensures we create a little more housing in every neighborhood,” he said on social media.
However, people on the other side of the issue who have been pushing back on the City of Yes say the changes do not address their concerns.
In Queens, the opposition was probably the loudest, with rallies and protests against the City of Yes, mostly led by former city planner Paul Graziano.
Graziano, who often used words like "apocalyptic” to describe what City of Yes would do to low-density communities like Bayside or Rockaway Beach, told the Eagle he would still use that word to describe the plan even with the changes.
“The little changes that the City council made are minimal,” he said, “They're absolutely minimal.”
Graziano said that the changes to ADU’s and transit-oriented development are small, and that the changes do not address underlying points in the plan which facilitate most of the building.
“Instead of destroying your entire community, it's only going to destroy half your community,” he said.
Graziano also told the Eagle that he and a wide reaching anti-City of Yes coalition are already getting the ball rolling on potential legal challenges, and are likely to file a suit if and when the Council fully passes the platform.
Despite the criticism, Mayor Adams and Speaker Adams applauded the final deal on Thursday.
“This is the most pro-housing plan in New York City history,” the speaker said. “I understand that there have been strong reactions to the initial proposal, and the Council listened to those who engaged in the public review process…The Council’s modifications addressed many concerns raised by communities balancing the distinctions between neighborhoods with the citywide need for affordable housing.”
“This balance allowed for a plan that both respects the neighborhood, character, and it's still applicable across the entire city, ensuring every neighborhood contributes to producing housing that can address the city's affordability and housing crisis,” she added.
The mayor called it a “historic moment” in a gaggle with reporters immediately following the vote.
“Housing is the most important thing we could do for New Yorkers,” he said.
The amended City of Yes for Housing Opportunity will now head to a Council-wide vote – the last hurdle for the plan – at the Council’s next stated meeting on Dec. 5.
It won’t necessarily be a clean vote.
Queens Councilmembers Joann Ariola, Bob Holden and Vickie Paladino have all said they would vote against the plan, as has Councilmembers Jim Gennaro and Linda Lee.
