New York City has a housing crisis. Rents are too high and they are only increasing. With an all-time low vacancy rate, New Yorkers want to live here but there isn’t enough housing for them, especially affordable ones. In this blog post, I will analyze a NYC policy proposal which is called the City Of Yes for Housing Opportunity and asking ourselves is the solution to just build more housing.

Under the Adams administration, they believe the solution to the housing crisis is the City of Yes Proposal. As Mayor Adams walks out to his anthem, Empire State of Mind, I am actually surprised to see the mayor calling out the outdated 1961 zoning code that had the intention to segregate and limit housing supply.

The biggest aim that the City of Yes proposal has is to get rid of the outdated zoning laws to make way for a more affordable New York. To do this, they have highlighted 8 goals of the proposal with some swanky interactive pictures on the website. The goals are listed as follows with my short and concise comments:

1. Universal Affordability Preference (UAP) – Allowing up to 20% more housing if the additional are affordable to households making 60% of AMI (Area Median Income), which for a family of 3 is $46,620 for reference.

Comment: I like this one.

2. Residential Conversion from Commercial – Making office buildings into apartments

Comment: This one is good.

3. Town Center Zoning – Adding apartments to existing storefronts

Comment: Yes please

4. Removing parking mandates: Create more space for housing rather than cars

Comment: Bold move of DCP (Department of City Planning).

5. Accessory Dwelling Units – Creating housing in backyard cottages or unused garages

Comment: Seems safe enough??

6. Transit-Oriented Development – Prioritizing developing housing within a half mile of public transit

Comment: Very sick.

7. Campuses – Giving the opportunity for establishments such as churches to add new buildings to their block of land, if there are unused spaces.

Comment: Not sure about this one, I’m sure Columbia or NYU will take advantage of this.

8. Small and Shared Housing – Re-legalizing housing with shared kitchens or other common facilities

Comment: Sure, why not, we can get more micro studio room tour videos on YouTube.

There may be some things that are hidden in this proposal, especially when it comes to the execution of these goals. It seemed to fall off for me towards the end, but overall increasing housing stock will make a good foundation for addressing the housing crisis.

So if this proposal passes the City Planning Commission and the City Council, then the problem is solved right? We got more housing, we did it! Well not so fast… Building more housing may just be the first layer of foundation for the housing crisis.

The biggest issue we face is the affordable housing supply. How do we get deeply affordable housing, so that the people who are most vulnerable to displacement are making 30% or less of AMI, which is $36,030 for a family of 3? Private development does not fill the gap for extremely low-income residents as there is no incentive for private developers to build deeply affordable housing when they can make market-rate housing and profit off of that. To stabilize this public subsidies have to be considered.

To fix our housing crisis, we must first make space for building more housing and scaling back our reliance on purely private development.