Hundreds of New Yorkers are signed up to share their views at a marathon City Council hearing Tuesday reviewing the Adams administration’s sweeping “City of Yes” plan, which aims to boost the city’s housing supply by overhauling decades-old zoning regulations.
The hearing, which was underway Tuesday morning in the Council’s Zoning and Franchise Subcommittee, marked the panel’s second session in as many days on the plan. On Monday, the subcommittee heard testimony from Daniel Garodnick, Adams’ Department of City Planning director, and Adolfo Carrion, his Housing Preservation and Development commissioner.
Tuesday’s hearing was set to focus on public testimony, and Bronx Councilman Kevin Riley, the subcommittee’s chair, kicked it off by noting that more than 700 people had signed up to share their views.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, a Democrat who has advisory input on the plan, was among those who signed up to testify. He offered a ringing endorsement of the “City of Yes” initiative, arguing it’ll drastically increase the city’s ability to build housing quickly.
“Finding a home in New York City is something akin to the ‘Hunger Games,’” Levine said, noting that apartment vacancy rates in the city are at historic lows while rents are at historic highs. “This would be a game changer for our housing crisis.”
LEVINE
Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine speaks in Bowling Green Park in Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. (Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News)
Most of the New Yorkers signed up to testify Tuesday, though, weren’t expected to share Levine’s views.
Many New Yorkers participating in the hearing argue City of Yes is problematic on multiple levels.
Some argue it doesn’t include enough safeguards to ensure that housing units that end up being built due to the proposed zoning changes are affordable and accessible to working class New Yorkers. Others have contended the plan would drastically alter the character of certain neighborhoods, as the Adams administration pushes to use the plan’s zoning overhaul to construct a little bit more housing in every corner of the city.
Paul DiBenedetto, the chair of Community Board 11, which spans Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston and other eastern Queens neighborhoods, argued the “top-down approach” of the City of Yes plan will only benefit real estate developers.
“[It is] a Robert Moses-style approach to zoning, written by developers for developers,” DiBenedetto testified.
Among other matters, the City of Yes plan would change zoning regulations to allow for two-to-four stories of apartments to be built on top of commercial spaces and encourage development of single-room apartment with shared kitchens and bathrooms, so-called SROs. It would also allow empty office buildings to be transformed into housing and let owners of one- and two-family residential buildings to turn their garages, attics and potentially basements into housing.
Many of the zoning regulations that currently prevent such development date back to the 1960s. The mayor’s office has said upward of 109,000 new units of housing could be built by 2039 if the plan passes.
The City Council’s Democratic majority, who need to sign off on the plan for it to become law, has generally been supportive of it.
However, many Council members representing outer-boroughs, including all of its Republican members, have been skeptical.
Bronx Councilman Rafael Salamanca, Jr., who chairs the Council’s Land Use Committee, voiced particular concern Monday with the plan’s proposal to eliminate parking minimum requirements for housing development projects.
“[The Department of City Planning] says that the City of Yes is not a one size fits all, but that’s exactly what the parking proposal is, removing parking requirements across the city regardless of access to transit or other factors,” Salamanca said.
