Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is raising pressure on Albany to lift a decades-old cap on residential density in the city, announcing new rules on Thursday that would pave the way for bulkier apartment buildings — but only if state lawmakers act in the coming days.
Since 1961, state laws have banned the city from permitting any apartment building whose total square footage is more than 12 times the size of its lot. That cap on “floor-area ratio” limits how dense a building can be, and analyses have found it would have outlawed iconic buildings like the prewar Eldorado on Central Park West or the Sherry-Netherland on Fifth Avenue, which were built before the limit took effect.
Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have long called for lifting the cap, which they say would allow for much-needed housing to be built and allow more offices to be converted to housing. But state lawmakers, especially Manhattan Democrats, have resisted the idea, fearing it would unleash overly bulky development unless the city put a ceiling on just how densely it would allow developers to build.
Now, the Adams administration is meeting state lawmakers head-on, as Albany officials consider lifting the FAR cap as part of a broader housing deal in the state’s budget process. Maria Torres-Springer, the deputy mayor overseeing housing, said Thursday that the administration will propose two new zoning districts with FARs of 15 and 18, with affordable housing required in both.
The new districts, known as R11 and R12, could take effect only if the state lifts the FAR cap. Rather than propose specific neighborhoods where those districts should be mapped, the administration will start by proposing only the categories themselves, and ask the City Council to approve them as part of the sweeping City of Yes housing package that will reach a vote this fall.
Any new buildings in those districts would be subject to Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, which requires a percentage of units to be below-market rate. And any specific projects that seek to take advantage of the higher cap would still need to go through the city’s monthslong review for zoning changes.
“If Albany does act, we’re going to have a head start and we will be that much closer to delivering significant amounts of new housing,” Torres-Springer said at a Thursday breakfast hosted by the Association for a Better New York.
Whether Albany will act is far from certain. In a change from last year, the state Senate did support lifting the FAR cap in its budget proposal released this month, although the Assembly did not touch the issue. The Senate’s proposal includes some limits, like keeping the FAR cap at 12 in historic districts and requiring the bulkier buildings to have affordable units.
Manhattan State Sen. Liz Krueger, a past critic of proposals to change the FAR rule, told Crain’s on Thursday that she would be willing to lift the cap as long as those limits were in place. The Adams administration and Gov. Hochul have expressed support for the senate’s offer, she said.
“I can’t speak for the Assembly,” she added.
Lifting the FAR cap is seen as a necessary step for any widespread conversion of unused office space into housing — one of the mayor’s top priorities. Since office buildings are allowed to be bulkier than apartments under current law, many existing buildings would be legally barred from being converted to housing unless the cap were lifted — including some of the buildings in the Midtown South area that the city is trying to rezone for that very purpose.
Supporters of lifting the cap have argued that it limits housing in some of the areas where people want to live the most — dense neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, Midtown, Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City.
A full text for the City of Yes housing plan, including these new districts, will be released in early April, Torres-Springer said. But the administration has already outlined much of its contents — the package would loosen zoning rules to allow for mid-rise apartment buildings in less dense neighborhoods, especially near transit and along commercial streets. It would also allow for taller buildings in high-density neighborhoods if affordable units are included, eliminate parking mandates in new construction, and re-legalize shared housing models akin to SROs.
It remains to be seen how the package will fare in the City Council, where some lawmakers, especially in outer-borough districts, are expected to resist some of the proposals.
A separate plan under the City of Yes banner, dubbed Economic Opportunity, focuses on relaxing the zoning rules that constrain where businesses are based and how large they can grow. The City Council appears likely to approve the package in the coming weeks.
Nick Garber , 2024-03-28 18:13:24
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