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Two of the city’s five borough presidents said Wednesday they will push to soften parts of Mayor Eric Adams’ City of Yes housing plan, in an early sign of the resistance that the wide-ranging reforms will face once they come up for a vote later this year.
At a Crain’s New York Business Power Breakfast featuring all five borough presidents, two of the leaders — Vanessa Gibson of the Bronx and Donovan Richards of Queens — said they will recommend changes to the City of Yes, even as they support the initiative overall.
The plan would loosen zoning laws that restrict housing, including by allowing more three- to five-story buildings in low-rise neighborhoods outside of Manhattan, permitting accessory dwelling units in basements and garages, removing parking mandates for new construction and granting developers a 20% density bonus in high-rise areas if they include affordable housing. The Adams administration projects the plan would create between 58,000 and 109,000 new homes over the next 15 years.
The City Council will get the final say on the plan near the end of 2024 and is likely to make some changes of its own – if the plan is approved at all. In the meantime, many lawmakers are closely watching the advisory votes being taken in the coming weeks by the city’s 59 community boards, which will show how strong the opposition is — especially in more suburban areas wary of development. Borough presidents appoint community board members and will have their own similar non-binding votes, which could influence the final outcome.
Gibson, who said she will recommend unspecified changes to the plan, pointed to the mayor’s proposal to remove parking mandates from new developments — seen by many as one of the most controversial City of Yes policies.
“Parking is probably the largest challenge for me,” Gibson said.
Richards, meanwhile, announced he would oppose allowing apartments in garages — saying he “probably will side with many of our community board partners” who oppose the potential influx of new residents in outer-borough neighborhoods. But he pledged support for a similar provision allowing dwelling units in basements, citing the 11 Queens residents who drowned in largely unregulated basement apartments in 2021 during Hurricane Ida.
But Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, disagreed with his colleagues. He called it “dangerous” to weaken any part of City of Yes, since it would mean maintaining the status quo in which a handful of gentrifying neighborhoods bear the brunt of new development.
“The accessory dwelling units, if we don’t do that, I think it would destroy the program entirely,” Reynoso said. Unlike most city officials, Reynoso argued that the mayor’s plan does not go far enough, saying it should allow buildings as high as eight stories near transit.
Manhattan borough president Mark Levine also voiced strong support for keeping City of Yes as-is, given the extent of the city’s housing crisis.
“No one should assume this passes, but from my perspective, this is too big to fail,” Levine said. Levine, Reynoso and Richards all served in the City Council before their ascensions to borough-wide office, but Levine said the scope of City of Yes dwarfs “any land-use actions that any of us have considered or likely will consider in our careers in government.”
The biggest dissenter, unsurprisingly, was Republican Vito Fossella of Staten Island. He called his borough “a no to a maybe” on the plan, which he said offered too little flexibility to “preserve the character of existing neighborhoods” full of one- and two-family homes.
The opinions voiced onstage Wednesday at the New York Athletic Club foreshadowed the likely dynamic in the City Council. The mayor, whose strongest allies are typically moderates and even Republicans, may instead need to find support for his housing plan from left-wing lawmakers, with moderates and conservatives likely to oppose it.
City of Yes for Housing Opportunity entered its roughly seven-month public review in late April, and community boards are in the midst of holding votes. A separate plan under the City of Yes banner, which will loosen rules that govern small businesses, is expected to be approved by the City Council on Thursday.
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Nick Garber , 2024-06-05 19:19:04
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