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If you listen to the City Council, you’ll hear cries that the rent is too damn high. True: The price of housing is the single biggest component in New York City’s highest-in-the-world cost of living, and it’s downright punishing for poor, working- and middle-class families here. But if you listen to Council members, you’ll also hear skittishness on Mayor Adams’ detailed new plan to bulldoze barriers to build oodles of new places where people can live.
This is like someone constantly complaining about fitting into their jeans without bothering to change their diet and exercise.
In his 12th month in office, Adams now champions a robust and detailed plan to build a tremendously meaningful 500,000 new units by 2032, to end the unacceptable fact that housing demand here has for decades consistently outstripped supply. His Building and Land use Approval Streamlining Task Force calls for 45 changes to the city’s environmental review; 19 changes to what is now an onerous and time-consuming land-use review process; and 47 changes to a Department of Buildings permitting procedures that are so complex they require paid professionals to navigate.
Adams says his administration can execute 95 of 111 fixes on its own. It will test his savvy and managerial mettle to swiftly see them through — including repairing a landmarks review process that in too many cases has become weaponized against housing production. Two adjustments rely on executive rule changes by the state, which should be a no-brainer for a governor who just pledged to put housing first in her first full term. (Not on this list, Albany also must deliver new and improved tax incentives to replace expired 421-a and J-51 credits.)
The rest need the City Council, which so far under Speaker Adrienne Adams has leaned into producing new housing.
It’s relatively easy to say yes to individual developments, overriding loud NIMBY opposition. It takes guts to back a holistic overhaul that’ll make a million backyards more fertile ground for new development. Over to you, Speaker Adams.
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