Mayor Adams announced Thursday a sweeping package of proposed zoning changes — including the elimination of parking minimums and allowing garages to be legally converted into homes — aimed at facilitating the creation of about 100,000 new homes in the next 10 to 15 years in a move that’s a direct response to New York City’s ongoing housing crisis.
Adams touted it as “the most ambitious changes to zoning in the history of New York City.” Rather than concentrating new housing in certain parts of the city, the measures would try to create “a little more housing in every neighborhood” by easing some of the strict zoning rules currently in place.
“So many of the issues we face as a city are rooted in this ongoing crisis,” Adams said. “We must change the restrictive laws that were put in place 62 years ago [with the 1961 Zoning Resolution].”
The citywide approach contrasts with the neighborhood-level and spot rezonings that have been used to ease zoning restrictions to allow for more and often taller housing.
“This is not tinkering around the edges,” Adams said. “Today, we’re proposing a slate of new rules that, if passed by our City Council, remove longstanding barriers to opportunity and usher in a new golden age of housing in New York City.”
In neighborhoods with smaller and fewer buildings the proposals would attempt to cut municipal red tape to make it easier for owners to adapt their homes.
Among other things, it would allow for certain types of “accessory dwelling units” to be built, such as backyard cottages and basement apartments, and conversions of attics and garages into housing. It would also aim to “safely legalize” existing ones.
One of the buzziest components announced Thursday is the elimination of parking mandates for new homes, space the city says it would rather use for housing.
“If you want to build parking spots, you still can,” Adams explained. “But we will not force people to build parking they do not want.”
The rules would also enable two to four stories of housing to be built above squat, single-story commercial buildings to match the height of neighboring ones.
The new plan would enable conversion of under-used commercial buildings.
The city currently gives leeway for the creation of affordable senior housing, allowing for increased heights, an exception the administration is proposing extending to now include all forms of affordable and supportive housing in denser neighborhoods.
The new plan would allow accessory dwelling units for single and two-family homes.
Under the new proposals, housing could also be built on various “large campuses” around the city, such as in the parking lots of houses of worship or on NYCHA property. Other changes include allowing three-to-five-story apartment buildings to be built on large lots near transit hubs as a way of blending in with the community; and making it legal once more for “modest apartments” to have common facilities such as shared kitchens and bathrooms.
12 comments:
But what about free car storage?
I feel so victimized. This is not fair for car owners.we demand our freedoms!
Corporate America is happy. More fodder to buy their junk. More low cost bodies to throw into the corporate machine to inflate stock prices and generate wealth for the 2%. The Sheeple can grab some scraps from the rich mans table.
Trickle-down economics at its best.
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest."
Isaiah 32:18
I wonder did he mean all the Sheeple, or just the rich white ones?
There goes the quality of life in suburban residential areas of the city. You work real hard for that quality of life and NYC takes it away. You can’t have anything nice here anymore.
I guess current city officials have never been introduced to or read the Ephebic oath. The Ephebic Oath states: "We will transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us."
It gets more third world every day.
The NY Titanic just keeps sinking faster and deeper. It will soon hit the bottom. Good riddance!
Blue states/cities are incapable of self-governance. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams
Unions are now garbage, the rebirth of Guilds is upon us.
@"Blue states/cities are incapable of self-governance"
Really? Why is that Blue states generate all the wealth for the freeloading Red states to survive?
Blue states are self destructive.
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