City of God

 

 Queens Eagle

Mayor Eric Adams made a trip to Queens on Friday to announce a faith-based housing initiative that would allow houses of worship to more easily build affordable housing.

Adams, alongside South Queens clergy members and other elected officials, unveiled the plan, which he says will make it easier for faith-based organizations to add new housing on their property and generate income for their organizations through zoning law changes.

The initiative is included under the mayor’s expansive City of Yes housing program, which proposes zoning changes that would add “a little more housing in every neighborhood,” but has received some pushback from suburban areas in Queens and other boroughs from residents who are resistant to building up housing density in residential neighborhoods.

Highlighting one aspect of the plan on Friday, the mayor said the zoning law changes would allow faith campuses, which are typically large lots with multiple buildings on them, to create new housing on their available land.

“We cannot let old, outdated zoning rules keep us from building new housing and our mission driven, faith-based and community organizations can play a special role in this entire process,” said Adams from Antioch Baptist Church. “So, we say, ‘Yes, in God's backyard,’ today.”

As the city deals with an ongoing affordability crisis as well as an overcrowded shelter system, the hope is that programs like the one announced on Friday can open the door to more affordable housing in New York City neighborhoods, the mayor said.

“We're throwing open the door to new solutions and new housing that would help us solve the crisis by working with our churches, our synagogues, mosques and other faith organizations to build more housing and reclaim our city,” Adams said.

In Queens, Borough President Donovan Richards called the lack of affordable housing a “state of emergency.”

“We have 40,000 migrants in our care in this borough, but let me also add that we had a compounding issue with homelessness for a long time in our city as well,” he said at the church on Friday. “So, you add those two things together, and we are in a state of emergency – but there are some great signs of progress in the borough.”

Richards spoke in support of the faith-based housing plan, as well as City of Yes proposal more generally.

“This rezoning really gives us the opportunity to not just talk about the housing crisis but to get to be a part of the solution,” he said.

“I've heard from many of our leaders who want to be a part of the solution who want to do God's work, but who are really prohibited from doing it because sometimes…we have challenges in financing,” he added. “But one way to ensure we can move many of these projects forward is to do what God has called us to do and that is to take care of the least amongst us.”

The plan also aims to help the houses of worship. as well – a group that largely supported Adams’ bid for mayor – by allowing them to make revenue from the program.

“We have to have more flexibility,” Adams said. “We have to live in the real world. The ideal cannot collide with the real, and these faith-based leaders have been talking about this over and over again. They want to deliver more housing and we want to give them the opportunity to do so.”