City Council OK’s five-year housing targets

The city may soon have a clearer picture of how far behind communities are in creating housing, but it will still lack crucial tools for those areas to catch up.

The City Council on Wednesday approved Speaker Adrienne Adams’ “fair housing framework” bill, which will set five-year housing targets for each of the 59 community districts. The goals would be based on existing housing in each district, looking at units available, for example, to extremely low-income residents.

The goals would also consider the level of displacement in neighborhoods, mass transit access, climate change risks and other factors.

As part of the fair housing plan, the city’s housing agency will be required to publish its goals to promote equitable housing development, combat discrimination and other strategies to “affirmatively further” fair housing.

“We need comprehensive solutions that match the urgency of this crisis,” Adams said during a press conference Wednesday. “There are many solutions that we must pursue to address this major challenge. Among them is ensuring that we boost housing production in an equitable way so that every community does their part to produce and preserve affordable housing.”

The measure is similar in spirit to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s housing plan, but the goals are not mandates. Hochul’s plan also included housing targets but, to avoid opposition in the suburbs, did not specify affordability levels.

The speaker’s plan joins efforts by the Adams’ administration to create what housing it can without action at the state level. In September, the mayor unveiled a series of zoning changes, including getting rid of parking requirements in new development and easing office-to-residential conversions, to spur more housing throughout the city.

The mayor, however, has continued to voice the need to replace the expired property tax break 421a and to make other state-level changes to ease the housing crisis. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development has also long advocated changes at the federal level to Low Income Housing Tax Credits to free up financing for affordable housing projects.

Pro-development group Open New York praised the “fair housing framework,” but emphasized the need for further action.

“As we focus on local improvements, it’s also crucial to recognize that New York’s housing crisis is a statewide concern,” Annemarie Gray, executive director of Open New York, said in a statement. “Meaningful change demands the engagement of both the governor and state legislature, as they have the tools to ensure accountability in meeting equitable housing targets.”

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The landlord group Community Housing Improvement Program has been supportive of the City Council measure, but took issue with the omission of rent-stabilized apartments in the required assessments.

The bill requires the city’s housing agency, as part of each five-year plan, to submit assessments of housing production in community districts and propose policy changes to help communities meet the goals.

One change certain to be needed to reach the targets is rezoning, which is controlled by the City Council, but within each district is usually left to the discretion of individual members.