Eric Adams Sets Lofty Housing Target in Manhattan

Under legal fire ahead of a messy re-election campaign, Eric Adams is unveiling his ambitious housing goals during Thursday’s State of the City address.

Adams will be promising 100,000 housing units in Manhattan over the next decade, Politico reported. The mayor is set to deliver a speech at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Thursday.

“To meet our generational housing crisis head-on, we must use every tool to build more homes and every piece of land possible to deliver relief,” Adams said in a statement to the publication.

The city has laid the political groundwork to deliver more housing units to the borough. Last month, the City Council voted in favor of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning text amendment, projected to add 80,000 housing units to the city over the next 15 years.

Additionally, the Adams administration is planning to take advantage of the city’s new powers to permit larger residential buildings.

The city has launched the Manhattan Plan, a borough-wide initiative aimed at increasing housing development. The plan will start with the rezoning of Midtown South, projected to create approximately 10,000 new homes. To identify additional development opportunities, the city will engage in a planning process involving city agencies, elected officials, and community members, according to Dan Garodnick, director of the Department of City Planning.

But there are serious roadblocks that may make the target seem aspirational at best. For starters, Manhattan is an island and not one expanding in size. There’s only so much space for developers to add housing.

Though the 485-x tax break has gone into effect, developers are cautious about taking advantage of the incentive due to its higher construction wage floors and affordable housing requirements. The escalating costs of construction materials, coupled with high-interest rates, also complicate matters further.

Another challenge is whether or not there is the political will to build that much housing in the coming years. Based on recent legislative actions, officials seem to be focused on solving the city’s housing shortage, but there’s still likely to be plenty of NIMBY sentiment.

It’s a regular tradition for Adams to announce lofty housing goals. While he once eschewed putting specific numbers behind his targets, in December 2022 he announced a “moonshot” goal of creating 500,000 homes in the city over the next decade, a mix of market-rate, low- and middle-income housing.

— Holden Walter-Warner