Mamdani Targets Brooklyn Corridors for Major Housing Push

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is teeing up his first major neighborhood rezoning, targeting a stretch of Brooklyn south of Prospect Park for taller buildings and thousands of apartments as the city bets big on transit-oriented development.

The administration’s proposed “South of Prospect Plan” would rezone commercial corridors along Coney Island and McDonald avenues and adjacent blocks, according to Gothamist. The area, dominated by one-story storefronts, auto shops and low-rise housing, sits near multiple subway lines and along the proposed route of the long-awaited Interborough Express light rail project.

The plan signals where Mamdani intends to focus his housing agenda: lower-scale neighborhoods with strong transit access and aging zoning rules. The Department of City Planning kicked off a public engagement process this week with a neighborhood survey and expects to release a draft proposal next year.

Planning Director Sideya Sherman said the administration sees the rezoning as an opportunity to create “potentially thousands” of housing units while aligning future growth with the IBX corridor.

Several local Council members are already signaling support. Rita Joseph called the proposal “planning ahead,” while Shahana Hanif framed the rezoning as a way to address displacement pressures that have pushed longtime residents out of Kensington and surrounding neighborhoods.

The rezoning push lands as New York’s housing shortage continues to hammer renters and intensify political pressure on City Hall to produce supply. Mamdani has pledged to create 200,000 affordable housing units and has backed broader reforms aimed at accelerating development approvals, including changes to environmental review rules supported by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“Along major transit corridors in the Bronx and Brooklyn, we have an opportunity to build more homes, create permanently affordable housing, support small businesses and invest in public spaces and infrastructure that communities deserve,” Mamdani said in a statement.

The Brooklyn effort is one of two large rezoning studies underway under Mamdani. The other spans a long section of White Plains Road in the Bronx, where the city is eyeing denser residential development around elevated subway infrastructure.

— Holden Walter-Warner