'Blank Check' to Developers or Chance to Curb Displacement: Locals Comment on City of Yes

Feedback on the Adams administration’s proposed citywide zoning text amendment for housing, which would increase developers’ ability to build bigger buildings in residential neighborhoods, eliminate parking mandates, and mix manufacturing and residential buildings, amongst a number of other changes, got heated at a public scoping meeting last week.

Dozens of members of the public spoke at the online City of Yes for Housing Opportunity meeting held by the Department of City Planning on Wednesday at 2 p.m.

Some waited more than three and a half hours to have their three minutes to voice opinions on the plans, designed to increase housing stock across the five boroughs. One woman questioned why, if the plans are for working class people as the city said, the meeting was being held at a time most people were at work.

The removal of parking mandates, the lack of affordability of many new apartments built through so-called affordable housing programs, the potential for mid-rise developments in traditionally low-rise neighborhoods, the desire for protection of existing affordable units, and the question of investment in improving and increasing city infrastructure such as sewage systems were all hot-button issues.

While a majority of speakers were against the plan — a number of whom were from central Brooklyn — there was a significant showing in support of the proposed zoning overhaul, predominantly from pro-housing group Open New York. Many of the group’s members called for the proposals to go further, especially around increased density in transit-rich areas.

One Open New York member, who owns a house in Flatbush, said she had been in the city for 12 years and spent the last eight in Brooklyn, and was speaking because she was “worried that my friends, family, and neighbors are being forced to leave because of the cost of living.”

“I’m incredibly fortunate to have the stability of owning my home and I want to make sure that we’re creating ample new housing opportunities throughout the city so that everyone, regardless of whether they own or rent, can equitably afford to live or stay in New York without being rent burdened.”

She said like many in her neighborhood, her family does not have a car, and building more dense housing around public transportation while eliminating parking mandates “creates a sustainable future for both our community and for the world in the face of climate change.”

Another member, who is a renter in Crown Heights, said at the heart of the city’s housing and homelessness crisis is a housing shortage. “We haven’t built enough homes to have a healthy housing market for the people that live and work in New York; this gives landlords leverage to jack up rents and maintain substandard or outright appalling housing conditions and this is not normal: In a healthy housing market, rents do not rise as fast as they have in New York relative to incomes,” she said.

However, a number of the speakers from Brooklyn challenged the pro-housing group, with one saying members of the group knew little about being disenfranchised in the city. “City of Mess is what it should be termed,” she told those at the meeting.

“I’m tired of having to constantly come to these meetings where you don’t even advocate for your tenants like you claim or residents that you claim…minorities, whether Black or brown, you don’t consider us at all. We’re just a profit to you. We are compounded interest, the way that you’re trying to compound these apartments on top of apartments, on dilapidated upon dilapidated, you won’t fix anything,” she said.

A sentiment from many of those opposing the plan was that the zoning overhaul amounted to a handout to developers and would not result in more affordable housing, with multiple speakers noting that 300,000 apartments in the city are currently vacant, according to city figures.

Many argued that the theory of building more housing to increase affordability had not panned out in New York City, as developers had no incentive to build affordable units and were more concerned about maximizing profits. “It is a sign of insanity for the public to believe in any affordability after witnessing the unaffordable developments for the last years in our neighborhood. Why should residents expect a different result absent enforcement and oversight?” one speaker questioned.

Another said the city had allowed developers to demolish more affordable housing than they create, and said new buildings are not affordable to displaced residents. “I am not opposed to more affordable housing. The problem is that that is not what the City of Yes is creating. I think there’s a lack of oversight and the City of Yes is a blank check to developers.”

One lifelong New York resident living in Prospect Lefferts Gardens said that while the plan says the upzoning for Universal Affordability Preference would be 20 percent, a close reading showed that in many non-contextual R6 and R7 districts, such as Bushwick, PLG, and Crown Heights, it would actually result in a much higher percentage.

“This will not be a little bit more housing in every neighborhood, it’s a lot more housing in some neighborhoods. It will mean dramatic changes in my neighborhood, entire blocks of low-rise homes and mixed-use buildings can be demolished and replaced by up to 12-story buildings,” she said.

She added the new zoning would increase the pressure on low and moderate income residents in her neighborhood, many of whom she said had already been pushed out by the impacts of new development. “At this point, we need zoning for preservation and laws that protect the two-thirds of our housing units that are rent stabilized,” she said. “This means that we need to see an evaluation of the potential for demolition and units that can be built, and their cumulative effects on the environment, taking into account large pending public projects such as Vital Brooklyn.” (Vital Brooklyn is a community development program in central Brooklyn that includes building 2,000 units of affordable housing.)

A developer who lives in East Flatbush shared similar feedback, saying: “We should not confuse the question of housing affordability with the crisis of housing shortages.”

“We do not have a shortage in New York. The vacancy rate for apartments below $1,500 is zero. The vacancy rate for apartments over $2,500 is near 12 percent. We currently have about 300,000 empty units of housing in New York City.”

He said he didn’t “believe for a minute that this will create any more housing affordability” given changes to mandatory inclusionary housing weren’t being proposed.

“In summary, what we’re talking about is a handout to developers and a creative destruction by tax. What development has done for my community is essentially taken the floor out from homeowners by making the value of their land much more valuable than the homes that sit on it. What we’re doing, what we’re seeing in the City of Yes, is effectively bankrupting homeowners and forcing them to be displaced through tax discrimination.”

He said it astounded him that the plan proposed reducing minimum dwelling unit size requirements while increasing the allowed residential floor areas, without any conversation about how such increases in density would affect current infrastructure. The proposals include rooms sharing kitchens and baths (SROs) and apartment buildings with more studio apartments. The plans also allow for homeowners to create accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on their properties. (The mayor’s idea to allow windowless bedrooms, a fire safety hazard, is not mentioned in the draft scope of work.)

A number of speakers raised concerns about how current city infrastructure would handle increased development, especially sewage and floodwater systems.

Removing parking mandates was also a central issue, with many of those in support of the zoning changes saying mandates increase housing costs, reduce development, and are an environmental burden, while a number of speakers against the changes said many working class New Yorkers are still heavily dependent on their cars to get to work.

A number of people against the plan were also concerned about the mixing of manufacturing and residential developments, noting they had been separated by the city for a reason. “It’s dangerous to the environment, to the public health, and to the future of our children,” another PLG-based speaker said.

One Crown Heights resident said she was also concerned about a lack of Department of Buildings enforcement when it comes to new development, saying she has seen cement dumped in sewers and clouds of smoke coming up from “toxic sites.”

“We have lost a considerable amount of affordable housing here, real affordable housing. I mean, it’s heartbreaking to see the number of residents in my majority Black neighborhood who have lost housing. They have nowhere to go, you know, they go to outer boroughs, they leave the city, and there is plenty of housing right here for them to stay here but they can’t afford it because it’s unaffordable,” she said.

One speaker, who was born in the Brooklyn Women’s Hospital and had grown up in Brooklyn, said even after years of working for city agencies and recently retiring from the NYPD, she could not afford to keep living in Brooklyn.

“I have to live with my son and do other things to accommodate where I’d be at when I retire. That’s disgusting. I have so many friends that had to move out of New York City because of what’s going on right now.”

She said new development and “toxic flipping” in Black and brown neighborhoods meant longterm residents could no longer afford to purchase or live in a home in the neighborhood they had worked for, and she vehemently opposed the proposals in the City of Yes plan.

“If you’re not Black in this country, if you’re not Black in the city, then you do not understand our plight fully, because where you call it rezoning, I call it redlining. That’s what they did to Black people to disenfranchise us from living in certain areas and that’s why we had the civil rights movement.”

A number of speakers at the public meeting said they would also be submitting written testimony to support their comments. The public comment period on the City of Yes draft scope of work closed Monday.

Once the public comment has been reviewed and incorporated into the final scope of work, the plan will enter public review in spring 2024, DCP reps said at the presentation.

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