NYC Mayor Adams unveils plan to build 500k new homes in 10 years while cutting red tape

Mayor Adams laid out an ambitious plan Thursday to drastically reduce the red tape associated with building new housing and set an even more ambitious goal — to create 500,000 new homes within the next decade.

For almost a year, housing advocates and developers have waited with bated breath for a comprehensive plan to create more housing in the perennially pricey city. On Thursday, Adams said his would rely heavily on reducing the paperwork and time it takes to complete building projects, both big and small.

“We need more housing, and we need it as fast as we can build,” Adams said in an address broadcast over television to city employees and reporters in the City Hall rotunda.

“Today, we are announcing our next steps to get there because if we do not deal with this housing crisis, New York will no longer be a city for working people, for families, for immigrants, or for elders. We cannot let this happen. We must take action now.”

Adams acknowledged that his goal of building 500,000 new units of housing by 2032 is a “moonshot,” but said it’s necessary in light of the high cost of housing and the dearth of options for most people trying to find a place to live in the city. As recently as June, he refused to provide a quantifiable goal when speaking specifically about creating affordable housing.

If Adams wins re-election and completes a second term, his time in office would end in 2029 — three years before the deadline for achieving his goal.

His latest plan to address housing is encapsulated in a 68-page report entitled “Get Stuff Built,” which was compiled by his Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce, or BLAST, and released Thursday.

The taskforce recommends that the city simplify three processes that are central to building in the city: the land-use approval process, the environmental review process and permitting through the Department of Buildings.

To pare the bureaucracy down, the city aims to reduce the amount of review and complexity of applications associated with securing land-use approvals, cut the time and cost of the buildings permitting process and shorten the timeline for environmental reviews.

The costs added by lengthy environmental review and land-use processes translate into about $430 in additional rent for an average apartment, according to the taskforce’s report.

The taskforce is led by Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, the city’s Chief Efficiency Officer Melanie La Rocca and Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz.

If implemented successfully, the proposed reforms alone would result in the construction of 50,000 additional units of housing within the next decade, according to Torres-Springer.

“We’re trying to go from a system that’s based on paperwork and one that’s based on process to one that’s based on progress,” she said, with stacks of paper piled behind her to illustrate the point.

The taskforce estimates that all of its 111 proposed reforms will be implemented within a year and a half.

“We enact all of the 111 reforms, we cut the time in half for a project to get from the environmental review to actually permitted with people in them, and we’re saving about $2 billion,” said Torres-Springer.

Other new policies outlined in the plan include reducing the time of pre-certification when it comes to land-use proposals and “creating a fast lane” for smaller-scale projects.

But some of them are dependent on assistance and approval from outside entities, including the City Council, the governor and state lawmakers.

How those nodes of power will react to Adams’ plan is not entirely clear, although there were some indications immediately after the mayor made his announcement.

Adams’ plan will involve staffing up city agencies such as the Buildings Department, Planning Department and Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which are involved in the city’s land-use and permitting process. That might be a sticking point given austerity measures Adams’ has required from almost all city agencies, some critics said.

“This administration cannot decimate the municipal workforce and then pretend it has no effect on the people of this city simply because they say so,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens_ and Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), head of the Council’s Finance Committee, said in a joint statement Thursday.

“A set of ideas focused on increasing the pace of development to confront the affordable housing shortage while simultaneously understaffing and eliminating positions at DOB, HPD and the agencies required to do the work will not move us forward.”

But Gov. Hochul, who hinted at her own yet-to-be-released housing agenda last week, praised Adams’ ideas and said he’s “paving the way for faster, simpler housing production in New York City and transformative, transit-oriented development in the Bronx.”

“New York has become the place where workers and businesses want to be, but limited housing supply and a lack of affordability are costing far too many New Yorkers their ‘New York Dream,’” she said in a written statement. “With our state staring down a housing crisis, we will need every community, every town and every city to do its part to make housing accessible and affordable for all. My administration is ready to meet the housing crisis head-on in partnership with Mayor Adams and other local and state officials.”

Jolie Milstein, CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, also lauded the plan, saying it has “the solutions that the affordable housing industry needs to work more quickly and produce the housing necessary to address this crisis.”

“The hard work begins now,” Milstein said. “We look forward to assisting city agencies in translating the recommendations into results without delay.”