Earlier today, the City Planning Commission voted to approve Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” citywide rezoning plan. Since the Department of City Planning was the actual applicant for the rezoning, this was fully expected. The plan now goes to the City Council, where its fate is unclear. The plan requires City Council approval to be implemented; public hearings and votes are expected to be scheduled for later this year. Once such hearings and votes have been announced, we will notify the public.

“City of Yes” is a doubling down on the failed housing policies of the past, and a giant giveaway to developers with little in it for average New Yorkers. The entire plan is premised on the notion that building more unaffordable housing will somehow make our city more affordable, as the plan seeks to gin up even more luxury condo development in neighborhoods like ours where it results in gentrification and escalation of housing prices. Instead of preserving and creating affordable housing, the Mayor continues to focus on how he can grease the wheels for his developer friends, claiming the benefits of lining the pockets of real estate interests will eventually trickle down to all New Yorkers. Village Preservation has generated 70,000 letters from New Yorkers to city officials in opposition to “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity.” Read Village Preservation’s specific objections to the City of Yes plan here.

You can read Village Preservation’s report debunking the contention underlying “City of Yes” that a housing shortage is the cause of New York City’s housing affordability problem, as opposed to the city building housing that most New Yorkers can’t afford, here. And you can read Village Preservation’s report showing how wildly inaccurate the Department of City Planning’s projections about the impacts of its rezonings (like “City of Yes”) have been here.

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