A state bill designed to override local landmark and zoning protections is gathering steam in the State legislature, and could have incredibly damaging long-term consequences for neighborhood and historic preservation.

The misleadingly named “Faith-Based Affordable Housing Act” has little to do with affordable housing, and certainly doesn’t inspire much faith. It would nullify all future landmark designations to allow oversized developments on any religious site, and would override local zoning regulations to allow out-of-scale buildings and towers on residential side streets and other low-scale areas. The bill’s unclear language even threatens current landmark designations, and the bill’s sponsors have refused to address any of these concerns.

The bill allows developers on religious properties to override landmark and zoning protections to construct buildings that are as little as 65% residential, so long as a small fraction of the residential space has income and cost restrictions. That means most of the building can be super-luxury housing (peering over otherwise low-scaled, height-restricted structures), and as little as 13% of the entire building can qualify as “affordable” housing. But even those modest levels of “affordability” can still be higher than most New Yorkers can afford. In exchange, the developer gets to build as tall as the top of the church steeple, and even taller and denser if the site happens to be within 800 ft. of a major avenue or any other site with zoning that allows very tall, dense construction.

This may sound too outrageous to be true, but it is. The bill has plenty of sponsors in the Senate and Assembly, and they, along with the anti-preservation, pro-deregulation group behind the bill, are waging an aggressive campaign to secure its passage in this legislative session.

We are working with a coalition of groups across New York City and State to oppose this bill. If passed, the legislation would clearly be the nose of the camel — a first step toward stripping away landmark and zoning protections for neighborhoods and historic sites to enable more, and more oversized, developments. Read our recent joint letter to bill sponsors here, and our letter to local State Senators Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Brian Kavanaugh, who are sponsors of the bill, here.

TO HELP:

Help us continue this and other vital battles to preserve history and oppose developer giveaways.