The Mayor’s controversial “City of Yes” housing plan advanced through two critical committees on Nov. 21, the last step before a full council vote on Dec. 5 will determine its fate.
The plan, which incorporates adjustments that were hashed out during the committee phase, includes $5 billion in funds for affordable housing projects. To achieve its goal of “a little more housing in every neighborhood,” the proposal calls for a series of changes to the city’s zoning and building regulations that would allow developers to build more units of different types of housing citywide.
The council made changes to some of the more hotly contested parts of the plan, including affordability incentives, parking mandates and rules on accessory dwelling units. The changes reduced the total number of estimated units the city would add over a 15-year period from 109,000—as the initial plan sought—down to 80,000.
Despite opposition from seven out of 12 Bronx community boards, a majority of council members who sat on the two committees voted for the updated version of the plan, voting 4 – 3 in the subcommittee and 8 – 2 in the full committee vote. All four Bronx city council members on the committee and subcommittees, including council members Amanda Farias, Kevin Riley, Rafael Salamanca and Pierina Sanchez, voted “yes.”
Sanchez, who is the Housing Committee Chair and represents District 14 in the Northwest Bronx, said the vote was critical in beginning to address the city’s housing affordability crisis.
“It takes an incredible amount of courage to do what is right, even in the face of vocal opposition,” said Sanchez in a statement following the vote. “Saying ‘no’ may seem like the easier position to take, but we have a duty to take a broader, long-term perspective on our city’s housing crisis. We must do everything in our power to house our fellow New Yorkers, and today, we are one step closer to doing just that.”
Although the Bronx council members on the committees advanced the modified plan, some Bronxites -including Council Member Kristy Marmorato, who represents the northeast section of Bronx – oppose the rezoning plan.
Marmorato told the Bronx Times that she will vote against the plan when it goes before the council on Dec. 5, citing feedback from her constituents, who argue that it would put a strain on infrastructure and would undermine the residential feel of the area.
For instance, Joseph Vaini, who lives in Marmorato’s district, said the “City of Yes” unfairly targets lower density neighborhoods and doesn’t consider whether existing services and infrastructure can support a population increase.
“We don’t have enough cops, we don’t have enough firefighters, we don’t have enough hospital beds,” Vaini said. “We don’t have enough anything that will support a major increase in population over the next 10 years and I don’t see any plan in place to address that.”
The latest version of ‘City of Yes’ allocated $2 billion to address infrastructure concerns like stormwater and drainage systems, street improvements, open space, and sewer upgrades. But outside of another line item allocating 200 additional staff members to the city agencies in charge of housing inspections, the modifications did not mention staffing NYPD or FDNY to keep up with population growth.
Riley, who is the chair of the Subcommittee for Zoning and Franchises and represents District 12 in northeast Bronx, said the city council listened to community voices in the marathon public hearing in October and tried to address the most common concerns. While he said the updated plan addressed many issues, he said that it was impossible to make everyone happy.
“Is it perfect?” Riley said. “Of course, it’s never going to be perfect. But it’s a good balance on how we can address the concern that we have to build more affordable housing and housing in general, and also not change the character of our communities too much.”
One of the most heated debates in the Bronx and other outer boroughs came over parking mandates. The original plan tried removing all parking mandates for new multifamily developments. But after fierce opposition from community members in transit deserts like many sections of the Bronx, city council modified the proposal to create three distinct zones within the city that require increasing levels of mandated parking.
Most of the Bronx would fall within ‘Zone 2’ and would see a “significant reduction in multi-family residential parking requirements” under the new plan. The outermost portions of the borough would fall within ‘Zone 3’ which would maintain most parking mandates, according to the city’s new plan. Riley said that he thought the parking zones were appropriate for most Bronxites, and that the city council tried to address the concerns of residents who still needed access to vehicles.
“It is still challenging,” Riley said. “We have [council] members that still want to give some pushback because they feel like they don’t have any access to any transportation, and that comes to how we have to fix our transportation system.”
The council also made changes to the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) provisions, also called “granny units,” which was designed to allow homeowners to convert space into apartments to house multiple generations of family or ease the financial burden of property ownership through rental income.
The revisions increased geographic and building restrictions for ADUs to respond to concerns over flooding from rainfall instead of focusing solely on coastal flooding as originally proposed. The new plan would also require that the homeowner live on the property as a guard against real estate developers purchasing one- and two-family homes as investments.
Perhaps the most uniform criticism across the five boroughs was the objection to affordability requirements. The original ‘City of Yes’ made affordable housing units a ‘bonus’ for developers that wished to increase the size of their developments beyond what would be allowed for market rate units. Those additional units needed to be considered affordable for families making 60% of area median income, but under the updated plan, some ‘bonus’ affordable housing units must be considered affordable for people making up to 40% of area median income in certain sized developments.
Rita Zullo, who is a board member of the Coalition of East Bronx Community Associations that represents associations and community board members opposed to the ‘City of Yes’ plan, expressed skepticism. She does not believe that offering bonus incentives for affordable housing will result in creating additional units that most Bronxites could afford.
“I don’t see that happening,” said Zullo “No one does. We need to demand transparency in the ‘City of Yes’ initiative that they’re trying to push and we don’t have any.”
While the city council’s modifications appear to have addressed some of the most polarizing parts of the plan – either way the vote swings – most representatives said some New Yorkers were bound to be upset. Riley encouraged optimism, saying that the evolution from the original proposal to the city council’s revised version is evidence of the city’s ability to work together.
“I feel like people who are against this plan, even though it’s it’s going to pass they’re going to disengage, and I feel like that’s the wrong thing to do,” said Riley. “I think you should still stay engaged because there are still ways that you can have input in your community.”
