Despite New York City’s deepening housing shortage, more than 2,600 apartments were removed from development proposals during public negotiations since the start of 2022, according to a Gothamist review of Department of City Planning documents and project outcomes.
Records show that at least 17 residential rezoning plans submitted by developers and the city’s housing agency to the Department of City Planning were scrapped or reduced during a complex land use review process, which allows locals, municipal agencies and elected officials to weigh in on proposals. The plans faced a range of obstacles, from concerns over too few apartments for low-income New Yorkers to disdain from neighbors who didn’t want a tall building rising near their smaller homes.
The reduction in proposed units comes as New York City faces soaring rents, record-high levels of homelessness, and ongoing debates over where and how to best build new housing.
The roughly 2,600 proposed apartments pulled from the various projects wouldn’t solve the city’s growing housing crisis, which requires more than half a million new units to meet population growth, but housing experts and city officials say examining the total number of trimmed units could help developers, city agencies and communities reach agreements that chip away at New York’s growing affordability crisis without contentious battles that can tank each plan.
“Every proposal that would add more housing is both a local project and part of a broader solution to our problem,” said Howard Slatkin, the executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council and a former City Planning administrator. “Tracking this is a way to hold our process and leaders accountable to the broader housing need.”
The aggregate data, which has not been previously published, also shows just how hard it can be to build new housing in the five boroughs, said Kirk Goodrich, president of Monadnock Development.
If 100 affordable housing units are trimmed from a 1,000-unit proposal, it can be nearly impossible to find another location where those “lost” apartments can be built, he said.
“It’s far more efficient to add floors to a building that’s planned than to add a separate building,” Goodrich said. ”I understand urban design and context but I also understand people living on the streets and sidewalks and doubled up. I understand those things more than people’s design sensibilities.”
The Department of City Planning declined to comment for this story.
If the proposals had been approved as they were submitted, they would have totaled about 5,600 new units — though not necessarily homes aligned with the income levels, character or specific needs of the surrounding neighborhoods. The projects included a proposed 945-unit apartment complex in Harlem that drew citywide attention when a developer pulled the plan, and a 14-unit building that was quietly killed in Kew Gardens. Nearly 1,200 of the units that got canned were considered “affordable,” with rents capped for low- and middle-income earners.
The city’s monthslong review process culminates in a binding vote by the full City Council, which traditionally defers to the local councilmember on plans in their district.
In the case of eight housing proposals, developers or the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development formally withdrew an application before it reached a Council vote because of opposition from local councilmembers. In nine other projects, a developer or HPD went ahead with a scaled-back version of their plan to win approval from the legislative body.
At times, reducing the total number of units led to other outcomes sought by community members, like more apartments priced for the lowest-income New Yorkers, or larger units with more bedrooms, records show. Developers have also been known to inflate the unit count or height of their building proposals knowing they will have to trim them during negotiations.
Leah Goodridge, a tenant attorney and one of 13 City Planning commissioners, said residents usually have valid reasons for opposing a project or calling for changes. It’s the only chance they have to react to a proposal presented to them by a powerful developer or city agency, she said.
“Are there times when community members say, ‘We don’t want any low-income housing at all?’ Yes, that happens sometimes,” she said. “But a lot of people are labeled as ‘NIMBY’ when it’s not accurate. There are a lot who say, ‘I want this housing, but not enough of it is affordable’ or ‘We want housing, but too much of it is studios.’”
“Community voices matter,” she added.
Different reasoning, fewer homes
Each of the 17 plans had a different reason for being trimmed or eliminated, including “Not In My Backyard” backlash from local residents, demands for reduced rents in new apartments, and concerns that concentrated development in low-income areas drives gentrification. But the final outcomes meant less housing got built, said Annemarie Gray, executive director of the organization Open New York.
“There are always particulars to each project, but writ large, when you look at these numbers, we definitely have enough stories and enough examples of lawmakers talking about prioritizing affordable housing but actively reducing or killing projects,” said Gray, a former city housing adviser.
A handful of proposals in Brooklyn and Queens highlight the panoply of reasons why some councilmembers push back on projects, each one tailored to the specific demands of their constituents.
In Midwood, the firm Plaza Realty pulled its plan to build a 231-unit, eight-story apartment complex on Coney Island Avenue in March after the local community board complained it was out of character with the one- and two-family homes nearby, according to public testimony.
Councilmember Kalman Yeger also blasted the proposal, which included 60 units of income-restricted housing, and urged the developer to build smaller. But the developer said that wouldn’t be financially feasible without a property tax break and pulled the proposal two days before a council vote.
It was one of at least three housing proposals developers have withdrawn in Yeger’s district over the past two years, records show. He did not respond to multiple inquiries for this story.
Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers negotiated to reduce the size of four housing projects in her Queens district over the past two years, arguing that any new housing projects must meet local demands.
Dolores Orr, chair of Community board 14, praised Brooks-Powers’ decision to scale back some of the proposals, warning that they don’t have the infrastructure to withstand hundreds or thousands of new residents.
In one example, Brooks-Powers pushed the city to trim a parcel of privately owned land from a 166-acre rezoning on the Rockaway Peninsula known as Resilient Edgemere last year. In a public hearing, DCP said the change forced them to halve the city’s new housing estimate for the plan from about 1,100 units to 530. The initial proposal included more than 1,200 new apartments, city records show.
The dramatic reduction drew questions from the City Planning Commission during a brief hearing before the Council’s vote last year.
“Sometimes the land use rationale is different from the political calculus rationale,” Department of City Planning Queens Deputy Director Jonathan Keller told members.
Brooks-Powers told Gothamist she takes a “holistic” look at new development proposals in a district where thousands of new homes are going up as part of large-scale projects. She said she specifically sought to ensure new developments “meet the demands of the community, like a pathway to homeownership.”
A portion of the new units planned in the Resilient Edgemere project will be available for purchase. She also negotiated to reduce another project, known as Ocean Crest, from 106 to 89 units, but all of them will provide homeownership opportunities at affordable rates.
In Kew Gardens Hills, a proposed 119-unit complex was reduced by nearly 40% in July 2022 after Councilmember James Gennaro told developers to modify their application and reduce the maximum height of the building by 30 feet. The modification came after dozens of neighborhood residents criticized the eight-story proposal.
A spokesperson for Gennaro said the councilmember was unable to comment for this story, but previously told constituents in an email that the building “was not contextual as originally proposed.”
Over the past two years, councilmembers, borough presidents and some developers have tried to avoid these kinds of outcomes proactively. Some councilmembers have already issued rubrics for developers to follow if they want to earn their support for a project, and real estate firms have sought community input even before starting the public review process.
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has also pledged to get more housing plans across the finish line.
Earlier this month, the city enacted a plan to set new affordable housing benchmarks for all 59 community districts based on legislation the speaker introduced.
Her spokesperson Benjamin Fang said the speaker is setting “an expectation and tone” for councilmembers to back new affordable housing in their districts.
“While every land use application is unique, with varying factors that impact its outcome, the speaker has made clear that affordable housing production must be prioritized at a time of great need,” Fang said.
Leave a Reply