Adams’s City of Yes Clears City Council Committees With Some Changes

The proverbial kitchen was a little backed up at City Hall on Thursday as lawmakers were at an impasse for most of the day regarding Mayor Eric Adams‘s plan to eliminate barriers to building more housing. But finally, after hours of delays, the plan cleared two New York City Council committees Thursday night.

The revised City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan, which the City Council’s Land Use Committee and its Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises both approved, scrapped part of Adams’s proposal that eliminated parking requirements for new developments across the board. Instead, the parking requirement will still stand depending on a project’s location.

The Adams administration — along with some help from Gov. Kathy Hochul — also agreed to provide $5 billion toward the construction of affordable homeownership programs and infrastructure upgrades, concessions necessary to win the council’s support, according to amNewYork.

Of the funds Adams provided, $2 billion will go toward infrastructure projects, with $1 billion slated for housing capital and another $1 billion for various tenant protection measures expected to be spread out over the next decade, Adams said.

Gov. Hochul was reportedly tapped to provide $1 billion to the Adams administration, effectively bailing out the embattled mayor who is facing a five-count federal indictment for bribery. That money will go towards housing capital over the next five years, according to Adams.

The finalized proposal also reportedly decreases the number of homes possible for developers to 80,000 units, down from 100,000, which was a major sticking point for outer borough lawmakers facing concerns about overcrowding from constituents.

The new proposal also exempts neighborhoods zoned R1-2A, R2A and R3A, primarily single-family and low-density communities.

“City of Yes was never going to fix everything. It was never an affordability strategy, it was never a production plan, and it was never a panacea for our city’s housing crisis,” Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said in a statement. “But it was at least a modest opportunity to begin addressing the discriminatory zoning practices that force low-income, Black and brown neighborhoods to do all of the work of building new housing while low-density neighborhoods get away with contributing nothing.”

While New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was already catching heat for scaling back parts of the plan, the full City Council was expected to weigh in on the proposal next month, after the city’s Planning Commission reviews the changes.

Update: This story has been updated to show that the plan passed two City Council committees.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.