Adams Announces Expansion of ‘City of Yes’ and 100K Manhattan Housing Goal

Embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced several plans to continue tackling the housing issues plaguing New Yorkers — specifically families — on Thursday during his fourth State of the City address. 

City Hall plans to clear the way for 100,000 new homes in Manhattan alone, Adams said during his speech, which he delivered from the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem. 

“Over the decades, housing prices in Manhattan have gone up while working-class families have been pushed out,” Adams said. “So we’re starting to use the new zoning tools we secured from Albany and our City of Yes plan to add 100,000 new homes in Manhattan and reach a total of 1 million homes in the next decade. We like to call it ‘The Manhattan Plan.’ ” 

Adams did not give many specifics on how he would achieve the goal of 100,000 new homes in Manhattan, but he did announce another expansion to his City of Yes initiative, which recently changed the city’s outdated zoning code to allow for more housing development.

The new initiative, dubbed the City of Yes for Families, aims to create more family-friendly affordable housing in neighborhoods with schools, playgrounds and libraries. The goal is to provide New York families with greater housing options so they don’t leave the city for the suburbs, and to encourage more family-friendly neighborhoods. 

Adams said his administration will work within agencies to build more family-size housing units and multi-generational homes.

CRE experts believe City of Yes, which passed the City Council in December and reconfigured the city’s zoning code, will have a positive impact on the housing crisis in New York City over the long term. 

City of Yes has “broadened the geographic boundaries by which you could do office conversions to residential space,” James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, told Commercial Observer in a separate interview. “It reduced the mandates in many parts of the city to build out parking, which data has shown over time was essentially overbuilt and sort of replacing the ability to build other things, like housing.” 

As part of City of Yes’ proposed expansion, the Adams administration plans to create 800 new family-focused housing units alongside a new library on the Upper West Side.

Adams said he has already gotten some projects from City of Yes for Families underway, including the development of 2,000 new homes at 100 Gold Street in Brooklyn, and he mentioned five neighborhood plans to build up to 50,000 homes across Brooklyn and the Bronx. 

The administration also wants to make it easier for New Yorkers who now rent their living spaces to obtain a mortgage and acquire their own homes. 

“If you are paying rent every month, it should count toward your credit score,” he said. “We will help more New Yorkers build up credit and eventually secure a mortgage.”  

Adams has made it his mission to tackle the ongoing housing shortage in the city. In 2022 alone there were approximately 3 million New Yorkers living amid housing insecurity, according to the Office of the New York State Comptroller.

Some of Adams’s other plans to combat housing issues and homelessness in the city include investing $650 million to provide support to New Yorkers who are living on subways or wrestling with serious mental illness, and others who are at risk of entering city shelters. 

Adams has also created a task force made up of representatives from every city agency to look at the city’s real estate portfolio to find spots to develop housing. As part of that, the city recently announced plans to develop an apartment complex for low-income residents on a former Department of Sanitation garage on Staten Island.

But Adams’s State of the City comes as his administration is mired in scandal. In September, Adams was indicted by federal authorities on charges of bribery and soliciting illegal campaign contribution for an alleged straw donor scheme.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office reportedly opened a new corruption investigation targeting the city’s leasing of commercial properties, focused on potential bribery and money laundering.

Adams pleaded not guilty to the federal charges and, despite an exodus among staff in his administration, said he would not step down from his post.

“There were some who said step down, I said, ‘No, I’m going to step up,’ ” Adams said during the State of the City address.

Amanda Schiavo can be reached at aschiavo@commercialobserver.com.