Several New York City neighborhoods have been identified as permitting the lowest rates of affordable housing construction over the past five years, prompting new city measures aimed at accelerating development in these areas. According to an analysis by the Department of City Planning, 12 community districts, including neighborhoods on Staten Island’s South Shore, Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, and Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides, have approved minimal affordable housing despite growing demand.
Starting Jan. 1, the New York City Council will lose its authority to reject many new housing projects in these low-development districts, a change resulting from voter-approved ballot measures intended to address the city’s ongoing housing shortage. Under the new rules, the City Planning Commission will assume primary approval power over projects that include affordable housing in these areas, bypassing the traditional requirement for full Council consent. The commission’s members are predominantly mayoral appointees.
“For far too long, our city has lagged in terms of housing production relative to our growth, especially regarding affordable housing,” said Sideya Sherman, director of the Department of City Planning. The districts identified are clustered mainly in parts of eastern Queens, southern Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Manhattan’s Upper West and Upper East Sides. The shift reflects a broader effort to spur housing development in neighborhoods that have contributed little to affordable housing growth compared to their existing housing stock.
The analysis calculated rates of affordable housing production by dividing the number of affordable units permitted between 2021 and 2026 by the total housing units in the district as of 2021. For instance, Bay Ridge, with over 55,000 homes, added only three affordable units in that period. Similarly, a Queens district including Rosedale and Cambria Heights, home to more than 66,000 households, built just nine affordable units. Even the Upper West Side, which added more than 150 affordable homes, registered a low relative rate due to its large and dense housing base. Each of these 12 districts had an affordable housing production rate of 0.2 percent or less.
In contrast, the Bronx features the districts with the highest rates of affordable housing growth, with the top five community districts adding over 2,500 affordable homes each and achieving rates above 7 percent.
The City Council opposed the ballot measures that reduced its veto authority over development projects, citing the loss of leverage to secure neighborhood amenities like parks and schools and to negotiate higher levels of affordability. Phil Wong, a Democratic Council member from Queens, criticized the shift as weakening community influence on local planning. “New Yorkers voted for these charter changes, whether everyone fully understood what they were voting for or not, and unfortunately this is one of the consequences,” he said.
Republican Council member Frank Morano, representing Staten Island’s South Shore, expressed similar concerns about diminished local accountability. “The answer to the housing crisis can’t be stripping communities of their voice and then calling that progress,” he said, emphasizing the need for development to align with neighborhood infrastructure and resident needs.
In addition to altering approval authority, the ballot measures also granted Mayor Zohran Mamdani enhanced powers to expedite city-financed affordable housing projects, which he has begun to utilize. Other measures approved by voters aim to facilitate modest expansions of housing developments and establish an appeals board capable of overruling Council rejections of affordable housing proposals, with final decisions requiring agreement among the mayor, Council speaker, and relevant borough president.
Council Speaker Julie Menin, representing the Upper East Side, stressed the importance of comprehensive city planning to accompany anticipated growth. “That means working with communities to identify where new housing makes sense and ensuring that growth is accompanied by transit, infrastructure, public space and other investments neighborhoods need,” she said.
The impact of these governance changes on New York’s housing landscape will likely become clearer over the coming years as developers and communities adjust to the new regulatory environment.