Ask any young person, senior citizen, or working-class New Yorker about the biggest issues facing our city and you’ll hear the same response: affordable housing. When our administration came into office, we were clear that our city could not afford to keep kicking the can down the road on housing; it was not enough to tinker around the edges of our housing crisis, and we could not pass the buck off to a future administration. We had to undertake ambitious initiatives to build hundreds of thousands of new homes as soon as possible — and that is exactly what we have done for three years.
From the Bronx to Staten Island, across every borough and neighborhood in New York City, our administration has created record amounts of affordable housing year after year. We passed the first citywide zoning reform in 60 years to build a little more housing in every neighborhood and advanced five ambitious neighborhood plans to scrap outdated zoning in neighborhoods like Jamaica and Bronx Metro North. Rezoning is the lever that moves the boulders of bureaucracy out of the way, especially when it comes to building new housing. That is why our rezoning strategy has been such a success, helping clear the way to create an incredible 130,000 new homes across the five boroughs — more than all the rezonings under the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations combined.
Because of these historic efforts, we are proud to call ourselves the most pro-housing administration in city history.
But our administration is not going to rest on these accomplishments. We are continuing to commit ourselves to the fight for more housing on every block, in every neighborhood, and across every borough.
This past week alone, we brought hundreds of new homes across the city closer to reality. In Brownsville, we advanced our ambitious Brownsville Arts Center & Apartments project to create 283 new homes and a 28,000 square-foot state of the art cultural center. On the Lower East Side, we helped finance 190 affordable rental apartments for seniors with extra social services, outdoor spaces, and specialized amenities to support our older New Yorkers and help them remain in the city they have contributed so much to. And in Clinton Hill, we announced the redevelopment of 103 supportive and affordable homes that will help parents living with serious mental illness or substance use disorder reunite with their children and build their futures together.
But we didn’t stop there either. In East New York, we broke ground on the first phase of the “Innovative Urban Village,” which will create over 2,000 new homes, build a fresh food grocery store, and deliver social services, child care, and more. All of these projects are not just about creating new housing; they are about creating a holistic community that cares for and uplifts our fellow New Yorkers.
Previous administrations have talked about tackling our housing crisis, but our administration has gotten it done. These four projects are just the latest examples of the work we are doing every day to reach our moonshot goal of 500,000 new homes for New Yorkers by 2032.
When it comes to building new housing, New Yorkers deserve nothing less than an administration that thinks outside the box and pursues every avenue and opportunity to build, redevelop, and convert city spaces into homes. That is the more affordable city we are delivering, each and every day, as we continue to make New York City the best place to live and raise a family.
