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The Housing Package New York City Needs from Albany


Mayor Adams wants housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


2023 began with the promise that both the State and the City of New York would finally get their acts together and take on a housing crisis that may already be handicapping our ability to recover fully from COVID-19 and certainly threatens to hamper our growth.

The good news is that Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams share substantially similar visions and that the Governor, through the housing plan in her Executive Budget, is seeking to give the City the tools critical to achieving its goals. The bad news is that the State Legislature has placed key parts of New York City’s plans to expand housing opportunities at risk by threatening not to pass those very portions of the Executive Budget.

The Governor’s budget contains legislation that would give the City authority to legalize basement apartments, grant tax abatements to buildings converted to residential use that include affordable apartments, and amend the State Multiple Dwelling Law to expand eligibility for residential conversion under special and more flexible bulk controls to non-residential buildings constructed prior to 1990. It also includes the repeal of the cap on residential floor-area-ratios (FARs) in excess of 12 – a cap that today limits the floor area of a building to 12 times the area of its lot (such as, on a 5,000 square foot lot, a building with 60,000 square feet of floor area).  

Expanding the number of buildings eligible to use special rules that ease residential conversions should be a no-brainer. It gives hundreds of office buildings that may no longer be operationally feasible because of reduced demand for office space a second chance at life through adaptive reuse. It gives the City the raw material to create thousands of new apartments and make a dent in its unbalanced housing market and, if married to appropriate property tax relief, to expand the supply of affordable apartments into neighborhoods where there are almost none today.

It ensures that the City’s Central Business Districts evolve from their pre-covid lives as vital centers of commerce into active 24-hour communities; it provides long-term support for the City’s tax base; and it conserves both the natural resources that have gone into the construction and maintenance of the converted buildings and the natural resources that will not have to be spent on demolition of the existing building and its replacement structure.  

The elimination of the 12 FAR cap on residential floor area has been a part of State housing proposals for many years. And for just as many years it has been quietly killed by legislators who have bought into the canard that repeal of the cap will immediately open the floodgates to out-of-scale development that will overwhelm the City’s neighborhoods. Nothing could be further from the truth.  

In fact, the elimination of the cap by itself will not change any of the zoning rules affecting new construction. Any change must first be incorporated into the City’s zoning law, which can only be done after long and very public land use and environmental review processes. Nor will it overwhelm the City’s residential neighborhoods; the areas certain to benefit from the change are the City’s Central Business Districts, where development is already permitted at more than 12 FAR and where substantial buildings are already permitted. And it need not lead inexorably to super-tall buildings. As demonstrated by some of the most admired and contextual 12+ FAR buildings in the City, including such landmarks as the Beresford and Carlyle Hotel, building form is primarily a function of envelope controls and not of FAR.  

The elimination of the cap is also critical to the success of the expanded residential conversion program, because so many of the newly-eligible buildings were developed to more than 12 FAR. This will encourage the use of the recently-adopted floor-area bonuses for transit improvements by allowing all bonus floor area – both generated by affordable housing and generated by a subway improvement – to be used for residential use; and it offers a framework for incentivizing affordable housing in the City’s Central Business Districts, where there is virtually none today.  

The gravity of the housing crisis and the importance of a revitalized, post-covid New York City have led to an almost unheard of agreement between a Governor and a New York City Mayor – an agreement that can give the City tools it needs to create new housing, recover, and grow. At the same time, the actions of the Legislature in stalling these initiatives, all of which should be beyond controversy, demonstrates the measure of our political dysfunction today. The Legislature should give the City the help it needs by passing the City-oriented housing proposals in the Executive Budget without further ado.   

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Paul D. Selver is co-chair of the Land Use Department at the Manhattan law firm Kramer Levin.

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There’s Nothing Unsafe About the New Safe Haven Coming to the Upper West Side


Looking for shelter (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


As an Upper West Side resident, I’ve heard a lot of discussion recently about plans for a Safe Haven on West 83rd Street. While many of my neighbors have expressed excitement about this new neighborhood resource, others have voiced concerns about its potential impact on the safety of our neighborhood.

I’m a former prosecutor and an advocate for survivors of crime and their families. I’m also a mom of three — two in New York City public schools and one in diapers. Believe me: I care about community safety. Yours, mine, my children’s — everyone’s. And there is nothing about this project that makes me feel unsafe.

This Safe Haven, which will be run by Breaking Ground, a pioneer of solutions to end homelessness, will provide shelter and robust on-site wrap-around services for single adults who are currently living on the streets. The Safe Haven will offer psychiatric and medical care, case management, and housing and harm-reduction specialists, among other services for residents.

Importantly, it will provide more privacy than typical shelters do, with one-, two-, three-, or four-person rooms, instead of the possible 30 or 50 cots to a giant room that might be found at some of the larger shelters. Lack of privacy and dignity is one of the main reasons why folks hesitate to enter traditional shelters, as is losing belongings or being separated from service animals, another thing that won’t happen at this site (residents will be allowed to keep their animals as long as space allows).

It’s no surprise, then, that the Safe Haven model has proven more effective at getting people inside and connected to services. From 2020 to 2022, as city data on the outcomes of end-of-line subway outreach showed, 63% of individuals offered Safe Haven beds stayed there long-term, compared to just 24% of individuals placed in traditional shelters.

If we want to prevent crime, this is exactly the kind of community investment we need, alongside investments in permanent affordable housing. Contrary to the idea that a Safe Haven is dangerous for the surrounding neighborhood, research shows that investing in housing and mental health services decreases crime.

Which is why I find the arguments against this site so cynical. Those making them, most recently on the Fox and Friends television program, know that blocking this Safe Haven will not do anything to make New York safer or stronger. They’re just hoping that they can displace poverty and need to someone else’s neighborhood. They want to use their wealth and political power to do what white Americans have been doing for centuries: keeping opportunity for themselves, and keeping Black and brown New Yorkers out.

As I prepare to move into a home in the West 70s from my current home in the West 90s, knowing this Safe Haven will be nearby provides me peace of mind. Homelessness already exists in our city and our neighborhood. Right now, when my family crosses paths with neighbors who are unsheltered, we have few nearby options to offer them. 

Folks who want to come inside are required to travel to large intake shelters in the Bronx and Midtown, where they often sleep in rooms with dozens of people and are subject to onerous restrictions and curfews. Some decide it’s not worth it. The addition of this Safe Haven changes things: it will give people an option to connect with nearby shelter and services. With this Safe Haven, people will be referred directly by street outreach teams — allowing them to come straight inside to a smaller setting. It provides low-barrier entry, wrap-around support, and helps address problems that can feel intractable, including providing access to care for people living with mental illness.

And, far from feeling as though this shelter is some kind of threat to my children, I view it as an opportunity for them to learn to exist in a world of deep injustices. Trying to seal our children off from the reality of these inequalities doesn’t make them go away. My family is so lucky — we have so much.

I want my children to grow up with a sense of empathy and care for the people around them who have less.

In a deeply unequal city, I want my children to understand that every person deserves respect and compassion. And I want them to fight for a world where that vision is fully realized — a world where no one has to sleep outside.

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Ilana Turko is an Upper West Side mother of three children and former employee of the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. Her last role in government was as the founding Executive Director of the country's first municipal Office of Crime Victim Supports.

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New York Needs the Housing Access Voucher Program


Celebrating housing policy (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


Of the almost 600,000 people experiencing homelessness in the United States on any given night in 2022, more than half of them were in one of four states -- New York, California, Florida, and Washington -- with New York alone accounting for 13% of the total homeless population, over 90,000 people. Some 30,000 of this population are families with children in New York City. And rising homelessness isn’t just a problem in the Big Apple but across our state: homelessness has nearly tripled in Syracuse since 2022, for example.

Taken together, these figures show that over the past year, what was abundantly clear already has become even plainer: New York is in the midst of a historic homelessness crisis, with tragic consequences for huge numbers of New Yorkers, and a disproportionate impact on communities of color. 

Aware of New York’s crushing affordability issues, Governor Hochul released the New York Housing Compact earlier this year, which seeks to halt exclusionary housing practices and spur new housing development over the medium- and long-term. But New Yorkers experiencing homelessness tonight surely feel little consolation in imagining homes that may be available several years or even a decade from now.

This crisis demands both long-term and immediate actions, and the Governor and Legislature must move policies forward that provide rapid relief for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness or on the brink of eviction now. One way our state leaders can and must provide this support is by funding the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) in the upcoming state budget.

HAVP is a rental assistance supplement that would allow New Yorkers experiencing or at risk of homelessness to either secure housing or pay their rent. In this regard, HAVP not only helps those currently homeless to find and afford housing, but it helps those on the brink of eviction from becoming homeless and entering the shelter system. Given that re-admission to homeless shelters too often becomes a permanent cycle, helping New Yorkers avoid shelters in the first place is critical to reducing the overwhelming demand on the system.

The far-reaching benefits of rental assistance programs like HAVP are well-documented. As the NYU Furman Center explains, the “existing literature points to a robust array of [likely] positive outcomes.” A separate federal study from Housing and Urban Development finds that among families receiving housing vouchers, fewer children were removed from homes and separated from their families, there were fewer school and childcare absences, and less evidence of alcohol or drug problems, 20 months later.

The research also suggests that vouchers helped facilitate exits from violent relationships, decreasing the prevalence of domestic violence and psychological distress. And additional federal research reaffirms the connection between housing stability and broad positive outcomes, including educational, employment, health, and family outcomes. Conversely, children lacking stable housing are “more vulnerable to mental health problems, developmental delays, and poor cognitive outcomes,” while youth with stable homes are less likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school.

The Furman Center has also conducted a thorough economic analysis of the proposed HAVP program, which shows that given its expected benefits, both in the short- and long-term, HAVP is a cost-effective — and crucial — investment. Ultimately, rental assistance programs like HAVP reduce the burden on our public shelter system, and the costs associated, by preventing the need for such stays before they begin. The impact of this type of program has been nationally recognized and is in alignment with the Biden-Harris administration's call for states to set plans to reduce homelessness 25% by 2025.

As our state and its communities work to combat the worst homelessness crisis since the Great Depression, our solutions need to include long-term solutions and programs that will yield results in the near-term. With the Housing Compact, the Governor has designed a plan to create more housing across our state in the decade ahead. The Governor and the State Legislature have each proposed plans to create more affordable housing and protect existing affordable housing across our state into the future.

To support our neighbors who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness now, we encourage the Governor and State Legislature to enact HAVP, a program that would immediately change the lives of many New Yorkers, right away and for generations to come.

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Baaba Halm is vice president and New York market leader at Enterprise Community Partners, and Barika Williams is Executive Director at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. On Twitter @BaabaKHalm of @Enterprise_NYC & @barikaXw of @ANHDNYC.

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