The New York City Council is expected to vote Tuesday to approve another major housing project, a sign that elected officials are increasingly willing to work with the real estate industry to address the city’s pressing housing crisis.
The project, a massive $2 billion development known as Innovation Queens, will span five city blocks and add more than 3,000 homes in Astoria.
The proposal had been mired in weeks of contentious negotiations, as New York City once again grappled with compelling but conflicting interests: how to balance critical housing needs with the neighborhood’s concerns about affordability and gentrification.
Major proposals, such as a rezoning of Industry City in Brooklyn and a proposed new headquarters for Amazon in Queens, have been thwarted in recent years; and earlier this year a project in Harlem to build 900 apartments died after the city councilman opposed it.
Innovation Queens appeared to be facing a similar fate, with the city councillor, Julie Won, opposing the plan, saying it would not require enough affordable housing, especially for those at the lowest income levels. She was supported by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes Astoria.
But developers and the city’s housing department agreed to double the allocation of affordable housing units to 1,400, or about 45 percent of the project.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who took office in January, supported the project and other recent housing plans in Throgs Neck in the Bronx and Halletts Point in Queens that were approved by city council after opposition from local council members.
“This is exactly the kind of historic work we need to do to tackle the housing shortage that is at the root of our affordable housing crisis,” Mr Adams said in a statement Monday after the Council’s Land Use Committee approved Innovation Queens .
But even as elected officials celebrated victory, concerns grew that the city was moving too slowly to address the housing crisis and that Mr. Adams was not creating affordable housing fast enough. Rents have risen sharply this year, interest rates are rising, a major tax stimulus for Albany developers expired and the Adams administration is grappling with a staffing crisis at key departments overseeing housing.
Mr Adams last week announced a football stadium deal in Queens that is expected to create 2,500 affordable homes. But that housing is not expected to be completed until 2030, and the Innovation Queens project in Astoria could take a decade to complete, though some parts could be completed sooner.
The city’s efforts to build affordable housing have been anemic. Officials were only able to start building or preserving about 16,000 homes below market price in the most recent fiscal year ending in June — nearly half the average number in the previous four years.
“We’ve seen the city’s housing output drop 43 percent in one year alone,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, a nonprofit advocacy group. “There are really big challenges ahead.”
Still, Ms. Fee said the approval of the Queens project should be considered a victory.
“We really need the Council to work with the Adams administration and really look closely at what the other opportunities are in the city,” she said.
The 51-seat city council has an unspoken tradition, known as deference to members, that allows a council member to effectively veto land use proposals in their district. City Council speaker Adrienne E. Adams has indicated she is open to ending the practice, saying she values community input but not “irrational opposition that rejects much-needed housing.”
Ms Won, who is part of the Council’s progressive caucus, opposed the project. But she announced her support on Monday after developers agreed to build more than 1,400 affordable units — about 45 percent of the total — and double the 700 units they originally proposed.
“From day 1, I have stood with my community to demand greater affordability of this development,” said Ms Won.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a left-wing Democrat representing Queens and the Bronx, said concessions from the developers sent a “strong message that when it comes to new housing, our neighborhoods don’t have to settle for crumbs of affordability.”
Housing has become an increasingly pressing problem in New York City – part of a national housing shortage in which Americans are struggling to buy homes.
The average household spends nearly 35 percent of its income on rent, up from less than 30 percent in the mid-2000s. The average rent of newly rented apartments in Manhattan hit a record $4,000 this year. Homelessness also reached record levels with more than 61,000 people.
Many of the city’s problems, including the high cost of living, stem from the shortage. The New York metropolitan area needed more than 340,000 additional homes in 2019, according to a May estimate from Up for Growth, a Washington-based policy and research group. The shortage is most acute for lower-income New Yorkers, many of whom spend more than half of their income on housing.
Mayor Adams released his housing plan this summer, but declined to give a specific target for affordable housing. His predecessor, Bill de Blasio, made investing in affordable housing a cornerstone of his efforts to reduce inequality, and his administration maintained or built more than 200,000 affordable homes, including about 30,000 in fiscal year 2020.
The Adams administration has seen thousands of city employees leave, slowing down work at agencies like Home Preservation and Development and the Buildings Department. The city’s workforce has declined by 19,000 workers in the past two years, according to a recent state comptroller’s report that found vacancy rates in the Buildings Department were nearly 25 percent.
Innovation Queens is being developed through a collaboration between Silverstein Properties, BedRock Real Estate Partners and Kaufman Astoria Studios. The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the expected vote in the Council.
Drawings of the project include glass buildings, public parks, a playground and a “community center” for nonprofits. But some objected to the inclusion of Gucci and Chanel stores in those drawings, fearing it would become another neighborhood for the wealthy.
Ms. Won said in a television interview on NY1 last month that there were more than 20 homeless shelters in her district and that there was a huge demand for affordable housing.
“This results in more parking spaces being offered than affordable units,” she said.
