City of Yes and Missing Middle Housing

Current zoning regulations in New York City limit the construction of housing in many neighborhoods, even in places with good transportation and access to jobs. Restrictive zoning includes prescriptive use groups and bulk regulations, as well as excessive parking requirements. Together, they pose significant obstacles to building housing, creating financial burdens, and hidden costs for renters and prospective homeowners.

The citywide zoning proposal, ​“City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” would address these challenges by enabling more homes across all five boroughs – but crucially, in ways that are attuned to local context and wouldn’t noticeably change a neighborhood’s look and feel. Among many things, the initiative proposes to reintroduce middle-density buildings with Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) in the outer boroughs, enable Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), encourage Town Centers, and eliminate parking minimums. Together, they represent a holistic and interconnected strategy to expand housing stock more equitably in every neighborhood.

This two-part series examines the initiative’s promotion of missing middle-density buildings and the role they could play in distributing housing production more equitably across the city.

Promoting Missing Middle Housing has become a popular strategy in many cities across the US. This building typology represents residential buildings with multiple units compatible in scale and form with low-density areas. Middle-density housing consists of moderately sized multifamily buildings, with as few as two units per lot. This includes Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), Duplexes, Fourplexes, Courtyard Complexes, Multiplexes, and Live-Work houses. Most of these building types are already part of New York City’s current housing stock, but regulations broadly prohibit new ones from getting built.

Even though middle-density buildings are common throughout the city, current zoning regulations create significant obstacles to building new ones. A recent analysis from the Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC) estimated that from 2011 to 2020, low-density districts in New York City produced just 0.45 new housing units per 1000 residents per year, trailing the suburbs in Long Island and even Detroit, the lowest rate among the cities examined. Past policy choices have made the development of middle density incredibly scarce.

As the lack of inventory has worsened, it has become clear that many of NYC’s zoning regulations – some enacted in the 1960s and others enacted more recently – have restricted housing production and exacerbated the crisis. Between 2002 and 2013, the city adopted over 400 individual zoning map amendments affecting 392,000 properties (46% of all tax lots in the city). Most of these amendments adopted strict contextual rules, severely limiting new development, particularly middle-density housing typologies. These zoning actions were partially driven by local groups interested in preserving neighborhood ​“character” and restricting housing growth, frequently to their success.

In 2005 alone, the city adopted fifty zoning amendments, most requiring strict contextual rules for new development. Compared to the housing built the decade before the zoning changes took effect, the number of new units in Throgs Neck (Bronx), Bay Ridge (Brooklyn), and Whitestone (Queens) dropped by 74%, 49%, and 30%, respectively. In 2009, after similar downzonings took effect in North Corona II Queens and Canarsie and Sunset Park in Brooklyn, the number of residential permits dropped by 92%, 86%, and 40%, respectively. Earlier academic research examining the legacy of the zoning amendments adopted between 2002 and 2013 concluded that the combination of factors involving an influx of immigrants and renter households contributed to increasing rent burdens and overcrowding.

The City of Yes is a pro-homes proposal and an equitable development initiative. City of Yes builds on the Fair Housing Framework legislation from 2023 and the ​“Where We Live” Fair Housing plan from Fall 2021, which advocated expanding housing opportunities for low-income New Yorkers in well-resourced neighborhoods. Reintroducing diverse housing types in low-growth areas – as the City of Yes proposes – would be a significant step forward in advancing fair housing.

The justifications that enacted contextual downzonings decades ago are no longer valid today. The pressing scale of current housing needs, the high-cost burden on residents, and the scarcity of affordable housing call for an urgent reevaluation of these past zoning actions. The City of Yes initiative represents that change; its full adoption would be a significant step in making housing more abundant and equitable across the City.

The strategies that would enable and reintroduce Missing Middle Housing options will be central to the success of the City of Yes initiative. The Missing Middle proposals represent a reversal from past policy choices that have exacerbated housing scarcity and insecurity in New York City.

There are four general types of amendments proposed for the city’s low-density districts: TOD in the outer boroughs, Town Center Zoning, Accessory Dwelling Units, and reducing parking requirements. The provisions would result in modest incremental differences in density for individual sites. However, given their broad geographic applicability, the combination of middle-density strategies would make a big difference in addressing citywide housing needs. The middle-density proposals could apply to approximately 350,000 properties or about 41% of all tax lots in the city.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) prototypical neighborhood assessment concludes that lower-density neighborhoods would significantly contribute towards the new stock projected by 2039. Under the assumption of full-scope adoption and tax abatements remaining in place, approximately 305,000 to 350,000 new housing units are expected at the current pace of housing production. With the City of Yes zoning amendments, an additional 58,000 to 109,000 new units would be built, many coming from low-density neighborhoods where contextual zoning rules remain in place today.

Town Center Zoning

The City of Yes initiative proposes to reintroduce modestly sized mixed-use residential along low-density commercial corridors in the outer boroughs, referred to as ​“Town Center zoning”. Today, modest mixed-use buildings with stores on the streets and apartments already exist in these low-density corridors–most of them from the 1920s and 1950s. However, current zoning regulations pose challenges and limitations for constructing new mixed-use buildings by imposing restrictive height limits, limited allowed floor area, and excessive parking requirements.

Under the proposed initiative, all low-density districts with commercial overlays and located within the Greater Transit Zone would have access to the new R5 Town Center regulations. This means, for example, that an R4 district with a commercial overlay would receive a 2 residential FAR and 2.5 total FAR along with a maximum height of 55 feet. Parcels with commercial overlays outside the Greater Transit Zone would enable more modest density increases. Given its wide geographic applicability, Town Center zoning has big potential to generate more housing options near transit.

Enabling Accessory Dwelling Units

ADUs are an additional solution to introduce additional housing in low-density neighborhoods while preserving neighborhood character. ADUs are compact housing structures that can be built on single-family or two-family properties. These units can be built as detached or attached structures or even basements or attic apartments. ADUs offer a simple housing addition with minimal impact on the neighborhood’s character, as shown in Figure 5.

ADUs diversify the housing market by engaging a broader range of stakeholders. ADUs can accommodate a diverse demographic of residents, including seniors seeking to downsize, first-time homebuyers in search of affordable options, and young individuals looking for affordable housing solutions. Their adaptability makes them a valuable component of housing strategies, effectively meeting a variety of community needs. Furthermore, by expanding the variety of buildable home types, the city can create opportunities for small and medium-sized developers to participate more actively in the housing market. Thus, ADUs serve not only to increase housing supply but also to stimulate economic growth in an equitable way.

City of Yes would allow single - or two-family residences to add an ADU. Even though only 15 percent of residential land in NYC is zoned for single-family homes, over 314,000 parcels – almost 40 percent of all residential land – are classified as single-family dwellings. About 142,000 of these parcels meet proper dimensional criteria for doing extensions or conversions that would allow ADUs or two-family dwellings. There are an additional 250,000 two-family dwellings (26 percent of residential land). About 180,000 of these two-family dwellings are either underbuilt parcels or have large enough built floor areas to facilitate conversions. If 5% of single-family and two-family parcels that meet appropriate dimensional criteria were retrofitted with ADUs or conversions, then over 16,000 new dwelling units would be created across the city.

Lifting Costly Parking Requirements

Parking requirements refer to the number of parking spaces mandated by the city per housing unit or total square footage of a development. In New York City, the average cost to construct an underground parking space is $67,500. By limiting available space for additional units and increasing overall costs, parking requirements represent a major challenge to building new housing, particularly on small to mid-sized lots.

The city’s initiative proposes removing mandatory parking requirements, achieving a two-fold objective: first, lowering construction costs for both developers and residents and second, freeing up space to construct more housing units that would otherwise remain unbuilt or serve as parking lots. While developers can still build parking spaces if needed, lifting these requirements gives more flexibility to address demand.

An example of how removing parking requirements can lead to the construction of more units can be seen in the following scenario: In a low-density district, a house with three residential units and an FAR of 0.6 currently has four off-street parking spaces, three mandated by zoning. Under the new zoning amendments, the owners would have the option to increase the number of units and retain the existing parking spaces, but retaining them would no longer be mandatory. In this scenario, the FAR could increase to 1.0, allowing for the construction of six units, expanding green backyard space, and leaving enough room for three optional off-street parking spaces.

Lifting parking requirements has already been critical in boosting affordable housing production. An RPA analysis found that the production of new affordable units increased by 36% in the limited areas where parking requirements had been lifted. Units with the deepest affordability rose most precipitously, with a 64% increase in units for 50% AMI households and a 63% increase in units for 30% AMI households.