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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Okay, I can't resist, one of those Eric Adams' lines. Last night, Trump said, "I've never met a person who's a vegan, who liked turkey so much," but I'm bummed, but seriously, Adam still has a city to run. Now, we're going to talk about City of Yes, which is the Mayor's big plan to update New York City's zoning regulations, and address the dire housing crisis.

As City Council prepares to begin two days of public hearings on this proposal starting Monday, we're going to give you a chance to sound off right now to Dan Garodnick, Director of the New York City Department of City Planning. Dan recently made this case, the case for City of Yes in an op-ed for the Queen's Daily Eagle. He simply wrote, "Simply put, because there aren't enough homes for New Yorkers," he says, "City of Yes is a necessary response to New York's severe housing crisis, characterized by record-high rents and limited supply."

He also tried to dispel some misinformation about the proposal that he says is out there and, "Clear the air." Now, the plan obviously faces scrutiny, as any plan should. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams recently stated that, "While zoning reform is important, it alone cannot address the wide-ranging housing needs of New Yorkers."

She announced the Council's intention to pursue its own thorough housing action plan, as she called it, as part of the final negotiations, so we'll talk about that and more. Dan Garodnick, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you for coming on.

Dan Garodnick: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, of course, we want to hear from you on all sides of this. Most of you won't be able to get to those public hearings on Monday and Tuesday in City Council, so tell Dan Garodnick, the Director of the City's Department of City Planning, anything you want about your neighborhood, and City of Yes, or ask any question. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text. For people who are still relatively new to this, can you give us a one-line summary of City of Yes?

Dan Garodnick: One line is hard, but I'll give it a shot.

Brian Lehrer: All right, a paragraph.

Dan Garodnick: This is a hard effort.

Brian Lehrer: This is a long-form show, you get a paragraph.

Dan Garodnick: Fair enough. This is our effort to enable a little bit more housing in every neighborhood of New York City, which in the aggregate, will meaningfully move the needle on our need to create housing supply in New York City, while also not having the sorts of impacts in individual neighborhoods that people frequently fear. We are in the middle of a housing crisis. People are feeling it at all levels. We need to take action, and this is an opportunity to do it, and to do it this year.

Brian Lehrer: How does City of Yes differ from previous zoning reform efforts in New York City? What do you say to those who might be cringing and saying, "Oh, zoning reform. I know what that means. That means a lot more density in my neighborhood, and maybe a lot more lower income people in my neighborhood than I want."?

Dan Garodnick: Well, this is the first time that a mayoral administration is taking action to create new housing in every neighborhood, from the lowest to the highest density. It is different, in that, it is an effort to take a real bite out of the problem. It contrasts with our neighborhood planning process, where you're really adding a lot more density at a much more local level, by spreading it out, by allowing a little bit more everywhere, and being respectful to local communities, and trying to match the character and context of existing neighborhoods.

We think that we're able to do this in a more significant way, than has ever been attempted before, and we should because of the moment that we are in. This housing crisis didn't just creep up on us. It's not a 2-year or a 5-year or a 10-year problem, this is decades in the making, and people feel it. They feel it on the price of their rent. They feel it on the displacement pressures in their own neighborhoods, gentrification.

We have homelessness at such high levels. 93,000 New Yorkers in shelters, measured at the end of last year, about a third of them children. An average stay of about 520 days. A year and a half, people are spending in our shelter system. The balance of power between landlords and tenants in New York City. If you're looking to find a way to negotiate the price of your rent, or you're looking to find an apartment to increase your leverage in that negotiation, or even to get a basic repair in your own unit, it's extremely difficult, because you do not have that leverage.

We need to create more balance, give tenants more opportunities. Too many New Yorkers are struggling. 50% of them are rent-burdened, meaning, they pay more than a third of their income, their gross income, that is, on rent, that's too much. We don't need to live this way. We have an opportunity to tackle this problem right now.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call from someone who remembers an old zoning reform that was intended to create more housing that he thinks backfired in his neighborhood. It's Phil in Williamsburg. You're on WNYC. Hi, Phil.

Phil: Hey, good morning, Brian. Yes, I want to talk about that, because essentially, the point I want to make is, your guest mentioned displacement pressures on existing tenants, so essentially what happened in Williamsburg was, in 2005, the city of New York rezoned Williamsburg, which allowed for the development of all these luxury buildings on the waterfront.

Now, a certain amount of those buildings had a certain percentage of affordable housing. However, what it ended up doing was, it created this, almost like luxury land rush in Williamsburg, and landlords went around to people like me, long time existing rent stabilized tenants, and mercilessly tried to displace us from our apartments.

It was such a pervasive problem that they strengthened the rent laws in 2019, but so many people were intimidated, and pressured out of their apartments in Williamsburg, that my point to your guess is that, all of the affordable housing that was created in these luxury buildings, in my opinion, was pretty much wiped out by the displacement of all the existing tenants that were already living in affordable apartments.

For example, they now renovated an apartment in my building that was once affordable, that now rents for over $4,000 a month. My question is, is there some type of program where they really just come up with an idea of building 100% affordable housing? Because I don't think that this mix of luxury and affordable really works. What happened to Penn Plaza and places like that in the '60s and the '70s where they developed these middle-income-[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: That really have all affordable housing.

Phil: -100% buildings?

Brian Lehrer: Phil, thank you very much. Where do you want to start with that, Dan? Is it, perhaps, with an acknowledgement that Williamsburg is the Frankenstein's monster of past rezoning efforts in the context of affordable housing?

Dan Garodnick: Well, I think Phil makes a really important point about the need for us to create 100% affordable housing. That's got to be part of the picture here. The displacement pressures that people are feeling in New York City today are severe, and they are citywide. Why is that happening? It's because, when you have housing scarcity, and there is a battle for the opportunity to live somewhere, people with resources tend to live, to win out against people without resources.

We do not want that to be the case. That is why we do need to increase supply rather significantly in New York City, and why we have taken on this problem on a citywide basis, in contrast to a neighborhood wide basis. I will also note that, neighborhood plans are really important. They are a significant source for housing production. Williamsburg, yes.

We also have a number of neighborhood plans that are live right now in all corners of the city. We just approved one up in the Bronx, and near the future, Bronx Metro-North stations, particularly in Morris Park, Parkchester/Van Nest.

We made some land use changes, and now, as part of our neighborhood planning process, we have mandatory inclusionary housing. When we are upzoning a neighborhood, it has mandates for affordability. I will also add that this proposal has affordability components, which are expansive, because we are creating and expanding our voluntary inclusionary program to all medium and high density areas of the city. This is the biggest affordable housing zoning initiative that we have ever undertaken in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Can we ask you what voluntary inclusionary zoning mean? [crosstalk]

Dan Garodnick: Yes. Good. I'm glad you did.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of people won't understand that.

Dan Garodnick: That's great, Brian. Thank you. It is really where you create an opportunity for a new building to include a little bit more density, a little bit more development in their building, in exchange for the commitment that, that additional development is 100% affordable, so it is a program that exists today in about 13% of our medium and high density districts, and we are expanding that to 100% of our medium and high density districts, and we want to incentivize the creation of affordable housing in all of those areas.

We have also reduced the eligibility level for those affordable units from what previously was 80% of the area median income to 60% of the area median income, which is about $83,000 for a family of three. We have taken real steps in this plan to increase the opportunities that your caller has identified for the need for affordable housing, but we'll note that changes in zoning, they are not everything.

They are really important, but they are not everything, so we want to continue to do programs, subsidy programs, through HPD opportunities, to create 100% affordable buildings in the entirety, and that process needs to continue, but we can't have solve our housing crisis just with subsidy. We need to have mixed income buildings. We do need to have mandatory requirements on new developments, and have mixed incomes in them. That is an important way for us to get to our housing goals, and to deliver a lot of affordable housing at the same time.

Brian Lehrer: Why not make what you described as the voluntary inclusionary zoning incentives, which are for those buildings that you said that would have 100% below market rate apartments. Why not make that? Here's just a thought experiment. Why not make that mandatory for the next 10 years in New York, under the theory, we have enough market rate apartments, what we have is a shortage of below market rate apartments targeted at different income levels.

Those are the only things that the city should allow to be built in New York for the next decade. That'll be the only thing that developers can make money on. Yes, they won't make as much money as market rate, but apparently, they can make money, and that's the way we're going to get to, instead of just gentrifying neighborhoods by having 80/20, and things like that, that's the only way we're really going to get to some semblance of affordable New York City.

Dan Garodnick: Brian, I respectfully just have to challenge the premise here, because we are seeing gentrification, we are seeing displacement as a result of not having enough housing of all types. That includes, by the way, market rate housing. The reason why we need to increase our supply citywide is, because all research has shown, and I know that you had a show on this yesterday. You had Jerusalem Demsas on, and she was making this case, I thought, very effectively about the need for us to create supply, in order to drive costs down for everyone.

That even market rate developments, as she'd cited yesterday, that a 11-city market study showing that, even when you create market rate housing, it lowers costs for people in the immediate vicinity, so market rate housing happens to be an important part of the puzzle here. As it relates to mandates, we want to continue to do mandates. We have mandates.

In fact, New York City has the most aggressive mandatory affordable housing program in the country. That's our MIH, Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, in contrast to the voluntary piece we were talking about a minute ago, and it's important. That will continue. We want to continue to map mandatory affordability throughout the city, but in the context of expansion of opportunity, we want to incentivize people to act.

We want to create a bonus which will work very well with the state's 485-x tax abatement program. To be able to get those units built, we need to get these units built. We need to incentivize them. That's the right way for us to deliver on this promise.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Here is Barbara in Brooklyn. Barbara, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Barbara: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Daniel, you said a lot of words, and I heard the words, but I can tell you what I see in my community, right? I live at the end of Flatlands, close to Brooklyn College, that area, and so, what I see when I leave my home is that, single family homes are being knocked down, in the middle of a block, and they're putting up like these high-rise buildings.

I walk through the neighborhood, because I like to walk, and what I see is a lot of these buildings were empty. I'm like-- The look of my neighborhood is very strange. The other issue that I have is, because most of the apartments, most of the units are market rate, so nobody can really afford to live in them. I look at the cost of the rents in those apartments. I own a condo, so I look at the cost, and I'm seeing like $2,500 and up.

They just built a building on Flatbush Avenue, and they're asking for $4,000 worth of rent monthly. I'm like-- Now, my neighborhood looks funny, and we have these vacant-- Basically, we have these vacant buildings that are just there, and so, how does the City of Yes address those type of issues? Are people really looking at where developers are developing?

Because as far as I'm concerned, the only people who are winning are the developers, because they're getting the abatements from the benefits of a building, and then just leaving our neighborhoods in a lurch.

Brian Lehrer: Barbara? Thank you. Dan.

Dan Garodnick: Thanks, Barbara. I appreciate that question. I will note that with a vacancy rate in housing of 1.41%, we are at the lowest vacancy rate that we have been since 1968. I can't speak to the specific building that you have in mind when you say it's sitting there empty, but I do know that our vacancy rate is as low as it has ever been. That's a problem for us citywide.

We do look at where development is happening, and it's important, because your neighborhood is a really interesting example of a place where you are seeing some development happening naturally. There's real imbalances in New York City today. We have 59 community districts in New York City. Last year, 10 of those community districts produced as much housing as the other 49 combined, and so neighborhoods that are seeing a lot of development, are seeing those sorts of pressures that go along with it.

Some of the questions even that you're raising, where there are entire neighborhoods, where we are not seeing any housing production at all. This proposal is designed to alleviate the burden on the neighborhoods that are producing all the housing, while opening the door citywide to create opportunities more broadly. It's really important for us to do that. It's the only way for us to continue to grow our housing supply, and that's why a little more in every neighborhood really is central to answering the question that you just raised.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Barbara. By the way, a slight correction from before, not on the topic of City of Yes. When I was mentioning the Al Smith dinner last night, and I said, "Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were there." Well, they both spoke, but Harris was on video, and Trump was there in person. I saw clips of both of them, so they both were speaking in their way at the Al Smith dinner, but Kamala Harris was via video, just to be really accurate about that difference.

Listener writes, and we have a number like this, Dan, text message, "I do not trust these deals with developers, where the promise of a percentage of affordable housing is included between deal and execution actual units seem to always drop off." Here's a related one, another text message that says, "They always talk about affordable housing, not low-income housing. It's a euphemism." I think by euphemism, they mean the incomes are still pegged too high for the need in the city.

Dan Garodnick: Yes. Well, first of all, I don't see any evidence of drop off on commitments when somebody is in the middle of a regulatory agreement with the city of New York. The mandates that we include in our mandatory affordable housing programs are, they're baked into zoning, and are unchanged, unchangeable. You can't wiggle out of them.

Tax programs, different story. Tax programs from the state of New York come and they go, and they expire. Zoning is forever, it's functionally forever. We're dealing with rules that were put in place in the 1960s, and here we are in 2024. Our intent is to put in a new set of rules that will stick around for the next 60 or 80 years, and will work well.

Those sorts of programs that are defined and arbitrated by the city's Housing Department, they're delivered. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of people who show up and apply for every single affordable housing unit that is online, and we need to do more of those. We're decades past where we need to be, and where we have failed to keep up.

As it relates to the affordability levels themselves, I will just say that, as part of our expansion of that voluntary program that I mentioned before, we dropped the affordability levels from 80% to 60%. We did that deliberately, because we wanted to recognize the conditions that New Yorkers are experiencing, and the market conditions in New York City more broadly.

We also made another significant change in that, whereas before you had to hit 80% to be eligible for us, in this new program, you have to average 60%, so that means you can have units even below 60%, because we thought that was also important. The last thing that I would note, is that, as part of City of Yes, for housing opportunity, we are including a standalone, for the first time, a standalone option.

When we have a new development, and somebody's coming through our mandatory program, we are allowing a standalone 40% of AMI option for the City Council to be able to choose if they see fit. Before, you couldn't just do a 40% AMI option. It needed to be paired with another one of our income levels. Now, we're going to make that standalone, so we can get 40% AMI for our mandatory program. We are doing a fair amount here in this proposal to expand affordable housing creation, and also to lower the income levels to the point of that last commenter.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. John on Staten island, you're on WNYC with the Director of city Planning, Dan Garodnick. Hi, John.

John: Hi. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I see, you're a real estate appraiser, is that right?

John: That is correct. 35 years of experience. I feel that the biggest couple of the issues that I have with this is, is part of this plan, I believe, is allowing what is formerly known as mother daughter units to be "legalized", and also the conversion of basement apartments into the housing stock. Based upon my experience, typically, the cost to bring up basement apartments to a level that is acceptable and safe, would far exceed any type of benefit the potential owner would receive from it.

Secondly, I believe the affordability issue that we're talking about, and it's quite obvious, is not being addressed by the elephant in the room, which is, in fact, the impact of consistent increases in real estate taxes, water and sewer charges, et cetera. Those all are factored into affordability for rental housing. In fact, if that's not in-- If that's going to be an issue, we're trying to get these rental units to affordable levels. We're not addressing that. Third issue is, this increase in density will result in an increased strain on the infrastructure, which is something that, in fact, the city will not be-- Has not addressed.

Brian Lehrer: John, I have to leave it there, because we're running out of time in the segment, but you raise important issues. Could you just focus on the one, because we are running out of time, the basement conversions. Is that part of City of Yes? You hear his take as an appraiser on the costs and dangers involved, as he sees it.

Dan Garodnick: Yes. An important part of this proposal that we are advancing in City of Yes, is to allow for one and two family homes to add what is commonly known as a granny flat or an accessory dwelling unit, more technically speaking, up to 800 square feet on your own property. This has been a great boon for multi-generational families, for middle class homeowners have the opportunity to defray some of their own costs, and, of course, to allow low density areas to participate in a very small way, in the creation of some housing.

To the point about the cost of doing that, he is absolutely correct. This is an opportunity, not an obligation. If this is something that works for a homeowner, they can take advantage of it. If it doesn't, they need not. We expect only about 5% of New York City homeowners in these one and two family homes to actually take advantage of this. The big picture is, this is really great for homeowners.

It has very little impact on either infrastructure or surrounding character. It's worked in other parts of the country extremely successfully. This is a benefit that New York City homeowners should have, too.

Brian Lehrer: Let me, before you go, give you a chance to do two things. One is, and listeners, get your pens, pencils, and digital notepads ready. Going to ask how people can submit comments for the official public hearing sessions next week, or just for your eyes and ears as City Planning Director on City of yes, you'll do that last. I want to give you a chance to talk back to, or agree with, if you want, the Trump campaign, which is out there saying, "Housing costs in places like New York are from too much," what they call illegal immigration.

If we have a couple of hundred thousand more people than we did two years ago, of course, a lot of people have left the city too, so maybe it evens out. If we have all these new immigrants, and the issue is a mismatch between supply and demand, is this a reason to close the border, or restrict the number of migrants?

Dan Garodnick: I mean, that's a red herring as it relates to this proposal. For hundreds of years, we have welcomed and made room for migrants, and we have grown as a city. We've got a statue in our harbor, which makes that very point. What has happened over many decades, and this is many decades, this is not in the last couple of years, or even the last decade. This is many decades in the making.

Our housing stock has functionally stopped growing, and we need to address that problem. In my mind, that is not the core question here. The core question is, why have we failed for so many decades to keep up, so that the price of housing in New York City has basically become accepted as a fact of life, when in reality, it is a policy choice for us. We do not need to live this way. We have an opportunity to make changes to address it directly.

Brian Lehrer: How can listeners officially make their voices heard in this process?

Dan Garodnick: I'd encourage them to visit the City Council's website, council.nyc.gov, and we look forward to seeing them, and hearing from them next week.

Brian Lehrer: Dan Garodnick, Director of the New York City Department of City Planning, thank you for joining us, and talking through much of this with us.

Dan Garodnick: Thanks for having me.

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