City Hall Wants to Rezone for Taller Towers, But Is Coy About Location of Proposed New Districts
On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams floated a plan to lift—in a pair of unspecified districts—the zoning limit on floor-area ratio (FAR) for new residential construction. Although he pointedly refused to name the two communities in which this change would be implemented, Lower Manhattan is almost certainly one of them.
Since 1961, the City’s zoning code has prohibited residential buildings with an FAR greater than 12 times the size of the lot on which a building is constructed. Theoretically, this means that a lot of 10,000 square feet cannot host a residential building with more than 120,000 square feet of internal space. Although this might sound like a straightforward ban on apartment towers taller than 12 stories, in practice residential structures are permitted to reach much greater heights—in part because the footprint of such towers is often much smaller than the lots on which they are built, and in part because a range of technical exceptions (such as internal mechanical spaces) and givebacks (such as public plazas or affordable units) allows for significantly greater elevation.
For these two new districts, Mr. Adams proposes to boost the existing FAR cap of 12 to as high as 18. This would have the effect of increasing by as much as 50 percent the permissible bulk of new residential towers. In exchange for this concession, the Adams plan would impose a Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning requirement that between 20 and 30 percent of the homes created by these buildings be affordable to residents earning between 40 percent to 80 percent of a federal benchmark known as Area Median Income. This threshold (which changes each year for each region of the country, as determined by statisticians at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) would allow for incomes of between $39,560 and $79,120 for a single-person household, up to a range of $74,560 to $149,120 for a family of eight.
In his announcement, the Mayor did not explain why he was not specifying the location of the proposed districts, although he mentioned Midtown as one possibility. Given the range of earlier proposals that the Adams administration has floated to incubate additional housing development in Lower Manhattan, however, it is reasonable to infer that Downtown is a likely candidate. These prior initiatives include an Office Conversion Accelerator program, half of the 60-plus applicants to which are located in the square mile below Chambers Street.
In order to implement a boost in the FAR cap, City Hall will need cooperation from Albany, because State legislation would be required for this change. In this context, Mayor Adams has a likely ally in Governor Kathy Hochul (who proposed repealing the FAR limit of 12 last year, without any affordability requirements), but probable opponents in multiple State lawmakers.
In response to the Governor’s 2023 proposal (which was blocked by the State Assembly and Senate), Assembly members Grace Lee and Deborah Glick (both of whom represent Lower Manhattan) announced their determination to thwart a loosening of the FAR limit.
Ms. Lee said, “to address New York’s housing crisis, we need to ask ourselves what kind of housing needs to be built and for whom. The proposal to lift New York City’s FAR cap is woefully inadequate if it does not include any guarantees to create truly affordable housing and job opportunities for New York’s union labor workforce.”
Ms. Glick said, “under the current FAR cap, supertall towers are being built to give the wealthy views from 1,500 feet above. Rather than letting developers build ever higher, we should be looking at the large stock of un-utilized office, hotel, and commercial space that can be converted into new affordable housing.”