Mayor Adams Has Enacted Legislation To Enhance Housing And Improve Sewer And Flood Infrastructure

New York City Mayor Eric Adams today signed several pieces of legislation to help build critically-needed housing and address infrastructure concerns regarding sewers and flood prevention. 

Today’s bill signings come after the passage of Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” proposal, the most pro-housing zoning proposal in New York City history. The City of Yes proposal alone exceeds all the housing created from rezonings during any mayoral administration of the last 50 years, including all of the 12 years of the Bloomberg administration and all eight years of the de Blasio administration.  

“‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ is a watershed moment in our city history,” said Mayor Adams. “Thanks to our partnership with Governor Hochul, Speaker Adams, and the New York City Council, our city met the moment in front of us, passing legislation that will allow us to build 80,000 new homes while investing $5 billion in critically-needed infrastructure and housing. Today’s bill signing is another step in the right direction, but our work is far from over. Our administration will continue the work of fighting for more affordable housing, providing stable housing to our unhoused neighbors in need, and bringing the American Dream of owning a home closer to reality for more New Yorkers.”

“With Mayor Adams signing the ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ legislative package into law, today marks a new chapter in our city’s effort to ensure every New Yorker has a safe and affordable home,” said First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. “Thanks to Mayor Adams’ leadership and our partnership with Governor Hochul, Speaker Adams, and the City Council, we took decisive action to deliver affordability for hard-working New Yorkers.  We are also investing $5 billion to strengthen our infrastructure, protect tenants, and bolster our ability to finance affordable housing across the five boroughs. Thank you to all who stood alongside us to say ‘yes’ to ‘City of Yes.'”

“Planning for 80,000 more homes in New York must be done smartly — accounting for the infrastructure that turns units into complete communities,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi. “The professionals at DOT, DEP, DOB, and Parks are stepping up to add critical infrastructure and community character to protect and shape neighborhoods for future generations. Today, as Mayor Adams signs these bills, we do just that.” 

Intro. 1127-A — sponsored by New York City Councilmember Pierina Sanchez — would establish a basement and cellar dwelling unit legalization program in certain community districts. Building owners would be able to apply for an authorization for temporary residence for units that existed prior to April 20, 2024. The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) would inspect such units prior to issuing an authorization and, if issued, the building owner would be permitted to do any necessary construction on the unit to legalize the unit and apply for an amended or partial certificate of occupancy. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) would provide technical assistance and outreach to owners of eligible basement or cellar residences. Tenants who resided in the basement or cellar unit on April 20, 2024 would have a right of first refusal to return to such unit upon its first occupancy following any necessary alterations.

Intro. 1128-A — sponsored by Councilmember Sanchez — sets forth eligibility, safety, and design requirements for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) added to one- or two-family dwellings. The bill would also set forth required means of fire prevention in ADUs, including fire separation, automatic sprinklers, smoke alarms, and exit stairways. Additionally, this bill would set forth requirements for light, ventilation, window size, emergency service access to units, and occupancy. This bill would require ADUs to have separate entrances, with basement ADUs required to have at least one means of egress, and cellar ADUs required to have at least two means of egress. Finally, this bill would prohibit basement and cellar ADUs in coastal and inland flood hazard areas, to mirror such prohibitions in the New York City Zoning Resolution.

Intro. 654-A — sponsored by Councilmember Sanchez — extends the J-51 tax abatement program for certain alterations or improvements completed after June 29, 2022 and before June 30, 2026. Eligible buildings are condos and co-ops where the average assessed valuation is under $45,000 per dwelling unit, and rental buildings 1) where more than half the units are affordable, 2) that are operated by limited-profit housing companies, or 3) that receive substantial governmental assistance. The owners of these buildings would be able to recover up to 70 percent of the cost of the work at 8 1/3 percent per year for up to 20 years. HPD would establish the work and costs that qualify for this program in a certified reasonable cost schedule, to be updated considering factors such as local law requirements and the effects of inflation. This bill would provide for tenant protections, including the possibility of a revocation of benefits if an owner fails to comply. This bill would also require HPD to report on the implementation of the program.   

Intro. 814-A — sponsored by New York City Councilmember James Gennaro — requires that the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to update, by 2025, its plan to prevent sewer backups and conduct further updates every five years thereafter. Additionally, the plan would be expanded to include the identification of areas with a significant number of notices of claims filed with the comptroller alleging losses due to sewer backups. Further, this bill would require DEP to provide timely notice of unconfirmed sewer backups to impacted residents and to sewer backup complainants. Such notice would include a determination from DEP that the backup complaint was not associated with a condition in the city-owned sewer system, a statement that the backup may be related to an adverse condition in a privately-owned sewer, and an informational pamphlet detailing potential causes of backups in privately-owned sewers.  

Intro. 815-A — sponsored by Councilmember Gennaro — requires DEP, in consultation with the DOB and Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, to promulgate rules to adopt an interim flood risk area map for inland and coastal flooding. An inland map will illustrate areas with a 10-year flood risk from rainfall (i.e., probability of rainfall-induced flooding of 10 percent, or greater, in any year). Coastal inundation mapping will identify areas at risk to coastal storm surge during a 100-year storm (i.e., risk of coastal-induced flooding with 1 percent probability in any year) taking into account the 2080 sea level rise projections. These maps will be informed by climate data, including forecasts and findings developed by the New York City Panel on Climate Change. The bill lays out requirements for updates to the mapping, as well as the dissemination of information via DEP’s website. Mapping will align with New York City Building Code Appendix G and will be revisited in a timely manner as Federal Emergency Management Administration updates become available in the future.    

Intro. 850-A — sponsored by New York City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca — requires HPD to submit periodic reports to the City Council regarding city-financed affordable housing projects involving the disposition of city property. The reports would be due every six months and would include, for each project, the project identifier and location, the date the developer was selected by HPD, the date the project received Uniform Land Use Review Procedure approval, whether the project includes any privately-owned parcels, the six-month cycle during which the disposition of city property is expected to occur, and, for projects that have already closed, the actual closing date for such disposition. 

Mayor Adams had made historic investments toward creating affordable housing over the last three years. In June, Mayor Adams agreed to an on-time, balanced, and fiscally-responsible $112.4 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Adopted Budget with the City Council that invests $2 billion in capital funds across FY25 and FY26 to HPD and the New York City Housing Authority’s capital budgets. In total, the Adams administration has committed a record $26 billion in housing capital in the current 10-year plan as the city faces a generational housing crisis. In July, Mayor Adams announced back-to-back record-breaking years in both creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing. This past spring, the city celebrated the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years with the Willets Point transformation. 

Further, the Adams administration is using every tool available to address the city’s housing crisis. Mayor Adams announced multiple new tools, including a $4 million state grant, to help New York City homeowners create ADUs that will not only help them to afford to remain in the communities they call home, but also to build generational wealth for families.  

Earlier this year, Mayor Adams and members of his administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that will spur the creation of urgently-needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.   

Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, the city is fulfilling its 2024 State of the City commitment to build more affordable housing, including by being ahead of schedule on advancing two dozen affordable housing projects on city-owned land this year through the “24 in ‘24” initiative, reopening the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program waitlist after being closed to general applications for nearly 15 years, and creating the Tenant Protection Cabinet to coordinate across agencies to better serve tenants. The city has also taken several steps to cut red tape and speed up the delivery of much-needed housing, including through the “Green Fast Track for Housing,” a streamlined environmental review process for qualifying small- and medium-sized housing projects; the “Office Conversion Accelerator,” an interagency effort to guide buildings that wish to convert through city bureaucracy; and other initiatives of the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce.  

“As the chair of the Committee on Land Use for the last seven years, I have had the privilege of overseeing the approval of well over 100,000 units of new housing across New York City,” said Councilmember Salamanca. “In my district alone, I’ve approved over 10,000 units of 100 percent affordable housing. Unfortunately, there is a sad reality. Despite the lengthy negotiations it takes to approve a project, it often takes years for HPD to provide the necessary project funding to facilitate a development’s groundbreaking, delaying much-needed housing in the process. This lack of transparency is why I introduced Intro. 850-A, which would require HPD to report biannually when projects can expect to receive financing as part of the agency’s twice-a-year closing period. If a project does not close within a targeted closing cycle, HPD would be required to report the reasoning, and when a new closing date can be expected. Mandating this information to be public is an important step in understanding how the city prioritizes the development of housing across New York City.”

“New Yorkers deserve bold action to access dignified, affordable housing — something the ‘City of Yes’ with Council’s ‘City for All’ plan can together achieve,” said Councilmember Sanchez. “While rezoning is a critical piece to addressing the housing crisis, the Council recognized more was needed to turn the tide and negotiated in good faith with the administration to secure $5 billion in critical additional investments that are rooted in principles of housing justice and comprehensive planning. I am proud to have introduced and led three important pieces of legislation that will be signed into law by Mayor Adams as part of the ‘City of Yes’ package. Intros. 1127-A and 1128-A will provide the necessary building code updates to ensure ADUs are safe for existing and future residents. Intro. 654-A re-establishes the J-51 tax incentive — a critical preservation tool that offsets improvement costs for low-to-moderate cost residential buildings, including for 166,000 families living in co-ops citywide. This iteration of J-51 includes added tenant protections, prioritization of energy efficiency work to meet our city’s climate goals, and data transparency to understand the full reach of the program. Together, these bills mark a crucial step toward preserving and creating safe, affordable housing options throughout New York City.”

“I am proud to be here for the bill signing of Intro. 814-A and Intro. 815-B — two lifesaving bills I authored that will provide a comprehensive framework for building a safer and more resilient New York City,” said Councilmember Gennaro. “Intro. 814-A requires the DEP to update its plan to prevent sewer backups at least once every five years and alert residents when it determines that a sewer backup may have been caused by an issue in a privately-owned sewer. This bill will reduce the frequency of sewer backups, saving New Yorkers from costly damage to their homes and exposure to raw sewage. Intro. 815-B creates a special designation for ‘inland flood hazard areas’ — a measure that is long overdue. This bill provides the tools and data we need to protect New Yorkers in areas outside traditional flood zones. By mapping inland flood hazards, we enable smarter planning and more effective emergency responses. Intro. 815-B also creates a coastal flood risk map that, unlike FEMA flood maps, anticipates the impact of sea level rise. As extreme weather becomes more frequent, we must increase our city’s resilience to flooding from coastal storm surge and rainfall. This bill helps to achieve that goal.” 

“For decades, we simply have not built enough housing to keep up with demand. Without enough homes to house the people who live here, we have seen rents soar, vacancy rates plummet, and opportunity decline,” said New York City Councilmember Keith Powers. “With today’s signing of ‘City of Yes,’ we are becoming a city of tomorrow, instead of a city of yesterday.”

“New Yorkers deserve bold leadership that meets the challenge of our affordability crisis, and the ‘City of Yes’ housing plan will help build a significant amount of new homes across the city,” said New York City Councilmember Carlina Rivera. “I commend Mayor Eric Adams, Speaker Adrienne Adams, and city leadership for securing historic investments in capital, infrastructure, public housing, tenant protections, and more, to expand on proposed zoning changes that will create opportunity and stronger neighborhoods.”

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