City of Yes and the 2024 Text Changes
City of Yes, the citywide text change through which the field of zoning and entitlements Michael Stern writes in now has to be read, is approached here as a set of questions, because the name covers three separate amendments and the third of them touches nearly every residential rule in the code. The questions below take the housing text apart one mechanism at a time.
What is City of Yes?
It is three zoning text amendments under one slogan. The NYU Wagner Planner’s introduction for newcomers lists them: one for carbon neutrality, approved first; one for economic opportunity, approved the following summer to remove outdated limits on businesses; and one for housing opportunity, meant in the mayor’s phrase to allow a little more housing in every neighborhood.7 The New York Times’s explainer records the second passing the Council in June 2024 by 34 votes to 16, with the Council striking a provision for corner stores in residential areas, and describes the third as the contentious one, with its proposals to end parking mandates, allow accessory units, add housing above shops in low density areas and near transit, and ease office conversions.1
What did it change about floor area?
It replaced a bonus with a preference and raised the ceiling. Greenberg Traurig’s summary for practitioners explains that the voluntary inclusionary program was replaced by a Universal Affordability Preference that lets buildings in medium and high density districts add at least 20 percent more floor area when the extra area goes to affordable or senior apartments, and that two new residential districts with ratios of 15 and 18 may be mapped by future rezonings, relying on a state law that allows residential floor area above 12 only where affordability is mandatory.4 The preference has its own entry at Inclusionary Housing Bonuses, and the arithmetic in Floor Area Ratio as a Mechanism.
What did it change about heights and yards?
It loosened the envelope around that floor area. Greenberg Traurig gives examples: in one contextual district the basic height rose from 80 to 85 feet and the height with affordable housing from 95 to 115 feet; on lots at least 40 feet wide the rear yard requirement dropped from 30 feet to 20 for the part of a building below 75 feet; and every new or converted building of nine or more units must set aside 3 percent of its residential floor area as recreation space for residents.4
Three texts under one name
- Carbon neutralityThe first text, approved in 2023, eased rooftop solar, building retrofits and vehicle charging.
- Economic opportunityThe second, approved in June 2024 by 34 votes to 16, expanded manufacturing areas, home occupations and upper floor businesses.
- Housing opportunityThe third, approved in December 2024, rewrote the residential rules for floor area, height, parking, conversions and small units.
- The modificationsThe Council's version narrowed the low density provisions, kept parking in parts of the outer boroughs and added affordability incentives.
What did it change about parking?
Less than the proposal asked. THE CITY’s report on the first Council hearing describes the planning director’s argument that a costly mandate had limited the number of units that could be built and that developers would still add spaces where they were wanted, and the heated exchange with a Queens member who objected that leaving parking to developers was unacceptable in a district far from transit.2 Greenberg Traurig records the outcome: required parking eliminated in an inner transit zone and significantly reduced in an outer one, and City Limits’ vote tally adds that the Council kept requirements in several outer borough neighborhoods rather than ending most minimums.3
What did it change about conversions?
It widened the door and moved it uptown. Greenberg Traurig summarizes the new conversion rules: buildings standing on the last day of 1990 may convert wherever residential use is allowed or admitted by an authorization or a special permit, mechanical floor space may be converted together with the rest even where the result exceeds the district’s maximum floor area, the prohibition on rooming units is gone, and the old requirement for roof open space is replaced by a general recreation space rule.4
What did it change for ground floor space?
Something few people noticed. Holland & Knight’s alert on ground floor conversions explains that many older residential buildings were overbuilt under the pre 1961 rules and therefore could not add residential floor area without increasing their non compliance, which kept vacant ground floor doctors’ offices from becoming apartments; the new text lets any building at least 75 percent residential convert such space to apartments regardless of the cap on floor area and without any discretionary approval.5
What did it change in low density neighborhoods?
It added gentle increments and the Council trimmed them. The Wagner Planner describes town center zoning, which restores housing above businesses on commercial streets, transit oriented development of three to five story buildings on large lots less than a half mile from a station, accessory dwelling units such as basement apartments and backyard cottages, and district fixes to outdated rules.7 City Limits lists the modifications: basement units banned in flood zones, the transit radius shortened in lower density districts, and the final package estimated by lawmakers to spur at least 80,000 homes over 15 years.3
What became as of right?
More than before. BKREA’s primer notes that the housing text, adopted in December 2024, expanded the range of development that qualifies as of right citywide, including a wider range of residential conversions in eligible buildings.6 Holland & Knight’s ground floor provision and the conversion chapter both operate with no hearing at all, which moves the line described in As of Right, Special Permits and Variances toward the permit counter.
Before and after the housing text
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Conversions | Older buildings in limited areas | Buildings standing by the end of 1990, wherever residential use is allowed |
| Affordable bonus | Voluntary program in designated areas and top density districts | A Universal Affordability Preference across medium and high density districts |
| Parking | Required with most new housing | Eliminated in an inner transit zone, reduced in an outer one |
| Dwelling unit factor | A citywide divisor on floor area | Removed in the Manhattan core and Downtown Brooklyn, 680 elsewhere |
| Rooming units | Prohibited | Permitted |
| Rear yards | Thirty feet | Twenty feet up to 75 feet of height on lots at least 40 feet wide |
What did the Council change?
The shape of the deal. City Limits reports a 31 to 20 vote on a modified version that added incentives for affordable units in exchange for the extra room to build, scaled back where accessory units could go, kept parking in parts of the outer boroughs, and came with a pledged capital commitment for housing and infrastructure; members voting no cited more than two dozen community boards that had disapproved during review, while others said the plan had been softened too far.3 The Center for Architecture’s notice of its technical training dates the vote to December 5, 2024 and notes that the adopted text carried modifications from both the Commission and the Council’s land use committee, which is why practitioners had to learn the rules twice.8 That review sequence is the one described in ULURP.
What stayed under the old rules?
Anything already filed. Greenberg Traurig describes special vesting provisions that let filings made at the Department of Buildings on or before December 5, 2024 proceed under the earlier rules, and a further year for projects that had filed certifications, had special permits certified or referred, or had applications before the Board of Standards and Appeals, a rule it flags as especially relevant in the Special Midtown and Special Lower Manhattan Districts, where a residential bonus once earned by recreation space now demands affordable housing.4 The district layer is the subject of Special Purpose Districts.
What does the text close off, and what does it leave open?
It retires the earlier envelope citywide in one stroke, which a text amendment does and a permit never can. What it leaves open is the map: the two densest residential districts exist in the text but are mapped nowhere until a rezoning places them, and each such rezoning will run the full charter clock.4 THE CITY’s hearing report has the planning director’s own framing, sweeping citywide and modest on any one block, and that is the mechanism in a sentence: the arithmetic changed everywhere, and the geography of where it will be used is still to be drawn.2
