What Did the NYC Council Do About Housing Supply in 2023?
Part 3: Housing Legislation // What housing-related laws did the NYC Council pass in 2023? // Is the Council addressing housing supply?
This is part 3 in a series of posts analyzing the 174 local laws of New York City from 2023, and the New York City Council. The links below will be populated as I release each post.
Part 2: Reporting Requirements
👉 Part 3: Housing Legislation, and the Council’s Housing Posture
Part 4: Notable New Laws by Subject Matter
Part 5: Legislative Drafting & Legislative Management
Part 6: Resolutions—the Forgotten Enacting Mechanism
Highlights
Of 174 local laws in 2023, 24 substantially concerned housing.1
Of those 24 laws, zero substantially concerned increasing NYC’s housing supply.
The wider context of the New York City Council, including enactments via resolution, does not dramatically alter its posture on housing supply.
The central question
How many laws did the City Council pass to increase NYC’s housing supply?
This was my central question when reading the local laws of 2023, because it is the essence of NYC’s largest, most important problem: our housing crisis. Fundamentally, it is driven by a lack of supply. The city has not built enough housing, and it does not allow almost anyone (including itself as a municipality) to build housing.
And my question is phrased precisely. It doesn’t just ask about the city’s most important problem, but specifically—and only—about the problem’s cause. Not its symptoms.
One thing that makes solving the housing crisis difficult is that people conflate its cause—lack of supply—with its many, many symptoms: higher rent, older buildings, displacement of families, and so on. And when you ask them “What are you doing to solve the housing crisis?” they will answer in this form: “I am doing [x] to solve [a symptom of lack of supply.]”
In general, people talk past each other about “the housing crisis” very easily, because some are talking about the cause, some are talking about symptoms.
Soothing symptoms of lack of supply is important, especially in the short term before more supply can come online. But these measures do not solve the problem.
If people believe they can, these measures can even make the problem worse, not least by drawing attention away from the real issue of supply. This is often what happens with rent regulation. People mistake a symptom (too-high rent) for the cause (lack of supply), and so they think legislating prices will fix the problem.2 It will not. The princess is in another castle.3
The central answer
Zero.
Of the 174 local laws of 2023, the New York City Council did not pass any that will or could increase New York City’s housing supply. 24 laws were substantially concerned with housing in some respect, but none were about adding new supply.
My analysis here does not answer why they didn’t legislate on housing supply, just that they did not.
Methodology—which laws affect housing and supply?
To answer the central question, I first created a list of all laws that substantially concerned housing at all. I then reviewed that list to see if any of them were about adding new supply to NYC.
“Substantially concerned housing” means that a law concerned updating, constructing, maintaining, or placing people in housing. For most laws, it was obvious whether or not they fit into this category. If something was on the line of inclusion or not, I included it.
And here’s an example of one that, while nominally related to housing, I did not include on my list of 24 laws substantially concerned with housing.
From the Committee on Housing and Buildings:
Local Law 24 of 2023 (Diana I. Ayala): “This bill would require signage at each entrance or egress to a building required to have power-operated or power-assisted and low-energy doors, directing people to the power-operated or power-assisted door.”
The 24 housing-related local laws from 2023
In the list below I include: a hyperlink to each local law, followed by the council member who primarily sponsored it, followed by a short summary of its contents. If you would like to read a Council-provided plain language summary4 of each law, you will also find that at the hyperlink to the law itself.
For laws that are just a reporting requirement and nothing else (or close to it), I put an (R) at the start of my summary.
Local Law 20 of 2023 (Crystal Hudson): Older New Yorkers (60+) get free legal representation in housing court. Various agencies are also required to set up education and support systems for this same demographic.
Local Law 25 of 2023 (Diana I. Ayala): (R) The Department of Housing Preservation and Development must produce a report every three years about rentals to those with disabilities.
Local Law 26 of 2023 (Kevin C. Riley): (R) The Department of Homeless Services must produce a quarterly report on families with children in shelters.
Local Law 30 of 2023 (Crystal Hudson): The Department of Housing Preservation and Development shall develop a list of universal design features accessible for everyone in homes; all developers who use city financial assistance must use these features. HPD will also issue a report about the design list.
Local Law 32 of 2023 (James F. Gennaro): Fuel oil grade no. 4 is prohibited on a phase-out schedule. Penalties for burning prohibited fuel oils are increased.
Local Law 36 of 2023 (David M. Carr): Sets the interest rate on certain property tax arrears that are in repayment, and repeals interest rates for other service rents that are preempted by State law.
Local Law 45 of 2023 (Rafael Salamanca, Jr.): All temporary shelters get a “housing specialist” to help shelter residents get into stable housing, and other shelters get updated requirements for theirs. The Department of Homeless Services and the Human Resources Administration must issue reports about this.
Local Law 64 of 2023 (Shaun Abreu): The Human Resources Administration will allow landlords to accept rental assistance payments from the city via an electronic transfer into a bank account.5
Local Law 70 of 2023 (Pierina Ana Sanchez): The Department of Housing Preservation and Development must install temperature monitors in 50 buildings per year and monitor them for heat violations.
Local Law 71 of 2023 (Public Advocate Jumaane Williams): The Department of Housing Preservation and Development will increase penalties for various housing violations, and review past violations that have been falsely certified as true.
Local Law 77 of 2023 (Pierina Ana Sanchez): Here I directly quote the law summary—”This bill would make technical corrections, updates, modifications, and corrections to Local Law 126 of 2021, which enacted the latest revision to the New York City Construction Codes.”6
Local Law 95 of 2023 (Althea V. Stevens): (R) Various agencies must report quarterly on LGBTQ individuals accessing their services.
Local Law 96 of 2023 (Althea V. Stevens): Individuals aging out of youth homeless shelters receive streamlined entry into adult shelters.
Local Law 99 of 2023 (Tiffany Cabán): The Department of Social Services shall not reduce rental assistance vouchers or other payments in various circumstances.
Local Law 100 of 2023 (Diana I. Ayala): The Department of Social Services can’t require a rental assistance voucher applicant to have resided/reside in a shelter, and repeals related sections of the NYC administrative code.
Local Law 101 of 2023 (Pierina Ana Sanchez): Expands eligibility for rental assistance vouchers to people in a “household at risk of eviction or experiencing homelessness.”
Local Law 102 of 2023 (Pierina Ana Sanchez): The Department of Social Services can’t base rental assistance voucher eligibility on an applicant’s employment status or source of income, and codifies income requirements for the same vouchers.
Local Law 111 of 2023 (Carlina Rivera): Multiple dwelling buildings with children under 6 in them are subject to increased lead inspection and violation standards.
Local Law 122 of 2023 (Diana I. Ayala): This bill increases the record-keeping requirements for property owners regarding lead paint violations.
Local Law 123 of 2023 (Diana I. Ayala): Lead paint abatement in buildings with children under 6 must be completed on a particular schedule.
Local Law 125 of 2023 (Selvena N. Brooks-Powers): Creates the Office of the Homeowner Advocate (“OHA”) within the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. This office must also submit an annual report on its activites.
Local Law 126 of 2023 (Public Advocate Jumaane Williams): Creates a new definition for green building project, and streamlines paperwork for these projects in 1-3-family homes.
Local Law 127 of 2023 (Diana I. Ayala): The Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will proactively inspect at least 200 residential buildings for lead exposure.
Local Law 167 of 2023 (Adrienne E. Adams): (R) The Council’s Fair Housing Framework, which requires a series of reports from various agencies about housing production targets across the city, and their progress toward their own targets.
What are some supply-increasing laws the Council could have passed, or could pass in 2024 and beyond?
Note: this section isn’t comprehensive, but it does point to obvious opportunities in the policy realm: like land use reform and building code revision. Please drop others you like in the comments.
In 2022, The Citizens Budget Commission issued a report called Improving New York City’s Land Use Decision-Making Process. It details various changes to the New York City charter that the City Council could undertake:
Unfortunately, many of these require the City Council to diminish power and influence that they currently hold over land use decisions, so they’re a tough sell to that same body. But the Council should still do them!
Beyond changing the land use approval process, the Council could also change the city’s physical requirements for buildings to allow them to have more residential space (read: contain more housing units). The Center for Building in North America highlights one such example that didn’t get passed by the Council from 2022:
Int. 0794-2022 would have amended the New York City Building Code to double the allowed floor plate of single-stair buildings up to six stories, from the current 2,000-sq. ft. limit to 4,000 sq. ft. The bill was sponsored by CMs Rita Joseph and Farah Louis, with the help of the Center for Building.
There are also a variety of city-sponsored financing mechanisms that the Council could authorize. Most of these would be dependent on prior authorization from New York State law, like the J-51 property tax abatement, although none on the table would substantially increase housing supply.
How else can the Council act to increase supply outside of local laws? Actions via resolution
As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, the Council exists in a larger context than the local laws its passes, even as that is its primary context.
The Council approves (or approves with modifications) a variety of actions taken by the mayor and city administrative agencies. These approvals are all performed by resolution instead of local law.
Many of these actions can have a significant impact on new housing supply, although none inherently has to. These actions are:
Approval of the city budget(s), which originate from the mayor.
Land use application approvals, which originate from city administrative agencies and private developers. Here the Council’s power is not killing or diminishing action taken by the executive/administrative branch.
The Council can also pass resolutions calling on other levels of government to act, or just to express their opinion on something.
State Legislation Resolutions (SLRs), also called Home Rule Messages/Resolutions, which ask the state government to pass laws that specifically affect NYC. These resolutions are part of a formal process anchored in Article 9, §2 of the New York State Constitution.7
Resolutions of the Council (or just plain “resolutions”), which ask other levels of government to do something. These can also say anything the Council wants!
How did actions via resolution impact new housing supply in 2023?
They didn’t in any meaningful sense. The Council tends to kill or diminish land use proposals for housing,8 and the budget process doesn’t give many opportunities outside of rhetorical points.9
Part 6 of this series will review all the resolutions adopted by the Council in 2023, but the important highlight is: three resolutions directly concerned housing supply. This is out of the 128 resolutions that were not land use approvals or SLRs.
Resolution 503 of 2023 calls on the state government to pass a tax incentive to convert commercial space to residential units, building on recommendations from a task force the Council created in 2021. This incentive was passed by the state in April 2024.10
Resolution 588 of 2023 calls on the state government to work more collaboratively with the city in their joint, already-established effort to build 35,000 supportive housing units for individuals with various disabilities and disadvantages over a 15-year period. The state is responsible for 20,000 of those units.11
Resolution 80 of 2022 (introduced in 2022, adopted in 2023) asks the federal government to increase housing supply (presumably) via LIHTC, and for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to make adjustments to federal guidelines to increase the number of people who qualify for subsidized housing in New York City.12
Conclusions
The question I sought to answer: How many local laws did the City Council pass to increase NYC’s housing supply?
The answer: zero
Of course there are other things the Council can do to help increase housing supply outside of local laws: they can forbear to kill land use applications handed to them by the City Planning Commission, they can ask other levels of government to take action in their sphere, and they can change the rhetorical environment with individual and collective statements and press releases.
The point of this post isn’t to ignore those things, but to focus exclusively on what has been enacted via local law. Nothing has, and the wider context outside of local laws doesn’t change that picture very much.
Of the 24 local laws passed in 2023 that did substantially concern housing, most were about addressing certain symptoms of the housing supply crisis, not addressing the supply problem itself. And Local Law 167, the Council’s Fair Housing Framework, is just a series of mandated reports. It did not change the underlying physical or legal conditions needed for more housing supply. When/if those things materialize, possibly as a result of those reports, I will include them in future analyses.
“Substantially concerned housing” means that a law concerned updating, constructing, maintaining, or placing people in housing.
This piece is not an argument for or against rent regulation. The first-order policy effect of rent controls is to fix apartment rental price by law. It is not meant to, nor does it, incentivize the creation of new apartments.
This also happens with housing vouchers, which the Council expanded access to in 2023. Unfortunately, giving more vouchers, and more generous vouchers, does not change the fact that NYC does not have enough homes to use those vouchers on.
“The introduction of all proposed local laws shall be accompanied by a plain language summary of the bill which shall be posted on the Council’s legislative tracking database and updated when the applicable bill is amended.” —Rule 6.40.b, Rules of the Council (January 2024)
Every time someone reads about this law they think “Wait, the city wouldn’t send electronic payments to landlords until now?” Correct. Although if you read the transcript of the hearing (pp.59-64) where this law was discussed, it doesn’t seem close to being fully rolled out, even after this law.
This is, by far, the longest and most technically complicated law enacted in 2023, at over 180 pages. I didn’t see anything that seems like it would wildly alter supply, but if you happen to think otherwise, I’d love to hear about it.
New York Constitution, Article IX, § 2(b)(2) (emphasis added): “[The state legislature]…Shall have the power to act in relation to the property, affairs or government of any local government only by general law, or by special law only (a) on request of two-thirds of the total membership of its legislative body or on request of its chief executive officer concurred in by a majority of such membership, or (b) except in the case of the city of New York, on certificate of necessity from the governor reciting facts which in the judgment of the governor constitute an emergency requiring enactment of such law and, in such latter case, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the legislature.”
Usually via “member deference” or “aldermanic privilege”—or the threat thereof—as described in Who Decides (see page 3). Figure 2 of the 2022 CBC report shows the chilling process that the city’s land use review procedure has on development, and it is easy to see how the Council’s involvement contributes.
It’s not hard to find snippets of dialogue like this where council members acknowledge that we have a housing supply issue, like CM Chi Ossé’s remarks at a May 12, 2023, budget hearing:
What is the timeline on these two [city-owned, vacant lots]? As we’re all aware in this room, there’s a housing shortage here in New York City. These have already approved by the city to you know turn into affordable housing and I was wondering what the timeline would be on constructing housing on these HPD owned sites? —p.63, lines 16-22
The opening line of the resolution is good: “Whereas, For the past decade, New York City’s housing production has not kept up with population and job growth…”
The opening line of the resolution is good: “Whereas, New York City (“NYC” or “the City”) is experiencing a housing crisis in both supply and affordability…” But the resolution itself points out that the city and state are struggling to collectively construct 35,000 housing units in 15 years.
The final line: “Resolved, That the New York City Council calls on Congress to pass and the President to sign legislation in relation to increasing the supply and affordability of certain housing and to adjust calculations of area median income for purposes of Federal low-income housing assistance, and for other purposes.”