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New apartments are coming and there’s nothing these 12 neighborhoods can do to stop it
By
David Brand
Published Oct 1, 2026
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Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images
By
David Brand
Published Oct 1, 2026
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New apartments are coming, and there’s not much New Yorkers in a dozen neighborhoods around the city can do to stop them.
The Department of City Planning on Thursday released a list of 12 community districts subject to a new “fast-track” review process for all rezoning applications meant to spur additional housing construction. The change is already garnering backlash from some local leaders whose neighborhoods are on the list.
The arrangement completely overhauls the city’s lengthy land-use process in neighborhoods the agency found had produced the lowest rate of new affordable housing over the past five years. It specifically cuts out the City Council – long the final arbiter of land-use decisions – and shortens the time frame for local community boards to weigh in.
The fast-track designation covers many of the city’s most suburban-style neighborhoods, including Middle Village and Douglaston in Queens; Borough Park and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn; and the South Shore of Staten Island.
The new process also applies to the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, which are two of the most densely populated areas in the country but have nevertheless added few new affordable units in recent years.
A map of the 12 neighborhoods that have produced the least affordable housing, according to the Department of City Planning.
Department of City Planning
The process is one of several new policies initiated by former Mayor Eric Adams to spark housing construction and address a deep shortage of affordable apartments that has led to record-high rents and an exodus of low- and middle-income New Yorkers. Just 1.4% of all apartments in the city are vacant and available to rent, according to the city’s most recent housing survey.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, like his predecessor Adams, says the solution is to build more to meet demand and steamroll “Not In My Backyard,” or NIMBY, opposition to new development.
City law requires developers to price at least a quarter of new apartments for low- and middle-income renters – apartments commonly referred to as “affordable housing” – in buildings constructed after a rezoning. Voters approved the new process in a ballot referendum last November after a commission convened by then-Mayor Adams proposed the measure.
City Planning Director Sideya Sherman pointed to that vote when asked about likely blowback to the revised process Wednesday.
“ New Yorkers overwhelmingly voted and certainly indicated that the status quo was not working,” Sherman said.
The measure has already faced its share of criticism from local community leaders and councilmembers, who encouraged New Yorkers to vote it down last year, saying it gives too much power to the mayor and private developers. Some community boards, like the body representing the Upper East Side, have strategized to issue their own proposals and braced for potential demolition and new development.
Sherman said her agency will still work with communities on large-scale rezoning plans, like a proposal from the Mamdani administration to allow more housing on dozens of blocks south of Prospect Park.
“We look forward to engaging communities and working in partnership with them with any city-led plans,” Sherman said.
The neighborhoods subject to the new review process come as little surprise.
Independent analyses conducted by NYU’s Furman Center and other housing policy groups identified most of the neighborhoods ahead of last year’s vote based on their rates of affordable housing production. Sherman said her agency examined the number of new affordable housing units constructed relative to the total number of homes across all 59 districts before identifying the 12 lowest producers.
In the lead-up to the release of the list, some councilmembers, including Bay Ridge Democrat Kayla Santosuosso, began issuing their own rezoning plans to try to steer housing and land use decisions before the new process eliminates their role. Individual councilmembers have traditionally wielded immense power over zoning change in their districts because the full Council has deferred to their opinion in the past – a practice known as “member deference.”
Now those councilmembers will have no authority over a procedure that concludes with a vote from the mayoral-controlled City Planning Commission.
“This is a deeply concerning change,” Santosuosso wrote in a Brooklyn Paper op-ed describing her rezoning pitch. “But voters approved the ballot measures by double-digits, and are now the reality we must contend with.”
Ahead of the release of the list, Councilmember Phil Wong from Queens said he still opposed any “top-down mandates that ignore the character of our neighborhoods and shut communities out of decisions that directly affect them.”
Wong, a Democrat representing Middle Village and Maspeth, told Gothamist he had not spoken with City Planning officials about the list, though analyses showed his district was likely to appear on it.
“I have serious concerns about another ‘fast-track’ process that gives developers more power while residents, community boards, and local councilmembers get less,” he said.
Tagged
brooklyn
housing
manhattan
new york city
queens
staten island
David Brand
David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.
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