Three of the biggest problems facing New York are housing, housing, and housing. Housing production can’t keep up with demand, driving costs higher for everyone. Meanwhile, the New York City Housing Authority is in a state of dilapidation that verges on criminal. The city needs tens of thousands of new apartments, and to repair and upgrade the housing it manages. What if there were one solution to both problems?
NYCHA controls nearly 8% of all rental units in the city and approximately 2,500 acres of land, an area equivalent to all Manhattan below 14th St. For decades NYCHA has been short of the funds needed to properly maintain and manage their buildings, let alone upgrade or expand them, with an estimated $80 billion in capital needs.
The large-scale “tower-in-the-park” developments that clear-cut entire neighborhoods in the 1950s and ’60s to build low-income housing were intended as an open space-rich solution to “urban blight.” But their street-less superblocks, often with buildings at odd angles, have proven especially challenging to upgrade or redevelop. A typical New York block can accommodate a 2026 building right next to one from 1826. But NYCHA campuses of towers and slabs cannot.
Roughly 80% of NYCHA land is in these superblocks, where only about one-fifth of the land is occupied by buildings. The rest is open space. All that open space means the superblocks are underbuilt — with an estimated 78 million square feet of unused development rights, which (on paper anyway) represents the potential to develop more than 80,000 new apartments. Even if only a fraction of that number could actually be realized, it would be significant.
But to demolish entire superblocks to rebuild at higher density would just repeat the overzealous planning sins of the past which created those superblocks originally. Attempts to develop within NYCHA campuses have met stiff community opposition. How can we preserve the strong NYCHA communities and green space while also realizing the housing development value of their land?
The answer is some wonky, but potentially transformative, zoning. Since 1982 the city has allowed the transfer of development rights from underbuilt sites as a way to preserve “civic” assets, from Times Square theaters to Hudson River Park to historic landmarks throughout the city.
For historic landmarks and park spaces, revenue from sale of development rights often goes into restoration or maintenance, preserving the site’s public good. Transfers can also come with requirements for affordable housing, as in the case of the 930-unit 3Eleven residential building on 29th St. that purchased development rights from Hudson River Park and includes 235 affordable units.
This well-tested zoning mechanism could now be used for the preservation and upkeep of NYCHA superblocks. New Special Zoning Districts around the superblocks could allow adjacent blocks to buy NYCHA’s unused development rights. That money could directly improve the lives of existing NYCHA residents: funds for maintenance and upgrades, no forced evictions, green space preserved, and potentially tens of thousands of new units.
The city could require a percentage of new units be affordable. The cost to the city would be minimal. This Transfer of Development Rights as a double-barreled solution to both new housing and fixing NYCHA is not a new idea — it’s something the Regional Plan Association and the NYU Furman Center have been advocating. With a new affordability and housing-focused mayor, now is the time to do it.
Robbins is a partner at FXCollaborative, where he leads the firm’s Urban Design and Planning practice.