New maps show which NYC neighborhoods build the most housing

April 25, 2024

Image courtesy of Joshua Armstrong on Unsplash

Amid a housing shortage, only a few New York City neighborhoods are building the majority of new housing. The Department of City Planning on Thursday released two new interactive map tools illustrating where new housing is being permitted and built across the five boroughs by looking at City Council districts, community districts, and neighborhood tabulation areas (NTAs). According to the housing database, development is concentrated in only a few areas: 10 of the city’s 59 community districts saw as much new housing built as the other 49.

The database reveals that new housing production was unevenly distributed in 2023, with Bronx community districts 1, 4, 5, and 7, Brooklyn districts 1, 2, 5, and 8, and Queens districts 1 and 2 seeing as much new housing as the city’s other 49 community districts.

Of the city’s 51 City Council districts, Council District 8 (which includes East Harlem and the South Bronx) saw the most completed new homes in 2023, with a net of nearly 3,600 new homes. Council District 6, which includes the Upper West Side, saw the least, with a net of -38 housing units (177 homes were demolished or lost to alteration).

“New York City is producing far less housing than needed, and the housing that is being built is concentrated in just a few neighborhoods. This imbalance is at the root of much of our housing crisis, and is driving up the cost of rent, exacerbating the imbalance of power between landlords and tenants, and forcing working New Yorkers out of our city,” DCP Director Dan Garodnick said.

“It’s long past time that we tear down the invisible walls that hold back housing production in some parts of the city and build a little more housing in every neighborhood with City of Yes for Housing Opportunity.”

DCP also released an interactive tool that shows housing production over time and by borough. According to the data, the Bronx had the highest number of completed units in new buildings of all five boroughs (9,842) last year for the first time ever.

In 2023, Mott Haven-Port Morris completed the most new building units, at 2,326. The massive Bankside development accounted for 921 of the units.

Flushing-Willets Point received the most building permits last year, with 1,136 units. Of these permitted new building units, 881 are part of the planned Willets Point development.

Additionally, 39 of NYC’s Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs) saw less than 10 new homes built in 2023, with 10 NTAS, including East Midtown-Turtle Bay, Windsor Terrace-South Slope, Maspeth, and Brighton Beach, losing housing in 2023.

According to DCP, 27,980 new homes were completed in the city in 2023, a slight uptick from 2022. However, the city issued permits for just 16,369 new homes, the lowest number since 2016.

Data shows that the drop in new housing coincides with the expiration of the 421-a program in June 2022. The last time such a small number of new homes were permitted was in 2016 after an older version of 421-a had expired.

This week New York lawmakers finally passed a housing package that includes a new tax incentive to replace 421-a. The $237 billion state budget includes 485-x, a 10-year program to incentivize developers to develop new affordable housing.

Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to create housing in every neighborhood, the City for Yes Housing Opportunity, will also work towards erasing this disparity by updating zoning rules to allow for new housing.

The DCP Housing Database is the most reliable source of housing production in NYC, using data from housing and demolition jobs approved by the Department of Buildings.

The database includes three primary construction job types that add or remove residential units: new buildings, major alterations, and demolitions. This data is then used to calculate the change in legal housing units.

See the full report from DCP here.

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