Adams wants to rezone 42 Midtown blocks, boost housing citywide

The city will rezone more than 40 blocks in the Garment District, NoMad and Chelsea and launch an effort to rewrite the city’s zoning code in the coming months in hopes of chipping away at New York City’s desperate housing shortage, Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday.

The efforts center largely on converting vacant Manhattan office buildings into housing, which City Hall says could produce as many as 20,000 new homes for 40,000 people over the next decade.

City Hall officials released new details on the planned Midtown South rezoning, saying it would cover 42 blocks between 23rd and 40th streets and Fifth and Eighth avenues where only manufacturing has been allowed for decades. The city aims to allow for more housing, including affordable apartments, while preserving some commercial and light-manufacturing space.

First previewed by Adams in his “State of the City” address in January, the Midtown South rezoning will start public engagement this fall and begin its roughly six-month public review next year, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer said Thursday. Notably, it has the support of the area’s two City Council members, Keith Powers and Erik Bottcher, boding well for its eventual approval.

Meanwhile, the city will also begin a formal review next year of City Of Yes Housing Opportunity—a zoning-code rewrite that would ease limits on housing density, remove size limits to permit more small studios, reduce requirements for parking spaces in new buildings and allow homeowners to alter their buildings more easily. You can read more here. 

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