One year after the City Council adopted the most sweeping rewrite of New York’s zoning code in a generation, the city says the early numbers are pointing up. On December 5, 2025 — the first anniversary of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity vote — the Mayor’s Office and the Department of City Planning reported roughly 17,600 homes permitted in the first 10 months of 2025, about a 23% increase over the same stretch of 2024.

What the reform did

City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is not a single rezoning of a single neighborhood. It is a change to the citywide zoning text designed to allow, in the planners’ phrase, “a little more housing in every neighborhood.” Passed December 5, 2024, it legalized accessory dwelling units such as backyard cottages and basement apartments, allowed apartments above storefronts on commercial corridors, eliminated parking minimums across much of the city, and created a density bonus for buildings that add permanently affordable homes.

The Department of City Planning, led by Director Dan Garodnick, projects the package will yield about 80,000 new homes over 15 years, paired with roughly $5 billion in committed city and state spending on infrastructure and affordable housing.

The Universal Affordability Preference

The piece of the reform drawing the most early activity is the Universal Affordability Preference, or UAP. In medium- and high-density districts, the UAP lets a developer build at least 20% more floor area than zoning would otherwise allow — but only if the additional homes are permanently affordable.

City Planning says more than 100 developments had applied to use the UAP within the first year. Those projects are projected to generate roughly 5,400 homes, of which about 900 would be permanently affordable to households earning an average of 60% of area median income. The agency has cited early UAP-eligible projects in the Bronx and Brooklyn among the first to move.

A pipeline, not a finished count

Officials are careful — or should be — about what the 23% figure proves. Housing permits respond to interest rates, construction costs and the expiration of other programs as much as to a single zoning change, and a permit is not a finished apartment. Much of the 2025 pipeline reflects projects conceived before the text amendment took effect.

What City of Yes changed is the legal envelope: the set of what is allowed to be built by right. The clearest test will come over the next several years, as accessory units, corridor apartments and UAP density bonuses move from application to certificate of occupancy.

Where it fits

City of Yes for Housing Opportunity was the largest of a series of land-use moves the council took up in 2024 and 2025, alongside neighborhood-specific rezonings such as the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan in Brooklyn and the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan in Manhattan. Together they form the supply-side answer city and state leaders have offered to a vacancy rate that has hovered near record lows.

The politics have since shifted. Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration drove the reform, left office at the end of 2025; Zohran Mamdani took office January 1, 2026 on a platform centered on affordability and a rent freeze for stabilized tenants. The zoning text, however, is law, and the pipeline it unlocked carries forward regardless of who sits at City Hall.

Verification

Frequently Asked Questions

What is City of Yes for Housing Opportunity?
A citywide zoning reform the City Council passed on December 5, 2024. It changes the zoning text to allow modestly more housing in nearly every neighborhood — legalizing accessory dwelling units, allowing apartments above shops on commercial corridors, ending parking mandates in much of the city, and offering a density bonus for permanently affordable units. The city projects about 80,000 new homes over 15 years.
What is the Universal Affordability Preference?
The UAP lets buildings in medium- and high-density districts add at least 20% more floor area if the extra homes are permanently affordable. The Department of City Planning says more than 100 developments have applied to use it, projecting roughly 5,400 homes, about 900 of them affordable at an average of 60% of area median income.
How many homes has it produced so far?
The city reports roughly 17,600 homes permitted in the first 10 months of 2025, about a 23% increase over the same period in 2024. Most permitting reflects the broader market, not solely City of Yes, but the city credits the reform for accelerating the pipeline.
Who runs the planning side of this?
Dan Garodnick is the Director of the Department of City Planning and chair of the City Planning Commission, the agency that drafted and is implementing the City of Yes zoning text.