Take Action to Save Your Neighborhood
We still have time to stop Albany from lifting a state cap on the size of residential development. But we need your help.
Lifting the cap has the potential of changing the character of historic districts and neighborhoods throughout the City. We hear that chances for defeating this are improving. But City residents need to keep demanding it.
Governor Hochul proposed lifting the cap in New York City in her budget message. Our goal is to get the Assembly and Senate to remove it from the final budget bill. The City delegation turned back two previous attempts to raise the cap. We need them to act again.
The Governor said she proposed this to increase affordable housing. But there is nothing to require affordable housing and no guarantee it would happen. It is true that removing the cap wouldn’t result in immediate development. It would give the City the ability to propose zoning changes that would allow residential buildings larger than 12 FAR (Floor Area Ratio). This is a longtime goal of the real estate industry. Mayor de Blasio failed in two attempts to sneak it through prior legislative sessions.
In all these years, there has never been a public explanation of why and where this would be applied. No guarantee that any affordable would be built. And no public input.
All this should happen before a State action, not after.
There are City representatives fighting to remove this provision from the budget bills now being developed in the Assembly and Senate. If each house says no, the odds are it won’t make it into the final budget that will be voted on in a few weeks.
Stand up for having a say in how your neighborhood evolves.
Email Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and say “Don’t lift the 12 FAR Cap. City residents want input.”
Then check here to see who your Assembly and Senate representative are and tell them the same thing.
We have the ability to say no to government proposals. Let’s exercise it.