New York Constuction Report staff writer
New York City has launched an online map showing affordable housing projects planned for city-owned land, providing the public with a centralized look at developments expected to produce more than 50,000 homes.
The new Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) Tracker identifies more than 100 city-owned sites across the five boroughs that are planned for affordable housing. The interactive map also notes projects that include public amenities such as libraries and community facilities.
The tracker is part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing agenda, which calls for creating 200,000 affordable homes over the next decade.
“Too many New Yorkers are being priced out of their homes,” Mamdani said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to use every tool we have to build the affordable housing our city needs.”
The administration said it intends to issue requests for proposals for at least five city-owned development sites each year.
Since taking office, Mamdani has introduced several initiatives intended to speed affordable housing development on public land, including the creation of a Land Inventory Fast Track task force and an expedited land use review process. City officials say the changes could reduce the pre-development process for some projects by as much as two years.
The administration has also announced several affordable housing developments on city-owned properties.
Among them is The Aurea, a planned 131-unit affordable housing development on the site of a former New York Police Department parking lot in Manhattan’s East Village.
In Queens, the city recently selected a development team for The Orion, a project planned to include nearly 1,000 homes and community space on a long-vacant site in Hunters Point.
Other projects include redevelopment of the New Utrecht Library in Brooklyn with a new library and affordable housing, a mixed-use development on the B-East site in East Harlem, and affordable housing projects planned alongside new library facilities at the Grand Concourse and Bloomingdale libraries.
The city has also identified three sites in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Jerome Avenue corridor in the Bronx and St. Albans, Queens, for its Neighborhood Builders Fast Track program. Together, those projects are expected to add up to 300 affordable homes, including about 100 intended for homeownership.
In addition, the city recently closed financing for the Sol on Park development, which will create 229 affordable apartments for seniors on the New York City Housing Authority’s Morris Houses campus in the Bronx.
