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Open New York
@opennewyork.city
Grassroots group of pro-housing activists aiming to fix the housing shortage in NYC 🏘 🏙 Won’t you be our neighbor?
501 followers1 following90 posts
ONopennewyork.city

Like much of the US, New York is experiencing a dire housing shortage. One factor is our lengthy permitting and review process. But according to a new report from the White House CEA, New York takes an average of 2 years to permit new homes.

Among large multi-family projects subject to discretionary permitting, the median time spent in the permitting process in recent years was 7.5 months in Boston, 8 months in Oakland, 13 months in Los Angeles, 16 months in Seattle, 30 months in New York City, and 33 months in San Francisco. These numbers may understate the burden since they exclude projects that never receive approval. In New York City pre-certification and environmental review alone often take nearly two years. In California, environmental review lawsuits sought to block the permitting of 48,000 proposed units — nearly half of all proposed units – in 2020 alone. Even for projects that are ultimately greenlit, construction cannot begin until litigation is completed, typically in four to five years.
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ONopennewyork.city

And these delays come with a cost: $50,000 per home. That’s huge. They also identified discretionary permitting — a rezoning, or “ULURP” — as taking 30 months in NYC. That's 2.5 years just to be allowed to build new homes. All of this contributes to our housing crisis.

Permitting delays contribute to the nationwide housing shortage by increasing the cost of new housing development, leading would-be deals to not pencil out. These costs include interest payments, property taxes, insurance, utilities, business operation overhead, and higher financing costs to compensate investors for delays and uncertainty. One study of Washington state estimated that each additional month spent in the permitting process increases the cost of building by about $4,400 (or about 1 percent). In New York City, a two-year delay for mid-rise development increases the per-unit cost by an estimated $50,000. Permitting requirements may also dissuade smaller projects and impose larger burdens on smaller builders who are less well capitalized.
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Open New York
@opennewyork.city
Grassroots group of pro-housing activists aiming to fix the housing shortage in NYC 🏘 🏙 Won’t you be our neighbor?
501 followers1 following90 posts
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