It’s been an eventful year in New York City housing. Mayor Eric Adams launched a new plan for housing production and a controversial approach to street homelessness. At the same time, the city’s homeless shelter population reached historic highs this year, fueled in part by an increase in migrants from the southern border and by soaring rent costs, including the biggest price hike for rent-stabilized apartments in nearly a decade.
It’s been an eventful year in New York City housing. Mayor Eric Adams took the helm of City Hall at the start of the 2022, launching a new plan for housing production and a controversial approach to street homelessness. The city’s homeless shelter population reached historic highs this year, fueled in part by an increase in migrants from the southern border and by soaring rent costs, including the biggest price hike for rent-stabilized apartments in nearly a decade.
As City Limits looks to expand our coverage of New York City housing and homelessness in the year ahead, we’re looking back at 2022. Below are the 10 most-read housing stories we published over the the last 12 months.
What should we cover in 2023? Send story tips here.
City Limits’ Most-Read Housing Stories in 2022
10. NY Lawmakers Propose $250M to Launch Section 8-style Rent Subsidy
During budget negotiations this spring, lawmakers in the State Senate and Assembly included a quarter of a billion dollars to fund the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP), which would provide a new rent voucher for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, including undocumented immigrants. Though both progressive tenant organizations and landlord interest groups supported the legislation, Gov. Kathy Hochul declined to fund it in the final budget deal and the bill failed to pass during the legislative session that wrapped up in June. But housing advocates are still pushing to revive HAVP in 2023, with more than 80 organizations signing a letter to the governor this month urging her to establish and fund the program, which would cover a portion of a participant’s rent up to 30 percent of their household income.
9. Hochul, Lawmakers Look to Override NY’s Exclusionary Zoning Amid Housing Crunch
In the never-ending YIMBY vs. NIMBY debate, accessory dwelling units (ADUs) took center stage in 2022, including in the primary for governor. Gov. Kathy Hochul backed a plan to legalize ADUs—extra apartments in basements, attics or garages—in lots zoned for single-unit homes. Supporters say the move would ease the state’s affordable housing shortage and help address decades of exclusionary zoning rules rooted in racism and segregation. But the plan was vehemently opposed by Hochul’s more moderate democratic rival in the primary and her Republican competitor in the general election, both of whom argued the policy would strip local governments of a say in neighborhood zoning rules.
8. House Flippers Continue to Target East New York. Residents Blame the 2016 Rezoning
House flipping remains rampant in East New York, a transit-rich neighborhood with thousands of two- to four-family homes. Home prices in the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood began to tick up before then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his plans to rezone 190 blocks of East New York in 2014, analyses showed. But affordable housing advocates and local residents say de Blasio’s plan, approved by the…