City of Yes for Housing Opportunity: What Changed

It is a change to the text of the Zoning Resolution, not to the zoning map: your lot keeps its district, but what that district allows may have changed.

The eight parts of the plan

NYC Department of City Planning (DCP) describes City of Yes for Housing Opportunity as a plan to "build a little more housing in every neighborhood." Its overview lists these components:

• Universal Affordability Preference (UAP): buildings can add at least 20% more housing if the additional homes are affordable at an average of 60% of Area Median Income.
• Office and other conversions to housing: easier conversion of vacant offices and other non-residential buildings.
• Parking mandates lifted: parking becomes optional in new buildings in much of the city.
• Accessory dwelling units (ADUs): backyard cottages, garage conversions and basement apartments.
• Town Center zoning: 2 to 4 stories of housing above businesses in low-density areas.
• Transit-oriented development: 3, 4 and 5 story apartment buildings on qualifying sites near transit in low-density areas.
• Campus infill: height-limited, contextual buildings on campuses such as churches.
• Small and shared housing: fewer limits on homes with shared kitchens or other facilities.

The DCP overview was written while the plan was in public review. The Council adopted it in December 2024 with modifications, so the rules below are taken from the adopted Zoning Resolution text, not from the overview.

1. Universal Affordability Preference

• Applies in R6 through R10 districts (HPD UAP fact sheet), to developments outside Mandatory Inclusionary Housing areas (ZR 27-111).
• The building can exceed the standard residential FAR only by the amount of affordable housing it provides (ZR 27-111). The higher limits are the "qualifying affordable housing" column of ZR 23-22.
• Affordable floor area must serve households at or below a weighted average of 60% AMI, with no more than three income bands and none above 100% AMI; sites with 10,000 sq ft or more of affordable floor area must put at least 20% of it at or below 40% AMI (ZR 27-111).

Source: ZR 23-22. More detail in the UAP guide.

2. Accessory dwelling units

• The Zoning Resolution calls them "ancillary dwelling units": one additional unit of up to 800 sq ft of floor area for each single- or two-family residence on a zoning lot (ZR 12-10).
• Limits: none below the flood-resistant construction elevation in the high-risk flood zone; no basement, cellar or backyard ADUs in DEP's mapped 2050 rainfall and 2080 coastal flood risk areas; no backyard ADUs in historic districts, or in R1-2A, R2A and R3A districts beyond the Greater Transit Zone; the lot must be an owner's primary residence when the ADU is first occupied (ZR 12-10).
• No parking is required for an ADU (ZR 25-222, 25-232). Full rules in the ADU guide.

3. Parking

• Inner Transit Zone: no off-street parking is required for dwelling units created after December 5, 2024 (ZR 25-211).
• Outer Transit Zone: reduced requirements, from 100% of units in R1 and R2 down to 12% in R8 through R12, and zero for ADUs, qualifying senior housing and income-restricted units (ZR 25-222).
• Beyond the Greater Transit Zone: requirements remain but with lower rates and waivers (ZR 25-232). See the parking guide.

4. Town Center and transit-oriented development

• Both work through a new defined term, the "qualifying residential site" (ZR 12-10), which gets higher floor area and height in R1 through R5 districts (ZR 23-21, 23-424).
• Transit-oriented sites: at least 5,000 sq ft, inside the Greater Transit Zone, on a wide street or the short end of a block, and not in R1 or R2 (ZR 12-10).
• Town Center sites: C1, C2 or C4 districts mapped in, or equivalent to, R1 through R5 districts, along continuous commercial frontage (ZR 12-10). Inside the Greater Transit Zone the residential portion follows R5 rules and a mixed building can reach 2.50 FAR (ZR 35-22, 35-32). See the Town Center and TOD guide.

5. Conversions to housing

The conversion rules in Article I, Chapter 5 of the Zoning Resolution now apply to non-residential floor area in buildings that existed on December 31, 1990 (ZR 15-01). They cover changing that floor area to residences, joint living-work quarters for artists, or community facilities with sleeping accommodations.

6. Floor area exemptions in apartment buildings

• Residential amenity space (co-working rooms, package rooms, laundry, gyms and similar) can be exempted from floor area up to 5% of the building's residential floor area (ZR 23-231).
• Half of a corridor's floor space can be exempted if it is daylit, opens to a shared balcony or terrace, ends at a 3-bedroom unit, or runs no more than 100 ft from the elevator or stair core to the farthest unit door (ZR 23-232).
• Refuse storage can be exempted up to 3 sq ft per dwelling unit (ZR 23-233).

What did not change

• The zoning map. City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is a text amendment, so your lot's district on the map is the same as before.
• Special purpose districts, landmarks, and recorded restrictions such as E-designations still apply on top of the base district.
• Mandatory Inclusionary Housing areas keep MIH; UAP applies outside them (ZR 27-111).

How to see which rules hit your lot

Three things decide most outcomes: the zoning district, whether the lot is in the Inner, Outer or Greater Transit Zone (shown on the "Transit Zones Parking Geographies" layer of DCP's ZoLa map, per ZR 12-10), and the lot's size and street frontage. Zohgo reads the city's records for an address and runs these checks for you.

City of Yes FAQ

Related pages

• UAP guide
• ADU rules
• Parking after City of Yes
• Town Center and TOD
• R6A zoning
• R7A zoning
• All residence districts