Dive Brief:
- To hasten the development of climate-friendly housing in New York City — and cut its costs — Mayor Eric Adams and Department of City Planning Director Dan Garodnick on Monday announced proposed changes to the city’s environmental review process.
- The “Green Fast Track” proposal would allow small- and medium-sized housing projects that meet certain criteria, such as using all-electric instead of fossil fuel heating systems, to proceed more quickly through the typically lengthy, expensive environmental review process, according to a news release.
- By exempting these projects from redundant or unnecessary review processes, New York City estimates it will save each project an average of $100,000 and cut review time by as much as two years.
Dive Insight:
New York City, like many other cities, faces a stark housing crisis. Some estimates show the metro area was short almost 340,000 homes as of 2021. “We desperately need modestly sized housing developments centering green building techniques to sustain our city,” said Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi in a statement.
While developing the “Green Fast Track” proposal, city planning and environmental experts examined more than 1,000 environmental reviews from the last decade, according to a news release. They found that modest housing projects with certain characteristics consistently had no negative environmental impacts.
“We can show that a category of housing projects is small enough not to cause environmental impacts,” said Rob Holbrook, executive director of the mayor’s affordable housing plan, “Get Stuff Built,” in a statement. “We must stop wasting their time filing paperwork that does not contribute to environmental protection or public engagement.”
Currently, the city’s environmental review process for these developments can take several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, the news release says.
The city would get more out of the proposed rules than just more housing; it would leverage the environmental review process to further climate goals, the news release says. Requiring eligible projects to use all-electric heating instead of fossil fuels would lower buildings’ greenhouse gas emissions. While both the city and New York state already have legislation restricting fossil fuel use in many new buildings, those requirements won’t fully go into effect for several more years.
Eligible developments also cannot be in vulnerable coastal areas, areas with industrial emissions or near major roads. And they must meet certain mitigation standards if they are in areas with hazardous materials or with high ambient noise.
City agencies will hold a public hearing on the proposed rule at least 60 days after it is published in the city record. After at least another 30 days, the city will review and integrate comments into the rule before it goes into effect.
