Getting in the zone

There’s a place for zoning restrictions in a dense metropolis like New York. A free-forall might work in Houston, but we can’t have commercial developers buy up a plot of land in the middle of a sleepy residential block in Queens and decide to erect a six-floor shopping mall without input or process.

Yet, as we and others have argued again and again, it makes just as little sense — particularly in a city reinventing itself after the many disruptions of COVID — for zoning to stymie making the city more dynamic and livable, with arcane processes forcing those even thinking of building more housing or converting space to better uses to do battle with a bureaucratic hydra for months or years, just to maybe have the whole thing tanked by one recalcitrant Council member.

Mayor Adams’ recently-announced “City of Yes” initiative on reforming zoning codes to encourage more housing, more economic activity, and carbon footprint reduction still has a lot of specifics to be filled in. City Planning Commission Chair Dan

Garodnick will now helm a process, which should involve a broad cross-section of the public and commercial interests around the city, to determine exactly which regulations should be nixed or modified and under what circumstances.

But as a goal, it is exactly what’s needed to move the city forward during a transformative time. It might allow, for example, more studio apartments to be included in a building, or industries like life sciences and manufacturing to set up shop without unnecessary building modifications. The approach has the benefit of being achievable with the approval of the commission and the Council, no need to go hat in hand to Albany.

The administration must thread a needle, not letting development run roughshod over sensible restrictions while still abandoning the nonsensical approach of land use as a neighborhood-by-neighborhood issue. We have citywide goals around housing creation and facilitating commerce, and it makes sense to move forward in a citywide fashion. The alternative is to trip on our own red tape.