Mark marks the spot

Doing a lot-by-lot analysis of a county as complex as Manhattan is a tall order, but that didn’t stop Borough President Mark Levine for directing his staff to do so for a very important project: recording all underutilized parcels where housing could be built, which in sum could add more than 73,000 units to the borough’s housing stock.

This isn’t even a roadmap, it’s a literal series of maps, and there are plenty of Xs marking the treasure of underutilized space in one of the densest urban centers in the world. The housing stock and affordability debate in New York can often feel like one purely rooted in abstractions, massive and unintelligible numbers and inscrutable regulations, but at the end of the day it’s a question about space and what goes on that space.

It’s certainly not the first time such a survey has been conducted, though this seems like one of the most complete. As Brooklyn borough president, Mayor Adams himself had put out a more limited list of vacant lots and unnecessary parking in his own borough. While some of the previously identified land has been targeted for building, too often these exercises only serve to draw attention to possibilities without action.

Yet we’re in a different climate now. While New York’s leaders have long understood underutilization and the housing shortage to be a problem, there is an increasing acknowledgement of the fact that we have hit a true crisis point. The counterproductive local Council member veto has all but fallen by the wayside, and legislators of all stripes have largely stopped listening to the destructive and unsupported arguments of their NIMBY constituencies.

Both the mayor and Gov. Hochul have established housing development as a top priority, going beyond lip service to actionable steps like cutting through onerous and pointlessly restrictive zoning and housing regulations at the city level and instituting mandatory housing construction goals in Albany. The tools and momentum are all there. Now let every borough take Levine’s commendable example and then get to building.