Manhattan Borough President and Comptroller-elect Mark Levine asked New Yorkers for housing ideas and they answered.
Levine issued a new report on Thursday on the state of housing production in Manhattan that includes 34 recommendations for new development sites submitted by New York City residents. He said his office received more than 90 recommendations overall before vetting each one to see which were viable.
The sites include long-stalled development projects, like a large plot of land at 1800 Park Ave. in East Harlem located next to the 125th St-Harlem Metro-North stop, as well as an array of parking lots scattered across the island.
One surface lot, at 22 Cliff St. in the Financial District, could potentially handle up to 258 new apartments under current zoning rules, according to Levine’s report. Another, at 5089-5099 Broadway in Inwood, could be the site of a 48-unit building.
About a quarter of the new apartments in many of the 34 prospective buildings could be reserved for low- and middle-income renters in exchange for tax breaks or city funding.
“It tells you something about Manhattanites’ mindset right now,” Levine said in an interview. “Space is precious, we have a housing crisis and we shouldn’t be using precious space in Manhattan for surface parking lots.”
Levine, a Democrat, said his new report is a coda to a similar analysis he and his staff released in 2023, in which they promoted 171 locations for new housing across the borough.
That report urged support for larger housing plans, like a proposal to turn a section of Midtown into a new residential neighborhood. The City Council approved that 42-block rezoning plan in August and city officials estimate it could lead to the creation of roughly 10,000 new units.
This time around, Levine recommends rezoning a section of Northern Manhattan west of Broadway, between 129th and 133rd streets, for more new housing. The area now includes an array of commercial and manufacturing sites, many of them vacant, he said.
“This area could become a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood with local retail, residences, ample transit across the metropolitan area, and access to a reimagined waterfront,” the report states.
Levine will take over as city comptroller in January. He has vowed to invest at least 1% of New York City’s nearly $300 billion pension fund to finance new housing construction after he takes office next month.
The need for new affordable housing is clear across Manhattan, one of the most densely populated sections of the country.
An analysis by the brokerage Douglas Elliman found median monthly rents for one-bedroom apartments leased in Manhattan reached $4,700 a month in November — up $400 from November 2024. The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom was $6,018, an increase of nearly $800 over the last year.
Nearly half of Manhattan residents are already considered “rent-burdened,” meaning they spend at least 30% of their income on housing, city data shows. Across New York City, the vacancy rate for apartments priced below $2,400 is less than 1%, according to the city’s most recent housing survey.
But housing construction is rising overall in the city, with developers completing more than 25,000 new units in the first half of the year compared to around 34,000 in all of 2024, according to Department of City Planning data.
Changes to zoning rules that allow for modest construction increases in every neighborhood, part of departing Mayor Eric Adams’ “City of Yes” plan approved by the City Council last year, could pave the way for even more development.
“The landscape is changing,” Levine said. “We scored some really big victories in the last year, with changes that are going to help us.”
