Bad News For NYC Housing: Only 11K Homes Built Amid Crisis, Study Says

NEW YORK CITY — Only 11,000 new homes will be built this year in New York City as the city grapples with a housing crisis, a new study found.

Residential construction in 2023 will be far below the 30,000 new units originally expected, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the New York Building Congress.

The low projection comes amid increasing concerns over a bona fide housing crisis in the city, which has seen only a fraction of new homes for a recent population surge of nearly 1 million people.

Mayor Eric Adams has sought to address the crisis with a "moonshot" push to build 500,000 new homes in the next decade, for which he recently unveiled a spate of sweeping zoning reforms

"This is groundbreaking, literally," he said in September about the reforms.

But actual groundbreaking this year hasn't caught up with Adams' lofty goals.

The new study pinned a sharp decline on new housing construction from 2022 to 2023 on the expiration of the 421-a tax abatement program.

After the tax break ended in June 2022, new housing construction declined starting that August, the study found.

"The loss of the 421-a tax abatement combined with high interest rates led to slower overall growth, though renovations and alterations have continued," the study states.

Read the full study here.