UES, UWS to Be Targeted For More Affordable Housing Development

The Upper East Side and Upper West Side are among 12 neighborhoods being singled out by the Zohran Mamdani administration for having a lack of affordable housing, which officials plan on changing by allowing developers to build housing without that usual hearings and bureaucratic delays.

Specifically, the areas encompassing Community District 8 (UES) and Community District 7 (UWS) will see “fast-track” development rules come January. The both the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side were among the least affordable neighborhoods in the city; the UWS came in 50th out of 59 districts citywide in terms of generating new affordable housing while the UES came in at 53rd.

Officials have estimated that these districts, alongside the remaining ten low-ranked districts in other boroughs, generate only 1.1 percent of all citywide affordable housing generation on a yearly basis—or 12 units per year. Updated tallies will be taken every five years, which means that both the UES and UWS could be removed from the fast-track list in October 2031.

The new fast-track rules, which resulted from a change in the City Charter, were approved by voters during the November 2025 election. They will involve a significantly shortened 90-day review process for new projects, cutting an estimated four months from the typical ULURP process.

“New York’s housing crisis is not going to be solved by asking the same neighborhoods to do all the building,” Mayor Mamdani said in a statement. “Every New Yorker deserves a home they can afford, and every neighborhood must be part of delivering it.”

In a statement of her own, Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Dina Levy added that “the Affordable Housing Fast Track is an essential new tool to cut red tape and build affordable housing in the places that need it most.”

Furthermore, the City Council’s approval would no longer be needed for these projects, with the City Planning Commission (CPC) essentially now getting final say.

“If we want to be a city that helps undo the patterns of segregation, that makes sure that New Yorkers have choice about where they live, we can’t concentrate affordable housing in just a handful of neighborhoods,” City Planning Commissioner Sideya Sherman told the press on September 30.

Development groups praised the advancement of the fast-track process, as well as evidenced by a statement from New York Housing Conference Executive Director Rachel Fee: “NYHC is excited to see changes approved by voters last year start to take effect. The Affordable Housing Fast Track is an important step toward creating more affordable housing in neighborhoods that have historically added too little.”

Yet not everybody is pleased that the Upper East Side and Upper West Side have made the list—including Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer.

“Today’s announcement is bad policy,” Brewer said in a statement provided to The West Side Spirit. “This ‘fast-track’ list should not include the Upper West Side, where residents want to build new affordable housing, but there is either no available location or no interest from the developers who can build as-of-right.”

Brewer believes that local buildings currently undergoing “conversion” into affordable ones should have been taken into account by city officials, as well as what she said were her district’s “many sites” for temporary supportive housing and single-room occupancy units.

“City Planning’s formula does not factor in the renovation of a building to accommodate low-income older adults, as is taking place on West 85th Street today, and another site that underwent conversion on West 79th Street for the same purpose in 2023,” the Council Member added.