New York’s (Re)zonings in Context

Tracing New York City’s land use changes, 2010–2020

New York City Zoning Map (City Limits, originally from New York City Planning)

In the past few decades, zoning has been a contentious issue in New York City. Starting at the beginning of the Bloomberg administration in 2002, the city undertook rezonings at a faster and more aggressive pace. The city employed rezonings as a way to promote growth, targeted to certain neighborhoods. Under de Blasio’s administration, rezonings have continued (Angotti & Morse, 2016). Rezonings are critical to the administraton’s goal of creating 300,000 affordable apartments by 2026. The city initially set out to rezone 15 neighborhoods, but as of September 2020 it had only rezoned 6. Many neighborhood rezonings like in Bushwick, Sunset Park, Inwood, and most recently Soho/Noho have been fiercely contested by residents and community groups.

What is zoning?

Zoning: “a law that organizes how land may be used.” It controls a number of aspects about how you may use the land:

1. whether the land can be used for residential, commercial, industrial, or mixed use purposes
2. how much can be built on the land
3. how much land must remain unbuilt

There are also special purpose districts, which often have an underlying purpose such as increasing economic activity or limiting development in areas vulnerable to flooding.

Given an area’s existing zoning designations, one can usually develop on a lot “as of right” — i.e. with only the relevant building permits. However, if a proposed development doesn’t conform to the zoning, the developers or in some cases the Department of Planning Commission (DCP) will need to change it. The city has the authority to amend zoning “for the conduct of planning relating to the orderly growth, improvement and future development of the city.”

The process of amending the zoning designations is called the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). ULURP can last between 7–9 months and involves public hearings and votes with the community board, borough president, city council, and mayor. The community board’s vote is advisory. If any of the other bodies vote no, either the borough president, city council, or mayor can veto it.

Although rezonings can spur growth and produce much-needed housing, research in New York City over the past ten years has pointed out that rezonings are rarely race or class neutral. A 2010 report by the NYU Furman Center found that rezonings were more likely to be in neighborhoods with larger shares of Black and Latinx residents and with lower median incomes compared to citywide numbers. The 2016 book Zoned Out extensively deals with the notion that rezonings are discriminatory. In detailed case studies on Williamsburg, Harlem, and Chinatown, the book argues that new development — with increasing prices and inadequate zoning protections — results in the displacement of communities of color. At the same time, DCP’s use of downzonings and contextual zoning have preserved high-income, majority white enclaves — often at the expense of the less affluent surrounding neighborhoods (Angotti & Morse, 2016). Recently, the Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development (ANHD) published a report on rezonings that identified two important findings: (1) neighborhood rezonings (i.e. those proposed by the city) are less effective than other types of rezonings and (2) neighborhood rezonings are least beneficial in Majority Black Indigenous People of Color/Low Income areas.

NYC is one of the only US cities that has never developed a comprehensive plan, a fact that Angotti and Morse argue reflects the power of the real estate industry in the city (2016). By focusing on zoning, and relying on zoning as the primary tool for planning, the city overprioritizes physical development and hyper-local change. These incremental changes take the place of a comprehensive, long-term planning process that some feel would more equitably address NYC’s pressing policy issues.

Angotti, T, & Morse, S. (Eds.). (2016). Zoned Out! Race, Displacement, and City Planning in New York City. Urban Research.

Purpose

Given the contentious position of zoning in NYC’s planning history, I set out to descriptively assess how rezonings may have affected land use patterns. Although rezonings change what is allowable, they don’t prescribe a certain type of use to a lot. Consequently, I wanted to know: what has changed as a result of, or simply alongside, rezonings. Comparing lot-level data citywide and in areas that have been rezoned between 2010 to 2020, I examine changes in the number of residential units, building codes, and land use.

Note: I do not distinguish between downzonings, upzonings, and hybrid rezonings nor do I distinguish between rezonings initiated by the city and by individuals. Both categories have been the subject of previous research and would be useful categories to explore further in expanding the scope of this article.

Data Sources

Data on lot-level characteristics and zoning amendments comes from New York City’s Department of City Planning (DCP). DCP produces the Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output (PLUTO™) by merging tax lot data with columns from the Department of Finance’s Digital Tax Map (DTM) and information from other city agencies. Polygon shapefiles of zoning amendments since 1977 come from the NYC GIS Zoning Features geodatabase, which DCP updates monthly. Updates include recent zoning changes adopted by the City Council. Other spatial data files come from DCP’s open data site.

Methodology

In comparison to the considerable research on zoning in NYC, the scope of this article is narrow. After reviewing the changes in zoning amendments between 2010–2020, I compare the average number of residential units, building class differences, and land use differences between these two points in time. I first joined version 8 of MapPLUTO for 2020 with version 1 for 2010 with a point-to-polygon spatial join. I also created a secondary dataset that intersected MapPLUTO records with all geographies for rezonings adopted between 2010 and 2020.

Before delving into the change in residential units, building class, and land use, I embarked on a background study of rezoning. I calculated the number of rezonings and the area percentage (the percentage of a specific geographic area where the rezoning occurred) of rezonings citywide and by borough and neighborhood. I also produced maps that illustrated where rezonings have occurred overtime — since 1977 and between 2010 and 2020 specifically.

Then I compared changes in residential units, building class, and land use in the periods between 2010 and 2020 citywide and for the areas that underwent rezonings. Given that changes in building class and land use are specific, it was difficult to evaluate changes at smaller geographies. Instead, I produced four indicators for four broader trends that I observed: growth in residential housing, loss of residential housing, growth of vacant land, and loss of public and outdoor space. With these indicators, I calculated the percentage of rezoned lots that experienced these events by neighborhood. Simplifying the changes in land use to only four key outcomes allowed me to view the spatial distribution of trends more clearly.

I. Background on NYC Rezonings

Since 1977, almost 50% — equivalent to 149 square miles — of the area in the city has undergone a zoning change. Differences are more pronounced by borough. In Manhattan, for example, 69% of the borough has been rezoned since 1977 compared to 33% of the Bronx. However, differences are smaller in the last decade and the pattern changes. While 67% of Staten Island has been rezoned since 1977, only 2% has been rezoned between 2010 and 2020.

And the highest percentage of rezonings between 2010 and 2020 occurred in Queens with 15% of the borough’s geographic area rezoned between 2010 and 2020. To some extent, this seems reasonable. A borough that underwent a considerable amount of rezoning at the end of the 20th century might not need as many changes between 2010 and 2020. Although Manhattan, which has had the highest area percentage of rezonings since 1977, had the second highest area percentage between 2010 and 2020.

Comparing 1977–2021 to 2010–2020 does obscure some nuanced temporal patterns. For instance, the map above reveals that there were many rezonings in the 1970s and 1980s in midtown and uptown Manhattan. Since 2008, more rezonings have occurred in northern Manhattan and the outer boroughs — particularly the Bronx and Queens. The 2009–2015 and 2016–2021 rezonings primarily reflect the agenda of the de Blasio administration, as de Blasio was elected in 2013.

The maps above focus on the 2010–2020 time period and reveal trends within the study period with more precision. The one on the left shows the distribution of the number of rezonings: neighborhoods in all of the city’s boroughs experienced multiple rezonings. The two neighborhoods with the highest number of rezonings were Mott Haven Port Morris and Flushing-Willett’s Point. It’s difficult to tell from the map how extensive each rezoning was — in terms of the geographic area and when they occurred. This information instead is more clearly conveyed in the map on the right and highlighted with arrows are the rezonings with the largest geographic areas. While Flushing-Willet’s Point had the highest number of rezonings, in terms of space the rezoning area was quite small. Instead, neighborhoods like Jamaica, Astoria, and Ozone Park experienced rezonings on a much larger spatial scale. Ozone Park, for example, was one of the last and among the largest of the rezonings under the Bloomberg administration. The rezoning in Jamaica was also considered one of the largest and most comprehensive rezonings. The rezoning affected 500 city blocks. The largest rezonings all occurred before 2015. Most of the rezonings since have been much smaller in scale.

II. Residential units, building class and land use differences

Rezonings have often been rationalized as a tool for producing housing. Specifically, planners present upzonings as a way to maximize the potential out of an “underutilized” space and incentive residential development to address the housing shortage (Angotti & Morse, 2016). Consequently, I would expect rezoned areas to experience greater increases in residential units on average. The effects of upzonings in the above graphs may be neutralized by downzonings in the same time period, which would constrain and disincentivize new residential development. As expected, the difference in the number of residential units on average are higher in rezoned areas in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. The Bronx is the most extreme: in all areas, the average difference in residential units between 2010 and 2020 is 4.4, but in rezoned areas it is 13. The average number of residential units was slightly higher in 2020 for buildings in both Queens and Staten Island, and in both boroughs the differences between all and rezoned areas is small.

The changes in building class don’t suggest huge re-inventions of the built environment, even in rezoned areas. The highest percentages of building class changes — out of all building class changes citywide or in rezoned areas — involve changes from one to two-family houses. In rezoned areas, the highest percentage of building class differences is from “one story” to “cape cod.” Cape cod buildings are detached houses with steep roofs and around 90% of them exist in Queens, which illustrates the influence of the large rezonings that occurred in Queens between 2010 and 2020.

The graphs above offer a counter-argument to the trends of the average number of residential units. In general, they seem to suggest that residential density is fluctuating, but not substantively changing. At the same time, the technical language of building class codes obscures any understanding about broader trends. The difference between “two stories — detached” and a “two family converted from one family” is difficult to picture for the average observer and likely contributes to small “buckets” of information. Most combinations of building class changes were less than 1% of all changes.

To examine broader trends, I turned to the land use categories. Land use categories are simply aggregated versions of the building class codes. With these more general categories, the pattern becomes more informative.

As one might expect, a high percentage of buildings overall and in rezoned areas convert vacant land to residential housing (9.7% overall and 9.2% in rezoned areas). These conversions aren’t to tall skyscrapers, but rather to one- and two-family buildings. There are also more cases of mixed use in 2020 compared to 2010. This finding is true overall and in rezoned areas. Overall, the highest percentage of land use changes were from commercial and office space to mixed use residential and commercial (10.3%). In general, the pattern of land use changes does not look drastically different for rezoned areas compared to all areas citywide. The change from residential housing to vacant land, which is the highest percentage in rezoned areas and the fourth highest citywide, does appear concerning. After looking at a random sample of properties on Google Maps, I determined that many of these properties are likely in transition and under-construction for new development. At a surface level, it does seem strange that the dominant strategy is one of new development: one or two family buildings are knocked down and replaced rather than renovated.

Based on the land use changes between 2010 and 2020, I identified 4 outcomes that I wanted to explore in rezoned areas at the neighborhood level: growth of vacant land, growth of residential housing, loss of community/outdoor space, and loss of residential housing. The maps reveal much more than the simple bar graphs above. In neighborhoods in the southern parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx, there was an increase in vacant space. This likely suggests that there are developments on the way and this vacant space is temporary. However, it also demonstrates where there is more new development. In the neighborhoods in south Brooklyn, the area of rezonings is much smaller, so the maps may also be overinflating the importance of growth in vacant space in those areas (since the maps use percentages). The South Bronx, East Harlem, and Williamsburg are also areas where there has been a higher percentage of lost outdoor and community spaces. These are also areas that have gained a higher percentage of housing, which illustrates one of the difficult tradeoffs between building new housing or providing outdoor/community space. In general, the loss and gain in residential housing in rezoned areas seems mixed across neighborhoods. For both gains and losses, the percentages are generally around 50%.

Conclusion

I’ve narrowly reviewed the changes that occurred in housing and land use citywide and in rezoned areas between 2010 and 2020. The findings do provoke questions for further study:

1. Why do building class changes suggest that most residential changes are small and largely insignificant (e.g. 1-family converted to a 2-family home)? What is the motivation for building class changes that do not increase density?
2. What is the relationship between rezonings and vacant land? They might create buildings in “under-utilized” spaces, but (a) these spaces may only be under-utilized on paper and (b) the findings show that they also appear to create more vacant land.
3. Why have some neighborhoods experienced a loss in community/outdoor space? Given that such combinations of land use changes are more infrequent and did not feature in any of the land use graphs, perhaps these changes are unconnected to the rezonings or they might have occurred in the context of a specific project. it would be useful to determine when such outcomes might occur and why.