Dive Brief:

• New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to earmark $1.9 billion in order to bring 10,000 more affordable housing units to the city, according to Curbed New York, building on his pledge to add or update 200,000 units for low- and middle-income housing in a decade.

• The units will be targeted at households with annual incomes of less than $40,000, with half of the units reserved for seniors and approximately 500 for veterans.

• De Blasio is also pushing a 2.5% sales tax on residential properties over $2 million, which will fund a city-sponsored affordable housing program for seniors, and he has earmarked $90 million to pay for a program that would represent low-income tenants in court for housing-related issues.

Dive Insight:

New York City is vying to bridge its widening housing affordability gap, with projects to boost both market-rate and affordable housing production.

Last week, the city’s Economic Development Corporation released a study of the costs associated with de Blasio’s proposed redevelopment of Sunnyside Yard, in Queens, which could include as many as 7,200 affordable housing units. The project is expected to cost between $16 billion and $19 billion and deliver an economic boon of up to $1.53 billion to the city.

A project similar in scale, Hudson Yards on Manhattan's West Side, is set to deliver 20,000 housing units once completed, of which 5,000 will be affordable.

Earlier this month, Monsey, NY-based developer Ader Group announced plans for a 474-unit, low- and middle-income housing development in the South Bronx, while approval was granted late last year to four affordable developments in the Bronx and East Harlem.

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