NYC Launches New Neighborhood Data Website that Will Help Communities Plan a More Equitable Future

 

The New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Dan Garodnick joined Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr. today to announce the new online Equitable Development Data Explorer. The interactive website, designed to facilitate public engagement around issues of housing affordability, racial equity and community displacement, will serve as a central simple-to-navigate resource for New Yorkers to find critical information about their neighborhoods and equip residents with the data for planning a more equitable future for New York City and its neighborhoods.

“We are at a point in our city where every community must do its part to ensure we finally tackle the housing crisis, and we want to approach this issue equitably and intentionally. The new Equitable Development Data Explorer will be a helpful tool in better understanding the state of our housing needs as we strive to house all New Yorkers,” said New York City Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz. “I applaud the teams at HPD and DCP for their efforts in bringing this new resource online and look forward to working with them and all communities as we build and preserve the affordable housing our neighbors deserve.”

“With the city’s persistent housing crunch and a worsening national housing crisis, protecting New Yorkers against displacement pressures requires us to act on multiple levels – delivering support to tenants and delivering more housing and jobs across our city. This data explorer is part of our commitment to advancing equity in all our policies, at the citywide and neighborhood scale. We want to thank the City Council, the Racial Equity Coalition, HPD, and so many other partners for helping to lead the way in the creation of a new and important data resource that will help advance equity in our city,” said Dan Garodnick, Director of the Department of City Planning.

“NYC’s new Equitable Development Data Explorer is a powerful tool for integrating race and social equity into conversations about the future of our city,” said HPD Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr. “I believe that a more fair, affordable city for all New Yorkers starts with community-focused, data-driven dialogue about the challenges and opportunities facing our neighborhoods. This tool will support our conversations and collaborations as we work towards a more equitable future. Thank you to all who provided feedback over the last month and to our partners at the Racial Impact Study Coalition, The Furman Center, and Citizens Housing & Planning Council.”

The new data explorer can be utilized by the public and city planners to inform discussions about equitable development. New Yorkers can use the explorer to generate a visual representation of key neighborhood characteristics to easily explore data about housing, demographic, and public health data, among others. The explorer also allows users to compare this information across neighborhoods and racial and ethnic groups to identify trends and disparities. The Displacement Risk Map, for example, illustrates relevant data sets that may indicate displacement risk like household incomes and rising rents.

Centralizing this information and making it operational for all types of users is one of the many objectives of the data explorer and supports Where We Live NYC, the City’s fair housing plan. For more information on the data explorer, please see this press release, issued by DCP and HPD earlier this year.

Public engagement has been – and will continue to be – essential to helping the City shape and improve the Equitable Development Data Explorer over time. To ensure it’s easy to navigate and understand, DCP and HPD held a series of public meetings and collected written feedback about the data explorer from January through March 2022.

“Our racial impact study law, which passed last year, will fundamentally change how our city approaches land use, how we grow and develop, how we create new opportunities without harming longstanding communities,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “This equitable development data explorer, developed as a result of the law and in line with public input, is an important resource to help New Yorkers initiate discussion of the impact of projects and proposals in their neighborhoods, and for community members, advocates and elected officials to take action to take action to ensure that any development truly advances the needs of their communities without displacing the people and businesses that have helped define it.”

“It is critical for the City and New Yorkers to have a clear understanding of housing affordability, racial equity, and displacement risks within communities in order for our policies to address these priority issues,” said New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. “This new data tool and the requirement for certain land use applications to include Racial Equity Reports, established by Council legislation, will help provide communities and City government with the instruments to better evaluate the impact of development. I thank Land Use Chair Salamanca and Public Advocate Williams for championing the legislation, the Racial Impact Study Coalition for their advocacy, and DCP and HPD for its role in implementing these important tools that can help advance equity.”

“Across the country, 20th century housing policies have disproportionately discriminated against black and brown populations, including in communities that many of my colleagues and I represent in the City Council,” stated Council Member Rafael Salamanca, Chair of the Committee on Land Use (17th Council District, The Bronx). “Despite an objective to further fair housing, many communities of color have found that their concerns about being priced out of their neighborhoods were marginalized in discussions about proposed developments. It's with this history in mind that Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and I led the fight for the enactment of Intro 1572. Creating the foundation for a more equitable housing landscape across our city, the legislation crafted a system in which private and city-sponsored applications will have to declare how their projects measure up to the City’s policies for affirmatively furthering fair housing through the issuance of a 'Racial Equity Report on Housing and Opportunity.' Drawing information from the newly created Equitable Development Data Explorer, which launched today, this mandated report has the potential to be a nationwide model for ensuring government and private housing land use actions represent the communities they wish to develop in. I thank Public Advocate Williams, the Department of City Planning, the Department of Housing Preservation & Development, and housing advocates for their partnership in seeing this pivotal moment through.”

“Today RISC celebrates the release of New York City’s Equitable Development Data Explorer, created by the passage of LL 78. For the first time, we have a tool that we can use to see disparities in communities and ground needed debates about the likely impact of proposed new developments. The gap between what we want to know and what information is now available is smaller today. We did this,” the Racial Impact Study Coalition said in a statement. “New Yorkers will be able to use this tool to become more informed on the effect certain land use actions could have on a community or region before it’s too late. Ultimately, the success of this tool will be evaluated on whether the data provided and the conversations it facilitates lead us to more equitable decisions that advance fair housing and address community priorities.”

“As a research organization, Citizens Housing & Planning Council firmly believes that housing and planning policies must be grounded in accessible and transparent data. DCP and HPD are national leaders in using data to reveal and contextualize our issues,” said Sarah Watson, Interim Executive Director for CHPC. “We’re so grateful they are continually committed to launching tools like the Equitable Development Data Explorer so we can make informed decisions about how to steer our housing policies for the most equitable and impactful outcomes.”

The data explorer was developed with active participation from the Racial Impact Study Coalition (RISC), Furman Center, and Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC).

This data explorer is the result of Local Law 78 of 2021, adopted by the City Council last summer. The data explorer also builds on work done over the past several years by DCP and HPD, with support from many other City agencies, to make data related to development more available and to advance more accessible and inclusive planning around community investments.

Per the legislation, the data explorer also supports the creation of Racial Equity Reports for Housing and Opportunity, which will be required for some land use applications entering public review after June 1, 2022. The Reports, which will be prepared by the applicant and reviewed by the public, will draw data from the data explorer and include a narrative statement of how the project relates to the City’s goals to affirmatively further fair housing and promote equitable access to opportunity.

Find out more and explore the new Equitable Development Data Explorer on the DCP and HPD websites.

 Department of City Planning

The Department of City Planning (DCP) plans for the strategic growth and development of the City through ground-up planning with communities, the development of land use policies and zoning regulations applicable citywide, and its contribution to the preparation of the City’s 10-year Capital Strategy. DCP promotes housing production and affordability, fosters economic development and coordinated investments in infrastructure and services, and supports resilient, sustainable communities across the five boroughs for a more equitable New York City.

In addition, DCP supports the City Planning Commission in its annual review of approximately 450 land use applications for a variety of discretionary approvals. The Department also assists both government agencies and the public by advising on strategic and capital planning and providing policy analysis, technical assistance and data relating to housing, transportation, community facilities, demography, zoning, urban design, waterfront areas and public open space.

Department of Housing Preservation and Development

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the nation’s largest municipal housing preservation and development agency. Its mission is to promote quality housing and diverse, thriving neighborhoods for New Yorkers through loan and development programs for new affordable housing, preservation of the affordability of the existing housing stock, enforcement of housing quality standards, and educational programs for tenants and building owners. For full details visit www.nyc.gov/hpd and for regular updates on HPD news and services, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @NYCHousing.