Environmental review, permitting and lease-up reforms will cut development timelines by as much as two years
Reforms include overhauling housing lottery system and changes to environmental review
Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg and Deputy Mayor Julia Kerson released the Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (“SPEED”) report, a sweeping set of reforms to deliver affordable housing faster across New York City.
The reforms target every stage of the development process, including pre-development, permitting and lease-up, and will cut timelines for all affordable housing projects by eight months. For projects that require a zoning change, the reforms will reduce timelines by as much as two years.
“These delays are not inevitable. They are the result of broken systems and a failure of political will,” said Mayor Mamdani. “New Yorkers cannot afford to wait years for affordable housing while projects sit trapped in bureaucracy. SPEED is about making government deliver – faster, fairer and at the scale this crisis demands.”
“Our administration is tackling the housing crisis with the urgency that New Yorkers deserve. With these investments and procedural changes, we will cut months or even years off of the affordable housing development timeline – months that New Yorkers can spend in permanent housing instead of instability,” said Leila Bozorg, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning. “I’m grateful for the work of the SPEED Task Force, agency partners, and everyone who helped identify ways to build a more effective government.”
“This administration is clear-eyed in our mission to prove that government can deliver quickly and at scale,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson. “Whether overhauling permitting through SPEED or pursuing Alternative Delivery contracting, we're slashing project timelines in half. Faster, more efficient execution means more families in homes and better outcomes for New Yorkers across all five boroughs.”
“With the housing crisis impacting New Yorkers every day, we must do everything we can to deliver affordable homes more quickly — and streamlining regulations through SPEED will help us do exactly that,” said Department of City Planning Director Sideya Sherman. “By reducing the pre-certification timeline for many projects from two years to six months, we will get shovels in the ground and New Yorkers into homes faster — while maintaining a fair and thorough review process. These commonsense reforms are a critical part of our broader effort to meet the urgency of the moment and build a more equitable and affordable New York City.”
“Our housing crisis demands that we move faster. The SPEED report lays out a vision for overhauling our affordable housing lease-up process that will significantly improve the timeline and user-experience for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who rely on the Housing Connect lottery system. By cutting application approval times in half — to under 100 days — families can move in sooner,” said Dina Levy, Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation & Development. “Together with permitting and development changes, we’re cutting 8 months off the timeline from inception to move-in day. This will help us get more families into affordable housing faster, making a real difference for thousands of New Yorkers. We won’t let red tape and outdated systems stand between families and the affordable housing they deserve.”
“In the face of the ongoing affordability crisis and the city’s anemic rental vacancy rate, this administration must continue to be unapologetically pro-housing,” said Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani. “The Mayor’s SPEED report is a comprehensive blueprint that will unlock strategies to facilitate the efficient and safe construction of more badly needed housing for New York City families. More than just reshaping the development process so that we are responsive to the challenges of construction while taking advantage of new opportunities, today’s announcement sends a message to the industry that the five boroughs are the best place to plan their next building project.”
“We are proud to be part of this whole of government response to tackle the housing crisis with creativity, urgency and bold initiative,” said Department of Social Services Commissioner Erin Dalton. “We are cutting the red tape, reducing administrative burdens, and collaborating with key stakeholders to streamline processes and expedite connections to deeply affordable housing for vulnerable New Yorkers. We applaud the Mamdani Administration’s commitment to creating affordable housing at an unprecedented speed and scale by leaving no stone unturned to create efficiencies across agencies and prioritizing the needs of housing insecure New Yorkers across the city.”
The SPEED reforms will make City processes faster and more accountable across four stages of development: environmental review and planning; pre-development and financing; permitting and approvals; and marketing and lease-up.
As a part of the overhaul, the administration will cut the “pre-certification” process for many projects requiring zoning changes from roughly two years to six months. The City will also reduce the permitting timelines for both new construction and office-to-residential conversion projects by approximately five months.
To move New Yorkers into completed affordable housing more quickly, the City will also overhaul the City’s housing lottery system. The Mamdani administration will implement immediate improvements while building a more flexible long-term system that is fair, transparent and easier to navigate.
The reforms will cut the time between construction completion and move-in in half – from 210 days to fewer than 100 days.
The reforms were developed by the SPEED Task Force, which Mayor Mamdani created by executive order his first day in office. The Task Force held roundtables with more than 100 industry experts, advocates, developers, builders and trade organizations and received more than 500 recommendations that informed the final reforms.
None of the reforms require legislative action or change the City’s discretionary approval process for projects.
These reforms build on additional housing initiatives launched by the administration, including the City’s first-ever Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP) and the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track program. Together, those initiatives will reduce the pre-development timelines for affordable housing projects by more than two years.
“We can't build the New York City of 2050 with an environmental review process from the last century,” said NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn. “Reforming how we study the impacts of new rezoning initiatives and development projects on our transportation network will speed up the process of getting much needed housing built, and it will help us better understand the multi-modal transportation needs of New Yorkers.”
“NYC Parks was proud to collaborate with sister agencies on the SPEED Task Force to increase efficiency for developers working near parkland or conducting tree work,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura. “With the rollout of these reforms, this administration continues to ensure that government is delivering results for working New Yorkers.”
“Solving our housing crisis will require reducing barriers at every stage of the pipeline, from permitting to lease-up,” said City Comptroller Mark Levine. “These reforms target key points along the housing creation timeline to do exactly that. Recent efforts to spur housing creation in New York City—from last year’s City Charter changes, to my office’s NYC Housing Investment Initiative to finance new construction and preservation, to the SPEED reforms—are mutually reinforcing. I applaud this Administration’s focus on addressing the housing crisis, and I look forward to continuing this work together to ensure New Yorkers can afford to live in the city we all love.”
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