Voter-approved process will speed up affordable housing development in neighborhoods that have produced the least
12 Fast Track districts produced just 1.1% of the city’s new affordable housing over the past five years, averaging just 12 affordable homes per district per year
Today, New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Sideya Sherman announced the 12 community districts where the voter-approved Affordable Housing Fast Track will take effect in January 2027, bringing the City one step closer to a housing system where every neighborhood does its part to meet the needs of New Yorkers.
The 12 Affordable Housing Fast Track districts with the lowest rate of affordable housing production are:
- Brooklyn CD 10: Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights
- Brooklyn CD 12: Borough Park, Kensington
- Brooklyn CD 18: Canarsie, Flatlands
- Manhattan CD 7: Upper West Side
- Manhattan CD 8: Upper East Side, Roosevelt Island
- Queens CD 4: Corona, Elmhurst
- Queens CD 5: Ridgewood, Maspeth, Middle Village
- Queens CD 10: South Ozone Park, Howard Beach
- Queens CD 11: Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston
- Queens CD 13: Queens Village, Bellerose, Rosedale
- Staten Island CD 2: Mid-Island
- Staten Island CD 3: South Shore
For too long, affordable housing production has been concentrated in a small number of neighborhoods, while other communities have produced little or none. The 12 Fast Track districts represent roughly one-fifth of New York City’s 59 community districts but produced just 883 of 63,870 new affordable homes over the past five years — 1.1% of the citywide total.
The four lowest-producing community districts each produced fewer than 10 affordable homes over five years. The highest-producing district created eight times as many affordable homes as all 12 Fast Track districts combined. The AHFT summary dataset is available here.
“New York’s housing crisis is not going to be solved by asking the same neighborhoods to do all the building,” said Mayor Mamdani. “Every New Yorker deserves a home they can afford, and every neighborhood must be part of delivering it. The Affordable Housing Fast Track gives us a new tool to cut through red tape and make sure our housing growth is shared more fairly across all five boroughs. We are going to build – block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood — at the scale this crisis demands.”
“Last November, New Yorkers went to the polls and delivered a mandate for affordability. We’ve moved quickly to implement these new tools like the Affordable Housing Fast Track, with clear criteria for where it will apply. Soon, it will be easier to build affordable housing in the districts that have added the least — an important step in our work to deliver the housing options in every neighborhood that New Yorkers deserve,” said Leila Bozorg, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning.
“For too long, affordable housing production has been deeply uneven across New York City, leaving too many New Yorkers with too few choices about where they can live,” said DCP Director Sideya Sherman. “The Affordable Housing Fast Track gives us a new tool to help change this by making it easier to advance permanently affordable housing in communities that have produced the least. We look forward to using this tool to expand housing opportunities across these 12 districts and bring meaningful housing relief to New Yorkers.”
“Every neighborhood has a part to play in making our city fairer and more affordable. Supported overwhelmingly by voters last November, 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. Neighborhood by neighborhood, this will help us achieve our collective goal of building a more affordable city,” said Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Dina Levy.
In November 2025, New York City voters approved changes to the City Charter to address the uneven distribution of affordable housing. Beginning January 1, 2027, eligible rezoning proposals that create affordable housing in the 12 designated districts will use a streamlined 90-day public review process, cutting roughly four months from the traditional Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). The Fast Track preserves Community Board and Borough President review and opportunities for public input. It does not change environmental review requirements or landmark protections.
The Mamdani administration moved quickly to put the Fast Track into action, adopting a clear and consistent methodology in April to measure affordable housing production relative to each community district’s existing housing stock. The 12 districts will be recalculated every five years based on updated affordable housing production, with the next list issued in October 2031.
DCP will host a virtual public information session on December 3 to explain how the Affordable Housing Fast Track works and answer questions from New Yorkers. Additional information, including an interactive map, is also available on DCP’s website.
The Affordable Housing Fast Track is a key part of Block by Block, the Mamdani administration’s housing plan. The plan calls for creating 200,000 new affordable homes and preserving another 200,000 over the next decade, backed by a $22 billion investment in affordable housing capital over five years.
In the coming months, the administration will explore City-sponsored land use actions in these districts to deliver urgently needed affordable housing. The administration has also moved quickly to implement other voter-approved land use tools, including the City’s first Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP) at 351 Powers Ave. in the Bronx. Approved by the City Council in May, the project will create approximately 84 affordable homes.
The administration is also advancing an ambitious land use agenda that includes a citywide transit-oriented development proposal, neighborhood plans including two already underway in the Bronx and Brooklyn and new housing on City-owned land. At 100 Gold Street, for example, the administration is advancing a plan for nearly 4,000 new homes, including approximately 1,000 permanently income-restricted affordable and rent-stabilized.
Block by Block meets the city’s housing crisis with the scale and urgency New Yorkers deserve. Alongside building and preserving affordable homes, the plan includes standing up to negligent landlords, strengthening tenant power, investing in public housing and cutting the red tape that prevents affordable homes from becoming reality.
As Mayor Mamdani has said, New York cannot afford half-measures or delays when working people are being pushed out of the city they built.
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