New York City’s pace of affordable housing construction could drop significantly over the coming decade due to a reduction in funding planned by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, according to a new analysis.
Adams in January released a 10-Year Capital Strategy laying out the city’s expected spending on construction and repairs over the coming years — a report that mayors are required to release every other year. The city’s two main housing agencies received $4.5 billion in capital money in the current Fiscal Year 2025, and are slated to get $4.3 billion in the next fiscal year that starts in July — but the money shrinks to $2.4 billion in 2027, and hovers around an average of $2.2 billion over the following eight years, according to the plan.
That cliff has caught the attention of housing advocates. In a new analysis shared with Crain’s, the nonprofit New York Housing Conference found that the city’s Housing Preservation and Development department would build 1,750 fewer new affordable units per year under the proposed capital plan compared to recent levels — or 15,750 fewer units over the life of the plan. (In 2023 the city produced 14,227 new affordable units, the most in decades).
Such a drop-off would hamstring Adams’ overarching housing goal: to build 500,000 new homes by 2032 to ease the city’s crushing shortage. Rachel Fee, executive director of the Housing Conference, said that rising construction costs mean the city must maintain at least $4 billion in capital money each year for HPD and the New York City Housing Authority.
“If we even want to maintain our current levels of housing development and preservation of affordable and public housing, we need to address the budget,” Fee said.
Fee’s group released its analysis ahead of a Tuesday City Council hearing focused on the city’s housing budget. The Adams administration will negotiate with the council on a new Fiscal 2026 budget ahead of a July 1 deadline, and the 10-year capital plan will be up for discussion.
The cutbacks at HPD would limit the agency’s financing of standard affordable rental apartments, as well as supportive and senior housing, housing for people with disabilities and the preservation of existing units, the report found.
A spokesperson for HPD had not responded to a request for comment by the time this story was published.
As for NYCHA, the budget cliff would impact the authority’s PACT program — a major effort that allows private developers to renovate beleaguered public housing buildings. Although the program has shown promise, the capital budget includes zero funding for it after an initial $874 million in 2026.
“PACT has been such a success that, especially with all this uncertainty in Washington, this is a time to double down on strategies that work,” Fee said.
Lawmakers did push successfully last fall to add $1 billion in capital funding for HPD and NYCHA as part of the last-minute deal on the City of Yes housing plan. That money is included in the agencies’ budgets over the next four years, and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration committed to adding an additional $1 billion over five years.
But the analysis warns that the city is now at risk of being forced to dip into the City of Yes money to plug holes in its existing budget, rather than paying for new construction and preservation programs as lawmakers had hoped.
