In November 2025, New York City voters approved four land use-related City Charter amendments, one of which is the Affordable Housing Fast Track (“Fast Track”), intended to help streamline the public review process for land use applications for affordable housing projects in the 12 community districts with the lowest relative growth of affordable housing. The Fast Track amendment does this by reducing the typical Uniform Land Use Review Procedure clock from 200 days to only 90 days (which includes a 60 day combined review by the Community Board and Borough President, and a 30 day review by the City Planning Commission (“CPC”)), and eliminating City Council Review for affordable housing projects in qualifying districts. (Click here to read our prior blog post to learn more about this program and the other land use amendments). The Fast Track will take effect on January 1, 2027, and will be re-evaluated every five years to determine where it applies.
In order to determine which 12 community districts produce the least amount of affordable housing, the CPC was tasked with establishing the methodology for calculating the rate of affordable housing production across the City’s 59 community districts. The new rules were finalized on April 13, 2026.
The new rules require that, every five years, beginning October 1, 2026, the Department of City Planning (“DCP”) publish a report on the rate of affordable housing permitting in each of the City’s 59 community districts over the preceding five-year period. DCP is required to update the list of qualifying community districts at the close of each cycle.
The rate of affordable housing production in each community district will be measured by the number of new affordable housing units as a percentage of the district’s total housing stock at the start of each five-year cycle. To count toward that tally, an affordable housing unit must meet two criteria: (1) it must have an official start date[1] on record with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”), and (2) it must have a construction permit issued by the Department of Buildings. Importantly, “affordable housing” means a residential building subject to a regulatory agreement, restrictive declaration, or other similar instrument with a federal, state or local agency or instrumentality that provides for the creation of one or more affordable housing units. Affordable housing units must be located in either newly constructed buildings containing at least one affordable housing unit, or in existing buildings that have been converted and results in at least one new affordable housing unit, in order to count. However, affordable housing units in existing buildings already subject to a preservation program are excluded from the count.
Finally, to determine total number of housing units in each district at the start of each five-year cycle, CPC must use the most recent Decennial Census figures, adjusted for net new housing units as reported by the DCP’s Housing Database.
As the Fast Track moves toward its January 2027 start date, we will be watching closely to see whether streamlining the public review process translates into measurable gains in affordable housing production where it is needed most. Please reach out to us if you have any questions.
This post was co-authored by Sophie Huang, Sheppard Urban Planner.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The “start date” means the date it becomes subject to a regulatory agreement or restrictive declaration, or the date HPD receives a Notice of Intent to begin marketing the affordable units.