What New Interactive Maps Reveal About the Development Potential of New York City’s City-Owned Land

On his first day in office, Mayor Mamdani signed Executive Order 4 establishing the Land Inventory Fast Track Task Force (or “LIFT” Task Force) to facilitate the creation of new housing. The LIFT Task Force consists of representatives from city agencies and other public institutions. The Task Force is actively reviewing sites owned or controlled by the city or an affiliated entity to determine whether the lots are suitable for development without “a significant disruption to critical City operations or services.” The ultimate goal of the Task Force is to develop strategies and find sufficient land to support at least 25,000 new housing units over the next 10 years. ¹

The NYU Furman Center is releasing four interactive maps that categorize City-owned or leased land to shed light on the location and potential suitability of City-owned sites.²

Changes to the City Charter “Fast Track” Affordable Housing on City-Owned Land

New development on City-owned land will benefit from changes to the City Charter that were passed by voters this past November. Prior to these changes, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) was often required to go through the full ULURP process when disposing of City-owned parcels to develop new affordable housing, requiring lengthy review and adding time to the pre-development process. In addition, actions by the Board of Standards and Appeals, or BSA, were generally not structured to support most affordable housing development. 

Under the updated City Charter, HPD dispositions to Housing Development Fund Companies (HDFCs)—the typical approach for 100 percent affordable housing projects subsidized by HPD—are now eligible for a shorter review through the Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP). For dispositions of City-owned land by HPD to support affordable housing, ELURP eliminates City Planning Commission review, reducing the review timeline from roughly seven months to three. Because it is required under state law, they will be voted on by City Council and reviewed by community boards and borough presidents. In addition, publicly financed affordable housing projects that require zoning relief and meet certain criteria can also proceed through a new BSA Fast Track. Both of these changes allow affordable housing developments on City-owned land to move more quickly through the pre-development process. ³

The City owns or leases more than 15,000 parcels, totaling 2.2 billion square feet of land.

Overall, the City owns or leases 15,179 lots, totaling almost 2.2 billion square feet. East Harlem has the highest concentration of City-owned land, which accounts for 61 percent of the total square footage of land in the neighborhood (Figure 1). In addition, more than 45 percent of land in Rockaway/Broad Channel and Washington Heights/Inwood are also owned or leased by the City. In contrast, City-owned land is least concentrated in lower Manhattan and in some lower-density neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens.

Figure 1

56.6 percent of City-owned or leased lots have more than 5,000 square feet, and almost two-thirds of lots have 50 percent or more unused FAR.

Certain characteristics may make some lots more suitable for affordable housing development than others. For example, some larger lots may be better positioned to house multifamily development without the need to assemble multiple parcels. However, they may already be fully developed for other priority uses or may not be suitable for other reasons. In New York City, 56.6 percent of City-owned or leased lots exceed 5,000 square feet, and 25.4 percent are larger than 40,000 square feet (Figure 2). About two-thirds of sites are already zoned for residential development. A similar share of sites were substantially underbuilt, using 50 percent or less of their allowable Floor Area Ratio, or FAR. Various agencies use these sites; HPD only uses about 5.6 percent of City-owned lots, while 34.4 percent are used by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, indicating that they are likely currently used as parks, open space, or sports facilities (Figure 3).⁴

Figure 2

Figure 3

New Interactive Maps Inventory City-Owned Land

The NYU Furman Center has created four new interactive maps that draw on New York City’s data to allow users to explore City-owned and leased land at the parcel level. The four maps use publicly available data created by the Department of City Planning (DCP) and include detailed data on each parcel.

We grouped the lots into four categories, ordered by decreasing suitability for development, and mapped each category separately:

Table 1

Map 1 | Parcels with No Current Use

Parcels with no current use, including vacant land and sites with non residential structures that are not actively in use capture about 20 percent of the City’s owned and leased parcels, and a similar share of the City’s total square footage.

In total, these parcels account for 417 million square feet across nearly 3,000 lots. While these parcels may offer promising opportunities for new housing, some of them are too small to be suitable for large multifamily development. About 30 percent of these lots have a lot size of more than 5,000 square feet. Just 16 percent of parcels in this category, or 483 parcels, are both larger than 5,000 square feet and also zoned for residential use.

Map 2 | Parcels That Have Not Been Developed but Have a Current Use

Parcels with a current cultural or recreational use, but without major structures, such as parks, playing fields, community gardens, beaches, and open space, represent the largest share of the City’s lots, with more than 40 percent of all City-owned and leased lots and 68 percent of the City’s land. Because these sites are not already built out, they may, in some cases, lack the infrastructure required to support a residential structure. Some of these parcels are located in floodplains; a number of the lots on this map are located on the waterfront. 

Map 3 | Parcels That Have Been Developed and Have a Residential Use

Parcels with a current residential use, including public housing and other housing-related uses like transitional housing, represent about 9 percent of City-owned and leased lots and 6 percent of the City’s total square footage. 82 percent of these lots are NYCHA parcels, but other residential lots are owned or managed by agencies including HPD and the Department of Homeless Services. In some cases, these sites may have unused residential FAR or could be rezoned to allow for additional density, and may therefore be able to support larger affordable housing developments.

Map 4 | Parcels That Have Been Developed and Have a Current Non-Residential Use

Parcels with a current non-residential use and major structures, such as police stations, schools, libraries, hospitals, and water treatment facilities, account for a little more than a third of all City-owned or leased lots and 56 percent of square footage. The active non-residential use on these lots can make adding affordable housing or adding new housing density more challenging.

The map also includes City-owned storage facilities and parking lots, which may be among the most readily adaptable sites, either for full reconfiguration into housing or for adding additional residential density to existing uses. Although the city has financed successful projects that combine affordable housing with these uses, such as mixed-use developments with libraries or community facilities, these projects tend to be more challenging to execute. They often require replacing or rebuilding existing structures and can face additional political hurdles, particularly when they involve well-used or highly valued community resources.