New York City faces a significant housing shortfall, with a draft report from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the Department of City Planning (DCP) concluding that the city needs 700,000 additional homes over the next decade to meet demand. The finding is contained in the draft Fair Housing Growth Strategy, which sets out a framework for how and where the city should add new housing.
The Fair Housing Growth Strategy was mandated by Local Law 167, passed in 2023, requiring the city to assess housing needs and outline a plan to advance fair housing goals. As part of this mandate, the draft report assigns housing production targets to each Community District across the city. These targets are intended to distribute new housing growth more equitably while responding to documented shortages.
The strategy is designed to guide housing policy over the next five years, with an explicit focus on fair housing principles and geographic accountability. By tying production expectations to each Community District, HPD and DCP are seeking to clarify where growth should occur and to give local stakeholders a clearer view of how citywide housing goals affect their neighborhoods.
The draft report builds on the Mamdani administration’s Block by Block blueprint for housing production, released in May. That earlier blueprint outlined a broad approach for increasing housing output, and the Fair Housing Growth Strategy now provides a more detailed framework for measuring needs and identifying growth areas within the city.
Sideya Sherman, Director of the Department of City Planning, said the draft strategy is meant to align the city’s ambitious housing actions with a data-driven understanding of need. She emphasized that the document is a starting point rather than a final plan, and underscored that fair housing considerations are central to where and how the city expects to grow.
Because the Fair Housing Growth Strategy remains in draft form, HPD and DCP are launching a public engagement process to solicit feedback from residents. Over the coming weeks, the agencies plan to gather input that will help shape the final report, including responses to the proposed production targets and the overall framework.
City officials are encouraging New Yorkers to review the draft and share their perspectives, positioning the feedback process as a key step in refining how the city will respond to its housing shortfall. The final version of the strategy is expected to incorporate comments from this outreach, setting the stage for future housing actions grounded in both statutory requirements and community input.
