The New York Building Congress is urging New York City to overhaul the land-use and regulatory framework that governs healthcare and life sciences construction, arguing that the current rules no longer align with how modern hospitals and medical facilities are planned and built. In a new report titled “Building a Healthier Five Boroughs: The Infrastructure Behind Better Health and Economic Growth,” the organization frames healthcare construction as essential infrastructure and says that updating aging hospital campuses is not optional if the city wants to sustain quality care and economic growth.
The report underscores how dramatically hospital space needs have evolved since many of New York City’s existing facilities were constructed. It notes that a patient room that meets contemporary standards is now more than 200% larger than a typical 20th-century patient room. Operating rooms have also expanded significantly, growing by 70% compared with earlier generations of hospital design. These larger clinical spaces reflect current medical practice, technology needs, and patient-care expectations.
Beyond room sizes, the New York Building Congress highlights the technical and infrastructure requirements of a modern healthcare facility. Contemporary hospitals must incorporate sophisticated HVAC systems, robust infection control measures, multiple layers of backup power, and resiliency systems, all of which demand additional space and more complex building programs. As a result, maintaining the same number of beds today requires a much larger physical plant than it did decades ago.
Despite this shift, the report emphasizes that New York City’s land-use regulations continue to treat hospitals in ways that are largely unchanged since 1961. Zoning and related rules that were written for smaller, less complex medical buildings can constrain the modernization or replacement of older facilities, even when those facilities no longer match current standards for patient care and building performance. The New York Building Congress positions this regulatory lag as a core obstacle to delivering next-generation healthcare infrastructure across the five boroughs.
Carlo A. Scissura, Esq., president and CEO of the New York Building Congress, stresses that the city’s healthcare sector cannot be expected to provide its current level of service indefinitely in buildings that predate Medicare. He notes that New York City has already demonstrated a willingness to modernize its rules when the need is clearly recognized, pointing to prior changes that addressed housing and life sciences uses. In his view, the city can take a similar approach to healthcare by revisiting regulations that were written for an earlier era of hospital design.
By calling for updated land-use and regulatory policies, the New York Building Congress aims to align New York City’s framework for healthcare and life sciences projects with the realities of contemporary medical infrastructure. The report links physical modernization of hospital facilities to both improved health outcomes and broader economic benefits, and it frames revisions to long-standing rules as a necessary step in sustaining the city’s position as a leading healthcare hub.
