The NY Building Congress releases transit-oriented development report

New York, NY The New York Building Congress released “Next Stop: Transit-Oriented Development,” a guide to New York maximizing housing production at sites near subway and commuter rail stations across the region.

On the release of Gov. Hochul’s Housing Compact, which prioritizes transit-oriented development to combat the growing housing shortage across the state, this report serves as a roadmap to effectively maximize housing production in high-opportunity, transit-rich neighborhoods.

“Building density near transit hubs is textbook smart urban planning,” said Carlo Scissura, Esq., president and CEO of the New York Building Congress. “Faced with a housing and affordability crisis, there has never been a more critical time to think creatively about boosting housing production, particularly around parts of New York that have access to mass transit. We urge the city and state to seize this chance to create desperately needed housing units and extend access to the cultural and economic opportunities that no other city in the world can offer.”

By creating a new metric, the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Opportunity Score, based on job accessibility, residential density, floor area ratio (FAR) utilization and the residential share of existing land use, the Building Congress identifies the highest-scoring sites across the five boroughs and in neighboring suburbs.

The Building Congress highlights several policy recommendations to combat barriers to housing production and development, including eliminating the residential FAR cap at the state level, expediting environmental reviews for public transit and TOD projects, incentivizing office to residential conversions, extending the completion deadline for vested 421-a projects, allowing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), rezoning auto-centric districts and more.

The Building Congress calls for increasing housing density along commuter rail lines. If 10% of the existing low-density residential land near commuter rail stations was built to the density of row houses, the state could add an estimated 460,000 new homes, or more than half of the ten-year target set forth in the governor’s proposal.

The report aims to provide a model to scale transit-oriented development citywide – key findings include:

• The 46^th Street and Northern Boulevard M and R subway stations in Queens have among the highest TOD opportunity scores of all the sites surveyed (9.3 and 8.9, respectively, on a scale from 0 to 10). The majority of the land between these two stops, which can access more than twice as many jobs within 45 minutes than any other location in the U.S., is locked in low-density zoning of 1.25 FAR or lower. Rezoning this location to move away from auto-centric zoning restrictions towards higher-density housing is imperative.

• The Lexington Ave./63^rd St. F and Q train station and the 68^th St. Hunter College 6 train station in Manhattan show how outdated restrictions have limited the ability to build housing in a transit-rich area. The restrictive FAR cap, overzealous historic districts, and limiting building height requirements in the area have stifled TOD projects for decades.

• The 62^nd St. and New Utrecht Ave. train station complex in Brooklyn is one of the only subway connections in New York City’s outer boroughs that runs trains in four directions. This means that a person has the ability to reach one million more jobs within 60 minutes of 62^nd Street than the most accessible census block in the next biggest city in the country, Los Angeles. In order to further develop TOD near this subway station, and complement the addition of the incoming Interborough Express (IBX), it is critical to expand this area for mixed-use zoning and permit exemptions for infill development and transit projects from environmental reviews.

• The report identifies the 238^th St. 1 station in the Bronx, which outpaces the other boroughs when it comes to housing density near transit, as a location that can quickly become a hub for TOD. The area near the station is a low-density, wealthier neighborhood with access to Van Cortlandt Park and almost a million jobs. Deepening transit zone exemptions in this location is a great first step for progressing TOD.

• The St. George ferry terminal in Staten Island earned a TOD Opportunity Score of 0.6, an outlier from the other sites included in the report. That’s because the waterfront, which has M1 (light manufacturing) zoning, doesn’t have a single dwelling unit within a five-minute walk of the terminal. Reassessing this zoning could allow for the creation of a thriving, mixed-use neighborhood that could take advantage of incredible transit access and views of the Manhattan skyline.

• The Mets-Willets Point Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) demonstrates the value of transit-oriented development in action. The recently approved Willets Point mixed-use development project will deliver around 2,500 new affordable homes to this highly accessible, low residential density area. This site has the second highest commuter rail TOD Opportunity Score in all of New York State, including stations within New York City.

• Out of the 147 Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad stations included in the study, Nassau County is home to the top 11 stations with the greatest opportunity for transit-oriented development. For commuter rail to be cost-effective, the half-mile of land surrounding the station (its “walkshed”) should have a minimum of 20 dwelling units per acre (du/ac) and a target of 50 du/ac, which is the equivalent of townhouses like those of Brownstone Brooklyn. Despite this, Nassau stations average just 3.8 du/ac. Legalizing basement apartments, accessory dwelling units, and medium-density multi-family housing is the first step to making progress.

• When including New Jersey Transit commuter rail stations, Newark Penn Station has the highest TOD opportunity score of the sites showcased (9.5). At Newark Penn, transit commuters can reach twice as many jobs in 45 minutes as the most accessible block in every other city center in the country. But the overabundance of parking surrounding the train station makes residential density very low, leading to high housing prices.