NYC NOW - November 22, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

The city’s first-ever soccer stadium in Queens will be named after a United Arab Emirates airline. WNYC’s Giulia Heyward has more. Meanwhile, a city Department of Transportation report says its e-bike charging pilot program has improved fire safety by reducing at-home charging and reliance on spare batteries. Plus, the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams have struck a deal to advance Mayor Adam's signature affordable housing plan. The agreement includes zoning changes and funding for infrastructure upgrades. WNYC’s David Brand has the latest.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, November 22nd. Here's the midday news from Alec Hamilton. The city's first ever soccer stadium in Queens will be named after a United Arab Emirates airline. WNYC's Julia Hayward has more. The new Etihad Park Stadium will open before the 2027 regular soccer season. The airline secured the exclusive naming rights for 20 years. It'll be located in Queens, just east of Cityfield and Flushing,

and will also be used to host concerts and festivals. The City Council overwhelmingly approved the stadium as part of the Willets Point Redevelopment earlier this year. The venue is privately financed. It'll be the first completely electric stadium in the city and all of Major League Soccer. The 20-year deal is a similar length of time to agreements made between Barclays and City Group with other venues in the city.

The City Department of Transportation says its e-bike battery charging pilot program that started earlier this year has improved fire safety. An agency report says the public e-bike charging stations help reduce dangerous at-home charging and decrease reliance on spare batteries. Users also report feeling safer having access to outdoor charging hubs. The city is working to let buildings install battery charging cabinets on the sidewalk in front of their properties to help reduce fire risk. The DOT says it plans to partner with NYHA to set up more public e-bike charging locations.

The FDNY estimates 33 New Yorkers have died in battery-related fires in the last five years. Rainy today, high near 40 degrees. The air quality is good outside, though. More rain tonight, mainly before 1 a.m., though a slight chance of showers coming back after 4 a.m. Windy with a high around 43. Up next, New York City Mayor Eric Adams' housing plan is one step closer to yes. More on that after the break. New York City Mayor Eric Adams' housing plan is moving forward.

On Thursday, the City Council and the mayor struck a deal to advance the zoning proposal known as City of Yes. As part of the agreement, the city will invest $5 billion in infrastructure upgrades and a affordable housing to support the push for more development. My colleague, Sean Carlson, spoke with WNYC reporter David Brand for more details. Let's talk about just the housing component of all of this. The mayor's been pushing this for two years. What's in it? So this plan would update the city's zoning restrictions for the first time since 1961.

And I think a lot of listeners might hear zoning and your eyes glaze over. Like, oh, what does that mean? Well, it means a lot and has a big effect on our daily lives because it determines exactly what can be built where. So you don't have houses next to hospitals, next to factories, or skyscrapers in a row of brownstones. It keeps single-family zoned areas, single-family suburban-style areas. So this proposal, a very lengthy proposal, includes a lot of modest changes across the entire city that taken together can have a pretty big impact. And so some of those changes would be allowing slightly larger development near train stations. And a long-term,

commercial streets, allowing homeowners to add an extra unit if they have a one or two-family lot, making it easier to convert empty offices into apartment buildings. Now, Council Speaker Adrian Adams had been broadly supportive of the mayor's push to build more housing, but also said that his proposal wasn't enough to address the city's housing crisis. So let's talk about what she and the council leadership got out of the agreement. Yeah, so Speaker Adams and many members of the city council wanted this plan and and more because they said zoning changes alone don't automatically lead to more affordable housing development. And I think as a lot of New Yorkers know, especially working class, middle

income New Yorkers, it's hard to pay the rent. And if we're going to build housing, we should also build housing that more people can afford. That was their stance. And so they kind of released their own complementary package of proposals for the mayor to meet to earn their support on the zoning plan. That included some really specific investments for more deep affordable housing creation and preservation, more staffing at city housing agencies that build housing and that also do enforcement for housing code violations and safety issues. They also wanted the plan to include more investments to meet neighborhood needs like better sewer systems, better streets, safer and cleaner parks. Yeah. So like you said, when folks

hear things like zoning and these machinations at City Hall, maybe their eyes glazed over a little bit. But let's talk about if you're just an average New Yorker, what are some tangible ways they'll be affected by this proposal? Well, if this plan ultimately passes a full city council vote, which it seems likely to. I think we might be seeing a lot more housing construction around this city. There's going to be a lot more tower cranes rising, especially near train stations and along commercial streets. You know, talking to some land use. experts who are excited about a lot of the proposed changes, but one that's gotten a little less attention lately is something we used to talk about all the time, and that's converting

these empty offices into apartments. And people are pointing to the financial district, which 20 years ago had no housing. Now has 40,000 people living in converted offices or new apartment buildings, and they say they look to Midtown Manhattan and say that could become more of a residential neighborhood with a lot of these older offices in particular being converted into housing down the road. That might happen to other parts of the city as well. And ultimately, I think we'll just see more housing on the market if everything goes according to plan. Now, $5 billion sounds like an awful lot of money for a city that, honestly, was just cutting department budgets earlier this year. So where is all this money coming from?

It's a good question. I think that was like the holdup today. And I think the Adams administration and the budget, the budget people there were very hesitant to release more money because they want to hold on to as much as possible. But, you know, this $4 billion, it's not going to be spent all in one lump sum. It's going to be spread across years, different programs. I said, sorry, I said $4 billion. That's because $4 billion is coming straight from the city. And Mayor Adams appealed directly to Kathy Hochle, New York Governor, to release an additional $1 billion from the state. And so Hockel says she's going to include that billion dollars in her budget proposal in January. After that, the state legislature will have to approve it, that's likely to pass as well. So that would

become part of that total $5 billion. Okay, all told, this is going to end up being less than 100,000 new units being built in the city over 15 years. The housing crisis, the housing shortage is something we hear about at all levels of government, hear about it in the presidential race. Is this enough to address New York's current housing crisis? Well, it's not. You know, there are estimates that New York City really needs up to 500,000 new homes. And so this is about a fifth of that, even less actually. But it's still a pretty big deal. You know, you mentioned 100,000. That was kind of the initial proposal. The council has modified some of the plan to, you know, which will actually lead to fewer units being built, especially in the lower density

areas or in flood zones. That was something they were really adamant about. But it's still estimated now to lead to 80,000 new units potentially, which that's pretty significant. And there are very few land use actions in city history that would lead to that many apartments being allowed to get built. Now, we should note, this is not the final step for city of yes, right? What comes next in the process? Well, it's going to go to a full council vote. So it passed a subcommittee. It's the zoning subcommittee. If it failed there, then it would die. But they passed it, four to three. So now it'll go to a full council vote next month. And then after that, if council passes, it'll go to May to sign. And then I think everyone in the city planning department will celebrate

great because this is a long time coming. From WNIC's David Brand. Thanks so much. Thanks a lot, John. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.