A Roadmap for Abundance
Introducing our Abundance Agenda for New York
Today, Abundance New York releases The Abundance Agenda: Policy Recommendations for a New York that Builds. With this agenda, we seek to build on the energy of the abundance movement to provide a long-term vision and roadmap for what an affordable, welcoming, and dynamic New York looks like and how to get there.
Our readers are familiar with the sense of scarcity in New York and its impacts. A lack of homes has driven skyrocketing rents. A lack of transit capacity and misallocated street space have lengthened our commutes. A lack of clean energy and climate infrastructure has raised costs and left us more vulnerable to extreme weather. Underpinning all of this is a government that is not set up for success.
And yet, in recent years we have been encouraged by signs that New York is ready to build again. Our governor and mayor, though cut from different political cloth, are aligned on leading a dynamic, welcoming, and more affordable New York. After years of delay, congestion pricing went into effect, immediately demonstrating its value and gaining popularity. The City Council passed the largest citywide upzoning since 1961. New Yorkers passed amendments to the City Charter to make it easier to build needed housing. State leaders have acknowledged the need to reform environmental review and civil service rules. Things are changing here.
For a growing share of New York leaders and voters, Abundance is a watchword—a value that affirms we can have more than enough of everything we need to thrive. But the label is contested: what, in practice, does Abundance demand? This Agenda is our attempt to move Abundance in New York from north star to roadmap. We have worked to synthesize and expand on the incredible research, reporting, and advocacy of trailblazers to answer many of the questions that the nascent Abundance movement has left open. It examines the root causes of the scarcity New Yorkers face across housing, transit, energy, and governance; and lays out a set of concrete reforms that would make it easier, faster, cheaper, and fairer to build what New Yorkers need.
What follows is a summary of our goals by policy area and our recommendations on how to get there. We encourage everyone to read the full agenda, where we go into more detail on each idea.
Democracy & Delivery
GOALS
Achieve 80%+ uptake rates for public benefits. The 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit reached 88% of eligible children; SNAP hit 88% participation in 2022. An 80% target across the board is achievable.
Reduce capital project cost overruns and delays by half. More effectively delivering capital projects means improving processes and reducing barriers that add time and costs.
Recruit and retain public sector talent. Agencies should be fully staffed with experienced professionals, reducing reliance on overtime, burnout, and contractors.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Modernize Environmental Review. The State should reform SEQRA to exclude environmentally beneficial projects—infill housing, clean water infrastructure, resilience projects, renewable energy, pedestrian and cyclist safety, and transit infrastructure—from additional review.
Staff Up New York. The State should make civil service exams more flexible and job-relevant, allow experience to replace degree requirements permanently, and expand flexible temporary appointments.
Faster Public Building. The State should reform constraints on procurement, delivery method, ULURP, and zoning for all City builder agencies to mirror the powers of the NYC School Construction Authority and Economic Development Corporation.
More Agile Procurement. The City should embrace challenge-based procurement, allow more flexible payment methods, and advance “other transaction authority”-like powers.
Well Designed Access to Public Services. The State and City should overhaul applications for housing, food benefits, cash assistance, and health care to reduce the time tax.
Create a Public Reinsurance Fund. The State should create a public reinsurance fund focused on construction, development, property, and business insurance, paired with liability caps.
Reform the Scaffold Law. The State and City should reduce insurance costs by reforming the Scaffold Law and Local Law 11 to fairly share liability.
Housing & Homelessness
GOALS
Achieve net population growth. Achieving net growth requires making New York affordable and livable enough that more people choose to stay and arrive than leave.
End street homelessness While the city has expanded its shelter system to address the immediate crisis, success will mean dramatically expanding permanent supportive housing units, which are the only long term solution.
Build 500,000 homes over ten years. 50,000 annually would add roughly 21% to the city’s rental stock and push vacancy rates above 5%.
Reduce median rent-to-income ratio, targeting below 30%. Notably, this will require growing the economy, reducing inequality, boosting wages, and reducing housing costs through increased supply and demand subsidy.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Build Housing Near Transit. The City should rezone along transit corridors, including planned transit corridors, using denser zoning near subway stations (the closer the denser), with more density at higher capacity stations (where ridership is below capacity) and where multiple lines intersect and pursue tax increment financing for newly upzoned communities.
Build Housing Near Rail. The State should upzone around regional rail stations, including Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North.
Streamline Permitting. The City should streamline the building permitting process, including through pre-approved templates and combining agency inspections.
Property Tax Reform. The State should reform the property tax system to be fairer, especially for renters, easier to understand, and more progressive.
A Faster Housing First. The City should advance a housing first policy by expediting permanent supportive housing and overhauling CityFHEPS.
Save Rent-Regulated Homes. The City and State should preserve existing rent-regulated units by reforming the hardship program while ensuring tenant protections.
Accelerate Affordable Housing. The State should expand its Housing Acceleration Fund and give housing development agencies flexible “other transaction authority”-like powers.
Build Cheaper and Safely. The City should reform its building code to expand single-stair allowance, reduce elevator minimums, and align codes with other cities.
Expand Innovative Construction Methods. The State and City should scale mass timber and modular construction through disciplined investing and process reform.
Tiny Homes, New York Style. The City should legalize SROs citywide through changes to building and fire codes.
Don’t Require Parking. The City should eliminate parking minimum requirements citywide, building on City of Yes, to reduce per-unit costs.
Public Transportation & Public Space
GOALS
Serve 100% of New Yorkers. A busway, BRT stop, or subway station within a half mile of every New Yorker, accessible to all.
Eliminate traffic deaths. Vision Zero has been in place since 2014. Stalled progress on this issue does not mean that this is the wrong goal. Achieving it will mean designing streets where fatal crashes become highly improbable.
Double average bus speeds citywide. From 8 mph to approximately 16 mph.
Achieve six-minute service system-wide and 95%+ on-time performance. Six-minute headways, long demanded by transit advocates, are achievable and transformative.
Create expansive public spaces throughout the city. Moving efficiently means getting people out of cars and into their community.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Aggressively Reduce Transit Construction Costs. The State, City, and MTA should continue to reform transit construction practices by improving interagency coordination, bringing expertise in house, and right-sizing station design.
More Busways, Faster Buses. The City should expand busways, build out curbside boarding, and the MTA should enable all-door boarding; further, pursue true bus rapid transit.
Streamline Accessibility Projects. The City and MTA should streamline elevator construction to make the entire system accessible by 2035.
Automate, Boost Uptake, and Expand Fair Fares. The City should boost uptake of Fair Fares through automatic enrollment and expand the program to 300% of the poverty line.
Capture Transit Value. The City should pursue value capture financing for the Second Avenue Subway extension, Interborough Express, and all new lines.
Increase Transit Revenue. The MTA should generate more revenue by developing underused real estate, expanding in-station commerce, offering premium services, and continuing to implement modern fare gates.
Better Parking Management. The City should reform parking management to efficiently charge for public space, starting with eliminating most parking placards and expanding metered spaces.
Modernize Regional Rail. The State and MTA should invest in level boarding, wide doors, electrification, and optimized rolling stock to bring travel times in line with driving.
Smarter Deliveries for All. The City should accelerate freight management through off-hours delivery, the Blue Highways network, cargo bikes, microhubs, and curb management.
Throw out the Trash. The City should speed containerization to all waste streams, accelerate the timeline, and prioritize containers over parking.
Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety. The City should improve street safety through physical changes to streets, expanded automated enforcement, universal daylighting, and an expanded bike network.
Calmer Neighborhoods. The City should dramatically expand pedestrian and cyclist-only streets across all boroughs, including school streets and bold projects like the QueensWay.
Places to Go. The City should streamline codes and approvals to place public bathrooms throughout the city, reducing per-unit costs.
Renewable Energy & Resilience
GOALS
Achieve CLCPA targets. 70% renewable electricity by 2030, 100% zero-emission by 2040, net zero statewide by 2050.
Lower energy costs for New Yorkers. Clean energy transition should reduce long-term costs by eliminating fuel expenses and price volatility, though upfront investment is substantial.
Reduce New Yorkers at risk from climate impacts. Hundreds die from heat annually and too many died this winter from the cold. Climate-related deaths should become exceptional events.
Make measurable progress on hazard mitigation. Fewer transit disruptions during extreme weather, reduced flood damage, and critical infrastructure that stays operational.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Unleash More Solar. The State should preempt local bans on solar, automate permitting, and the City should streamline rooftop approvals.
Expand Solar Subsidies. The State should update the residential solar tax credit—raise the cap from $5,000 to $10,000, make it refundable, include storage, and remove restrictions that exclude co-ops and condos.
Faster Transmission Buildout. The State should prioritize highway and railroad rights-of-way for transmission siting and direct NYPA to build transmission proactively.
Implement Interconnection Reforms. The State should improve transparency of utility costs, enable developer self-performance of distribution upgrades, establish cost-certainty measures, and expand hosting capacity.
Create a Resilience Authority. The State should create a public authority led by a Chief Resilience Officer and guided by a statewide resilience plan.
Faster and Fairer Climate Risk Relocations. The State and City should streamline buyout programs to get people out of harm’s way with fast, just compensation.
Fairer Tree Coverage. The City should pursue 30% tree coverage by 2035, targeting 25-35% in each community district to close the gap between wealthy and underserved neighborhoods.
Integrated Resource Planning. The State should develop a centralized, integrated resource planning model similar to the Illinois system.
Expand Nuclear. The State should continue to expand nuclear power by identifying new sites, educating the public, and considering financing programs.
Advance Geothermal. The State should advance geothermal through public development, building on SUNY projects, and explore municipal purchasing agreements.
What’s Next?
As a political home for New Yorkers who believe our city and state’s superpowers are growth and change, Abundance New York will continue to organize aligned New Yorkers, help them connect with the city’s power structures, advocate with policymakers, mobilize voters for elections, convene coalitions of fellow advocates, and shape public narratives through media and voter engagement. We believe that this agenda is popular, but that does not mean it will be easy to overcome the mismatch in preferences between everyday New Yorkers and the politically empowered.
We hope that this agenda moves abundance from a watchword to a roadmap, but it would be natural to ask how Abundance New York plans to go from roadmap to reality. To answer that, we make three points. First, this is a long-term agenda. We do not expect all of these recommendations to be completed, or even started in the next year or two; instead, we’re laying out actions that would improve outcomes for New Yorkers over five to 10 years. Second, some of these recommendations have a natural constituency. Abundance New York will look to work in coalition with these advocates, who bring a long history with these issues and expertise and whose work we cite frequently in our agenda. We will look to add value to their efforts. Finally, some issues do not have the same natural home. In these cases, we will look to lead or convene and support a coalition to build support for these reforms.
You can read our full agenda here. We’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and ideas—feel free to email us at hello [at] abundanceny.org.