Chair Sherman outlines SPEED initiative and pre-certification improvements
He describes streamlining housing proposals, state reforms to SEQRA, reducing pre-certification from two years to six months, and a Linden Place project reaching review a year earlier.
Second, we're focused on streamlining how we work to deliver housing at speed.
As I know our council colleagues agree, government must work deliberately and rigorously, but added processes and unnecessary delay has real consequences.
When an affordable apartment is delayed,
It means a family spends another year doubled up with relatives, another year commuting long distances, another year without a stable home.
When a project becomes more expensive to build, it means tenants pay more in rent.
And this doesn't even account for housing projects that never materialized to begin with.
Through Mayor Mandani's SPEED initiative, we are streamlining how housing proposals move through city government.
Recent state reforms to SECRA created a window for significant improvements, and we are taking additional steps this fall to bring qualified housing projects through pre-certification in approximately six months down from roughly two years.
We have already worked hard to identify projects in our pipeline that meet the secret exemption and can reach public review faster.
One recent project on Linden Place in Flushing, Queens, reached review nearly an entire year earlier.
These time savings don't simply affect project timelines.
They improve people's lives.
Every home we can deliver faster is a New Yorker who gets in that home sooner.