The City Council on Friday released comprehensive package of reforms designed to tackle various parts of the city’s housing affordability crisis as its response to Mayor Eric Adams’ City of Yes zoning proposal aimed at loosening restrictions around residential development.

City Council leaders are pitching their plan, dubbed “City for All,” as a way to address areas of the Big Apple’s housing shortage they feel are left untouched by the mayor’s plan.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, in a statement, said that while City of Yes would lead to more housing production, “affordability, homeownership opportunities, housing security and stability, and neighborhood investments are equally important to help working- and middle-class residents in our city.”

“I am proud to join with my colleagues and advocates to announce City for All, the Council’s housing plan to meet the full range of housing needs of New Yorkers,” she added. “Taken together, these actions and investments can help ease the challenges facing New Yorkers, allowing our city to become more affordable, livable, and sustainable.”

The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, as the mayor’s plan is known, is a suite of zoning changes that would update decades-old rules to allow for building “a little more housing in every neighborhood.” It would allow developers to build small apartment buildings near train stations and above storefronts along commercial corridors, eliminate a mandate that new housing construction include off-street parking and give builders the option to add at least 20% more housing to any project as long as its affordable.

The council’s plan would require developers to build more deeply affordable units in new housing projects, boost funding for the city’s homeownership assistance programs, put more dollars toward improving infrastructure in neighborhoods that will see new construction under City of Yes and strengthen tenant protection programs.

Specifically, it would require affordable units be included in developments around train stations and above storefronts, the city committed capital funding to improve sewer infrastructure to prevent flooding and put significantly more funding toward the city’s program that provides free housing lawyers to tenants facing eviction.

City lawmakers released City for All a little over a week after it held a marathon two-days of hearings on City of Yes, where the body heard feedback from both city agency leaders and the public on the zoning updates. The council’s plan appears to incorporate both priorities that it had announced before the hearing and issues raised by council members and the public.

“During last week’s hearings, we heard from New Yorkers on all sides, and their concerns shaped this approach,” Council Member Kevin Riley (D-Bronx), chair of the body’s Zoning Subcommittee, said in a statement. “Focusing on true opportunities for affordable homeownership, investing in critical infrastructure like sewage systems to support sustainable growth, and ensuring deep affordability are crucial steps.”

Most council members will likely stake their support for City of Yes on some version of their plan being included in a final deal. Mayor Adams, meanwhile, may be more receptive to body’s demands given his own diminished political capital stemming from his federal indictment.

With the City of Yes hearings done and the council having released its plan, the administration and lawmakers will now negotiate over what will be in the final package. A vote on the City of Yes is expected before the end of the year.

Thousands of costumed locals of all ages lined Fifth Avenue on Saturday, Oct. 26, for the neighborhood’s third annual Halloween Fest. 

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Though the presidential election will be first on everyone’s minds come November 5, it’s not the only issue up for a vote on Election Day. On the backside of your ballot, New Yorkers will be able to vote directly on six proposed changes to the NY state constitution or the New York City Charter. Here’s […]

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A $49.1 MILLION SETTLEMENT WAS REACHED between major pharmaceutical companies who inflated the prices of several essential medicines.

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With Election Day only days away, the push to vote Republican was anything but subtle as New York Conservatives urged the audience.

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The Nonbinarian Bookstore, possibly the first in Brooklyn to carry exclusively queer books, is setting up shop at 1130 President Street in Crown Heights. The store will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily starting Friday, Nov. 8.

The Nonbinarian Bookstore is an expansion of the Nonbinarian Book Bike, a mutual aid effort that’s been delivering free queer books around Brooklyn for about two years via a bright pink cargo bike. K. Kerimian, a veteran bookseller, started the bike as a way to get books by LGBTQ+ authors into people’s hands in book deserts (geographic areas where it might be hard for people to access books) across Brooklyn.

Kerimian sees opening the store as a way to do that year-round. The store will sell new and used books, but Kerimian plans to offer some free stock as well.

“It’s going to be new and used inventory, but we’re also going to have a gay-what-you-can sponsored wall for folks. If they can’t afford books, we’re still going to be doing free,” Kerimian said.

Last Friday, Kerimian set up the bike on the sidewalk in front of their new corner location, whose front entrance faces Rogers Avenue. They introduced themselves to neighbors who walked by and joyfully shouted, “Free queer books! Actually free!”

Person after person stopped to browse.

One neighbor picked up a copy of “Greedy” by Jen Winston and a sticker of a cartoon bird with the bisexual flag incorporated into its wings. “I feel so seen,” they said, holding up the sticker.

Soon after, a grandmother asked if Kerimian might have books for her 3-year-old granddaughter in French. They told her that while they didn’t have any on hand, they would do their best to try to find some for the store.

Connecting to the community around them like this is important to Kerimian and the devoted group of volunteers involved with the bike. It’s why they had been searching for a location in and around Crown Heights for the store and jumped on the ground floor space on the corner of President and Rogers next to Polly’s Cafe. (The storefront was previously home to women’s clothing boutique Cloth.) Not only does the group store the bike nearby, they’ve also frequented Brower Park to do book giveaways and partnered with the Community Pride Center two blocks away.

“We didn’t want to just show up as if we didn’t have a connection at all,” Kerimian said. Instead, they wanted a location in a neighborhood where people might know the bike and the work they’ve been doing. In Crown Heights, Kerimian said, they’ll often get people calling out to them in recognition as they ride by.

When they first started the Nonbinarian Book Bike two years ago, Kerimian never imagined that it would turn into a brick-and-mortar store. They had thought about trying to find some kind of permanent home, but didn’t picture a retail shop. However, after the bike grew – they gave away around 1,500 books last year – other volunteers kept bringing it up. Kerimian said that it almost felt like they were the last to know.

“It’s a real show of faith from the people who have been foundational in building the Nonbinarian Book Bike that we’ve grown to be ready to even consider a future beyond the bike as it is, that the people around me saw something that I wasn’t ready to see,” Kerimian said.

After talking it through, the idea of a retail store that could also be that extension of the bike, a gathering space, and an access point for queer-centered books for all ages started to take shape.

In addition to providing books and community space, part of what Kerimian wants to do with the Nonbinarian Bookstore is champion LGBTQ+ authors. Alyssa Lo, who’s been volunteering with the Nonbinarian since July of 2023 and works in the publishing industry, is excited at the prospect of a fully queer inventory. Beyond the focus on queer authors, the Nonbinarian will not be bound in any way by genre and will stock books that range from nonfiction to vacation reads to poetry.

“I think it’s really lovely that we are finally at a place where there is enough queer literature being published that we can stock a whole store,” Lo said.

Lo also pointed out how meaningful titles by and about queer people can be for readers. At one point while they were volunteering with the bike at Herbert Von King Park in Bed Stuy, Lo said, an older man walked up, pointed at a pamphlet about asexuality, and said simply, “that’s me.” He took the pamphlet with him.

“Everyone deserves to see themselves on the shelves, and I want the bookstore to be a place where we can hold all those stories and more,” Lo said.

Kerimian, who previously worked at Greenlight Bookstore, among other places, is currently the store’s only employee, but they plan to formalize a worker-owned cooperative structure come spring, when the store is ready to sustain a bigger staff. Some of the store’s first worker-owners will be the same volunteers who were integral to making the bike a success.

The store will operate in tandem with the mutual aid bicycle, which will continue to make stops during the warmer months. Kerimian also has plans to use the space for community events, and of course, keep giving away free books when they can. Actually free.

This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner

A FEDERAL JUDGE IN MANHATTAN HAS DENIED MAYOR ERIC ADAMS’ REQUEST for a formal inquiry into claims that federal law enforcement

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VOTERS SHOULD AVOID RELYING ON INFORMATION OR ANSWERS FROM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) CHATBOTS, AG James said.

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NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL LETITIA JAMES URGED THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT to actively work on curbing plastic pollution.

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