NEW YORK Zoning Atlas

• Urban Omnibus, A Bigger Picture: Interview with NZA founder and director Sara Bronin and zoning code project coordinator Aline Fader about how the NZA sheds lights on a regional view of land use — from Long Island to Connecticut.

• Newsday, Real estate industry looks to zoning atlas for housing solutions: Coverage of a panel discussing the Long Island Zoning Atlas as a valuable tool for addressing Long Island's housing shortage.

• Long Island Business Review, Long Island Zoning Atlas launched to promote housing development: Celebrates the launch of and highlights findings from the Long Island portion of the New York Zoning Atlas.

• The Real Deal, Here’s how hard it is to build apartments on Long Island: Coverage of the launch of the Long Island Zoning Atlas, promoted as a tool to inform discussions about future housing development.

• WSHU Public Radio, New tool hopes to change how Long Island understands its complex zoning: Discusses the potential uses for the Long Island portion of the New York Zoning Atlas.

• Newsday, Long Island Zoning Atlas shows how few areas allow new apartments: Discusses the future of housing development in the Long Island region, emphasizing that the Long Island Zoning Atlas reveals that single-family housing is permitted on the majority of land while multifamily housing is limited to a small fraction.

Click here to view the independent Long Island Atlas.

You could say that with the adoption of the New York City zoning code in 1916, New York state is where zoning first took root in the United States. These resources provide context into that history and dip into current discussions about zoning. This list will continue to be refined as the atlas begins to take shape.

Resources on zoning history in New York state:  

• Zoning Arrived 100 Years Ago. It Changed New York City Forever.: A New York Times article that explains how and why zoning came to be adopted in New York City.  

• Fifty Years of Zoning: A review published in 1966 by the American Bar Association of the fifty years that followed the implementation of zoning in New York City, as cities throughout the U.S. adopted similar zoning laws and the public became more familiar with zoning. (See p. 1030.)   

• Zoning and the Comprehensive Plan: A report produced by the New York State Department of Government Services that summarizes the history and uses of zoning and comprehensive planning within the state. 

Resources on current policy discussions:

• The NYU Furman Center’s research has covered New York regions in depth, including important papers on housing supply and parking mandates, among other things.

• Models and Questions to Reform Exclusionary Zoning in New York: A Furman Center report focusing specifically on options for New York to improve housing accessibility.

• Accessory Dwelling Unit Legislation Facts Sheet: The Regional Plan Association’s assessment of the New York State Accessory Homes Act (S4547, A4854) and its potential to create housing, especially in the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and New York City. 

• New York’s Ideas for Zoning Reform Offer Many Paths to Tackling the Housing Crisis: A report by the Brookings Institution that details New York state’'s history of exclusionary zoning and the plans that have been proposed to reform zoning.    

• Zoning for Affordability: A report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy that examines the legal challenges surrounding mandatory inclusionary zoning as a strategy to utilize the strength of real estate markets in high-cost cities for affordable housing production, focusing on New York City's mandatory inclusionary zoning policy.

Additional Resources

• Exclusionary Zoning in Onondaga County: A report highlighting zoning’s influences on housing opportunities in Onondaga County, NY.

Co-Directors: Aline Fader & Scott Markley

NZA Zoning Code Analysts: Devon Chozdin, Anthony La, Jonah Pellechia

NZA Geospatial Analysts: Aidan Antonienko, Conor Nolan

Alumni include:

Long Island Lead: Gwen O’Shea

Long Island Geospatial Lead: Steven Romalewski, CUNY Graduate Center

New York City Partner: Nestor Davidson

Erie County Partner: Heather Abraham

Niagara County Analyst: Joshua Greene

NZA Geospatial Analyst: Leah Carpenter

NZA Zoning Code Analyst: Taimaisú Ferrer Sin 

Onondaga Team Advisor: Jonathan Martin

Team Alumni: Peter Angelica, Alyssa Bement, Hillary Bendert, I.T. Blair, Nicholas Conklin, Josephine Ennis, Fransini Alberto Vasquez, Daniel Garces, Nick Gervasi, Ketaki Ghodke, Jessica Rose Gonzales, Raísa Lin, Guiliang Li, Eyal Li, Melina Lawrence, Bhavini Kapur, Suheyla Kipcakli, Arpita Nirvan, Bryan Luu, Luisa Marguerite Medina, Noah Mathews, Noah Miller, Mackenzie Mills, Amal Malik, Elizabeth Mao, Aditi Parihar, Dhruv Parag Parekh, Parker Pence, Haylee Privitera, Taylor Price, Nicole Purdee, Benjamin Ratner, Nicholas Ramirez, JR Schlachman, Mateos Sheuh, Caleb Smith, Yuting Sun, Spencer Thieme, Lohita Turlapati, Anne Vieser, Mayra Vesneske, Zhuojun Wang, Yubang Wu, Chloe Xiao, Eric Xia, Haoxiangyu Zheng, Jordan Zhu, Nicholas Zimmerman.

Additional Zoning Data Provided by: CNY Fair Housing

Special Thanks to: The Cornell University Mui Ho Center for Cities, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and the Rauch Foundation for generous funding to support aspects of this project. Thank you to Melissa Kaplan-Macey for her leadership in Long Island.