City Hall is betting it can fix the housing lottery.

The Mamdani administration is planning to shorten the application window for affordable housing lotteries from 60 days to 21 days and overhaul how applicants are screened, part of a broader plan Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday to move tenants into completed apartments faster.

The changes are included in City Hall’s recently published SPEED (Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development) report, a package of administrative reforms aimed at reducing delays across the affordable housing pipeline. The administration says the lottery and lease-up changes will cut the median time to complete applicant approvals for lottery projects from 210 days to fewer than 100 days.

“Once this system is remade, we will cut the time it takes from the completion of a building to the day New Yorkers can move in in half, from 210 days to fewer than 100 days,” Mamdani said at a press conference in the Bronx.

The overhaul targets one of the most visible pressure points in the city’s housing crisis: Housing Connect, the online lottery system used to lease many new income-restricted apartments. The system drew about 6 million applications for roughly 10,000 units across 300 buildings in 2024, according to a recent NYU Furman Center report.

Under the SPEED plan, City Hall says it will simplify income verification by prioritizing easier-to-provide documents, such as proof of benefits or rental assistance; shorten the period in which marketing agents must select applicants from the randomized lottery pool in sequential order; streamline or centralize paper applications; and issue clearer guidance for applicants and property managers. Those changes are expected by the end of 2026, according to the SPEED report.

The city also plans to extend current waiver policies for re-rentals, allowing previously rented affordable apartments that become vacant again to be advertised outside Housing Connect, including on commercial platforms and HPD’s website, while the city transitions to an updated system.

Longer term, the administration says it will move Housing Connect to a more flexible technology system. Planned changes include confirming income eligibility earlier, verifying income through government data systems so applicants do not have to repeatedly submit the same documents, revising appeals processes, and creating a targeted geographic prioritization system that allows applicants to say where they want to live and opt out of lotteries that do not match their preferences.

Mamdani looks to clear affordable housing hurdles

[caption id="attachment_137848573" align="alignnone" width="700"] The Mamdani administration is looking to clear hurdles in the affordable housing processPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell[/caption]

Recent outside reports have found that the current system often requires applicants and marketing agents to spend months processing applications that do not result in move-ins.

The Furman Center analyzed about 64,000 applications across 101 buildings and found that about 77% of applications ended in a rejected status, either through attrition or explicit denial, while about 15% were ultimately approved. The report found the median time to complete the verification and offer process was 118 days, not including earlier marketing steps or later lease-signing, audits, appeals and complaints. The report also noted that about half of the approved applications did not have a unit attached.

A separate March report from the New York Housing Conference examined a newly constructed Bronx affordable housing project and found it took 27 months to lease 180 apartments through Housing Connect. The project drew about 70,000 applications, but only 751 were deemed eligible, and 135 moved in through the lottery. The report also found that four out of five households processed were unresponsive or ineligible.

City officials said the current lease-up process is especially burdensome for New Yorkers leaving shelters, because HPD and the Department of Social Services must coordinate to place households in the 15% of affordable units set aside for formerly homeless residents. The SPEED report says those delays can keep people in shelters longer even when apartments are ready.

The city plans to launch a two-year pilot program, called Making Accelerated Transitions to Coordinated Housing, or MATCH, in fall 2026. The pilot will allow landlords and marketing agents at targeted developments to work directly with shelter providers to match clients with available apartments.

The city also plans to launch Stability Through Entry and Placement, or STEP, an interagency system intended to automate and better track placements across HPD, the Department of Homeless Services and the Human Resources Administration.

The New York Housing Conference report found similar problems in the Bronx project it studied. Forty-six apartments were reserved for people experiencing homelessness, and the city processed 189 referrals to fill them. Three out of four referred households did not submit required paperwork, even though they were assisted by caseworkers, the report found.

CityFHEPS voucher impact

The SPEED report also calls for expediting or eliminating duplicative apartment inspections so CityFHEPS voucher holders can move into homes faster. HPD and DSS would reinforce an existing policy that buildings financed by HPD or the Housing Development Corporation often do not require a physical inspection before a CityFHEPS household moves in, and the city would create a third-party inspection process for newly constructed buildings.

Carlina Rivera, president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, said at Wednesday’s press conference that affordable housing providers have been slowed by overlapping reviews, redundant inspections and paperwork. She cited one supportive housing unit set aside for a formerly homeless household that took more than a year to fill because of the placement process, not because the apartment needed repairs.

“Those units sat vacant, ready to become homes to our most vulnerable neighbors for all those months,” Rivera said.

[caption id="attachment_137848570" align="alignnone" width="700"] Carlina Rivera, president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, speaks at Wednesday’s Bronx press conference on City Hall’s SPEED reforms.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell[/caption]

The lottery overhaul is one of seven major initiatives in the SPEED report, which also calls for changes to environmental review, agency coordination, stormwater reviews, office-to-residential conversions, fire alarm inspections and placements for homeless New Yorkers.

City Hall said the full package would reduce timelines for all affordable housing projects by eight months and cut as much as two years from projects that require zoning changes. For many projects going through the city’s land-use process, the administration says it will reduce the pre-certification timeline from roughly two years to six months.

The report says environmental review has become one of the longest parts of the pre-certification process. City Hall says it plans to use anticipated state changes to environmental review rules, add staff and create a dedicated review team for eligible projects.

The plan also calls for a new central project management team at HPD and the Mayor’s Office to coordinate approvals needed before financing closes and before construction is completed. The report says city-financed affordable projects can involve up to 15 agencies responsible for permitting, environmental review and financing.

Other reforms would target permitting delays, including stormwater reviews, asbestos approvals for office-to-residential conversions and fire alarm inspections that are often among the final approvals needed before a building can receive a certificate of occupancy.

Mamdani created the SPEED Task Force by executive order on Jan. 1, his first day in office. The order directed city agencies to identify policies and procedures affecting the timely production and availability of affordable housing, including pre- and post-construction approvals, financing and marketing.

The administration said the task force held roundtables with more than 100 industry experts, advocates, developers, builders and trade organizations, met with more than 100 city emplo...

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