In July, Zero buildings and zero units were approved for construction in Manhattan, and only 10 buildings and 279 units were approved for construction across all of New York City. Manhattan’s president, Mark Levine, highlighted this as a crisis and expressed the need to address the issue. 

The likely reasons for this decline are high-interest rates and the expiration of the crucial tax incentive program 421a, which provided tax breaks to developers who included affordable units in ...