NYC Affordable Housing Production by Borough and Income Level

HPD counts 320,946 affordable homes in projects that started between January 2014 and June 2026. 59% of them are preservation (existing buildings kept affordable) and 41% are new construction. 45% are priced for households earning 50% of area median income or less. The Bronx has the most, with 106,661 counted units.

What this data counts

HPD publishes one row per building for projects that began after January 1, 2014 and count toward the city's housing plans: Housing New York (2014–2021) and Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing & Homelessness (2022 to now). A project's start date is its loan closing and regulatory agreement, or the notice of intent to market its affordable units. So the year below is when the city committed to a project, not when anyone moved in. "Counted units" are the affordable units HPD credits to the plan; the same buildings hold 445,588 units in total including market-rate units. The latest start date in the data is 2026-06-30, so 2026 covers only the first half of the year.

New construction vs preservation by year

Preservation outnumbered new construction in every year from 2014 to 2021. Single large deals drive the spikes. The biggest project in the data, listed as Co-op City in the Bronx, started in 2020 with 15,372 counted homeownership units, which is why 2020 shows 18,125 homeownership units against 11,951 rental units. Other large preservation projects include Starrett City in Brooklyn (2018) and Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan (2015).

Since 2022 the mix has shifted. New construction made up 53% of the 115,497 units counted under Housing Our Neighbors, compared with 34% of 205,449 under Housing New York. Projects started in 2024 counted 28,965 units and 2025 counted 29,277. The first half of 2026 counted 11,585.

Some preservation units involve no construction at all. HPD flags 63,897 counted units (20%) as Extended Affordability, meaning the project secured a new or extended regulatory agreement without rehabilitation.

Who the units are for

HPD sorts units by the income their rents are affordable to, as a share of area median income (AMI). Its 2026 AMI for the New York City region is $152,700 for a three-person family. Citywide, 58,864 units (18%) are for extremely low incomes (0–30% AMI), 86,685 (27%) for very low incomes (31–50%), 108,968 (34%) for low incomes (51–80%), 19,605 (6%) for moderate incomes (81–120%) and 45,409 (14%) for middle incomes (121–165%). Another 1,415 are superintendent units.

The deepest affordability has grown. Extremely low income units were 16% of units counted under Housing New York and 22% under Housing Our Neighbors. By borough, units at or below 50% AMI are 49% of the Bronx total and 47% of Manhattan's, compared with 41% in Brooklyn and 42% in Queens. Staten Island has the highest share, 53%, but on a much smaller base of 6,211 units.

By borough

The Bronx (106,661) and Brooklyn (90,784) account for 62% of all counted units. Manhattan has 74,338, but 78% of them are preservation. Queens is closer to an even split (51% new construction), and Staten Island has 6,211 units in total.

Council districts ranked

Council District 12 in the Bronx ranks first with 20,388 units, but most of that is the Co-op City preservation project; only 1,381 of its units are new construction. District 42 in Brooklyn (18,639 units) includes Starrett City. Looking at new construction alone gives a different picture, which is why the table shows both. At the other end, districts 43, 25, 19, 51, 23 each have fewer than 300 counted units.

What the data can and cannot tell you

Finding one of these homes

HPD points people looking for affordable rental and homeownership units to NYC Housing Connect. See what has been advertised there in our Housing Connect lotteries report, learn how to apply in the Housing Connect lottery guide, and check your income band with the Housing Connect income checker. For other routes, read about Mitchell-Lama apartments and HDFC co-ops, or look up a building on Roofy's NYC building lookup.