Mayor Adams’ ambitious rezoning proposal he calls the “City of Yes” — aimed at encouraging new housing construction throughout the five boroughs — is filled with commonsense ideas such as permitting apartments to be built above storefronts and relaxing the expensive requirements for new parking. Adams, in many ways, is harkening back to the golden age of pre-zoning when row homes and brownstones sprouted across the city in the hundreds of thousands. Only in New York would the idea that increased housing supply is the best way to meet increased demand be controversial.
But not included, however, among Adams’ proposals is one which would be costless, yet would lower housing costs another way: by making better use of the housing New York already has. An antiquated law currently stands in the way of homeowners and renters taking in “unrelated persons” even if a home or apartment has empty bedrooms. Incredibly, in a city synonymous with cultural liberalism, a “roommates” law makes it illegal “for more than three unrelated persons occupying a dwelling unit and maintaining a common household.”
That means an older couple in Queens having a hard time paying their property taxes can’t decide to let a younger couple with a baby move into their empty bedrooms. It means that tenants in the vast public housing system—where nearly 30% of apartments are officially classified as under-occupied—can’t sublet their empty bedrooms to the thousands on the system’s waiting list.
Recent census data tell the story. According to the latest Housing and Vacancy Survey for New York, just 10% of the city’s 3.1 million housing units include “nonrelatives.” Among owner-occupied units, the figure is just 5%. Most of those presumably comply with the law restricting the number of the “unrelated” —whether or not owners or leaseholders have empty rooms.
Such laws are surprisingly common across the US — and help contribute to our housing affordability crisis. Zoning codes in 46 of 56 of the largest US cities, suburbs, and municipalities impose limits on occupants deemed “unrelated.” One would hardly think that crowded New York City would have a law similar to that of a private homeowners association in Plano, Texas, (which limits unrelated persons to two) but it does.
Such laws have contributed to a sharp decline in the number of Americans who take in lodgers. Census data show that, a century ago, some 3% of households did so; the figure has dropped to less than 1%. Indeed, in the midst of the last great immigration wave to New York City — at the turn of the 20th century — it was common for newcomers to be taken in as boarders — rather than having the city shelter them in converted upscale hotels.
The legal restrictions on unrelated persons has helped contribute to another underappreciated driver of the housing affordability crisis: the size of American households has sharply declined. As recently as 1960, average household size was 3.33 persons. After a tiny uptick in 2020 (likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic), the steady decline has continued, with 2021 household size at 2.51 persons, an all-time low. The fastest-increasing group is those of us living alone; single-person households have increased from 26 million in 2010 to more than 37 million. The more of us who live by ourselves, the more housing we need.
New York City law makes matters worse in other ways, as well. To guard against overcrowding, the city requires every resident to have a minimum of 80 square feet of room. If a migrant couple with a baby is willing to share one small bedroom, the law should allow them to do so. It’s certainly better than life in a shelter.
Of course, crowds of college roommates can disrupt a residential neighborhood with late-night partying. But nuisance and noise laws are the best antidote — not broad brush housing-use restrictions.
It’s probably true that the city’s roommates law goes unenforced to a degree. But it still matters. Homeowners and landlords are reluctant to advertise listings that might contravene the law. After all, never underestimate the ability of arbitrary regulations to inhibit the best use of our existing housing.