In New York City, where space is at a premium, developers tear down residential buildings to create new ones that climb higher and higher into the sky — projects that could create thousands of apartments to help alleviate the city’s affordable housing crisis.

But on the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan, a bundle of high-rise, low-density towers represent a contradiction: big towers with few units, sometimes fewer than the buildings they replace. Urban planners say the developers are squandering the precious few sites left in Manhattan’s high-density neighborhoods, where substantially more units could be built.1

Such projects have a cumulative effect. From 2010 to 2020, the Upper East Side lost more housing units than any other community district in the city, primarily through the combination of smaller apartments and demolitions, according to the Department of City Planning.2

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Governor Kathy Hochul made raising the density cap an early policy goal, but critics like the Municipal Art Society of New York, a preservationist group, have argued against making the change without first closing loopholes in the zoning code and improving the environmental review process, because it might encourage very tall buildings with little affordable housing.

Jessica Katz, the city’s chief housing officer, said that she was in favor of both reviving a tax subsidy like 421a and eliminating the residential density cap.

The city could also require builders to replace the apartments they demolish, said Michael Kwartler, an architect and planner who has written zoning regulations adopted by the city. But the process could take years, because it would require public hearings, a land-use review process and approval from the City Council.

Even so, it could be a worthwhile campaign, he said, given the dire need for new development. “Somehow, the loss of housing needs to be zero.”

• 1. At 15 West 96th Street, a developer is building a 22-story tower with 21 condo units, though zoning would have allowed 66 units at the location, according to a zoning analysis. At 200 East 75th Street, a new 18-story high rise will have 36 luxury apartments though the building could have had as many as 144 units through zoning rules. At 1165 Madison Avenue, a developer could have built 88 units, but a new tower there is 13 stories and has 11 units, including a more than 13,000-square-foot, four-story unit that sold for more than $65 million.
• 2. The builders argue that the cost of land and construction is too high for almost anything but luxury condominiums, without new tax incentives or more favorable zoning. Still, there are steps the city and state could take, housing proponents said, that could encourage or require developers to do more. “In a city that’s desperate for housing, all kinds of housing, how can you allow a builder to build fewer units?” asked Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman for the district that includes the Upper West Side and a former Manhattan borough president. “The idea that these people can get away without building anything affordable is mind-boggling to me.”