Get Stuff Built

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A report from the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce (BLAST)

The City’s ability to deliver affordable housing, support the creation of small businesses, and deliver capital projects for the benefit of New Yorkers depends heavily on three governmental processes:

(1) City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR), (2) the Land Use approval process, and (3) the Department of Buildings’ permitting process. These three processes were created to safeguard the environment, ensure public participation, and protect public safety, respectively.

While these protections are necessary, these processes have become unnecessarily complicated, costly, and time-consuming—delaying critical projects like affordable housing. These increased costs are then passed down to New Yorkers in the form of higher rents, fewer units of affordable housing, and reduced job opportunities. In short, New York has become the “City of No”.

To turn New York into the “City of Yes”, the Get Stuff Built report from the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce (BLAST) makes 111 recommendations across City Environmental Review (CEQR), Land Use approvals, and Building Permitting with the following goals:

  1. Increasing the speed of compliant projects while decreasing costs;
  2. Ensuring environmental protection and meaningful public participation;
  3. Promoting an increase in affordable housing and environmental sustainability—both of which are broader policy goals of the Adams Administration, and;
  4. Reducing risk for entrepreneur businesses and emerging developers by improving predictability of the development process.

Together, these improvements will reduce delays by about 50%; speeding up critical projects, saving money, improving public participation, and making our city more efficient for all New Yorkers.

Get Stuff Built Report


Quarterly Progress Reports

Every 3 Months BLAST will issue an implementation progress report.

Q2 2023 Report


Get Stuff Built Advisory Board

BLAST would like to thank the Get Stuff Built Advisory Board Members for providing their expertise in the implementation of the Get Stuff Built initiative.

Daniel Avery – Real Estate Board of New York

Linh Do – AKRF, Inc.

Nancy Doon – VHB

Baaba Halm – Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.

David Karnovsky – Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP

Jamil Lacourt – L&L Holding Company

James Lloyd – New York State Association for Affordable Housing

Pedram Mahdavi – Type A Projects LLC

Wesley O'Brien – Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP

George Poulon – Queens & Bronx Building Association

Paul Selver – Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Ehab Shehata – BRAVO Group

Howard Slatkin – Citizens Housing Planning Council

Steven Sinacori – Akerman LLP

Jeff Smithline – Sam Schwartz

Frank Vasta – TF Cornerstone Inc.