A Request for Proposals is a document issued by HPD that seeks proposals for new housing and community amenities on City-owned land. Development teams submit proposals and those proposals are evaluated based on their ability to meet the requirements and advance the goals identified in the RFP and community engagement report.

A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is a solicitation process designed to pre-qualify developers who meet criteria related to experience and capacity. HPD uses the Neighborhood Builders RFQ to build a list of vetted non-profit and M/WBE partners qualified to work on affordable housing development, including for certain RFP sites.

Many New Yorkers are experiencing homelessness, living in poor quality housing, or struggling to keep up with housing costs. A priority for the mayoral administration is for HPD to finance and preserve more affordable housing, and to enable new affordable housing developments to include important community amenities. The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track initiative provides an opportunity for the City to create 100% affordable housing that will serve the community and New Yorkers in a more expediated manner.

A typical HPD Request for Proposals (RFP) is a competitive process in which HPD calls for developers to submit site-specific project proposals that respond to a set of defined goals and guidelines that are informed by policy goals and feedback from the community. Under the Neighborhood Builders Initiative, a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) identifies a set of criteria for developers to be evaluated to establish a list of qualified developers to potentially be selected to develop, or to apply to develop, a site for affordable housing development.

The pre-qualification process, as well as working with simpler sites that may have prior commitments or land use approvals, will reduce the time taken to designate sites to developers for certain projects by approximately seven to eight months. The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track Initiative, in addition to other streamlined processes such as the Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP), would reduce the overall pre-development process by approximately 2.5 years.

We highly value community input informing the development of the RFP before it is written and issued, which is why we designed a questionnaire and will be hosting a workshop to gather your input. HPD takes the integrity of its RFP competitive review process seriously. As such, HPD is required to ensure that the RFP process prevents potential conflicts of interest (and disqualifications of teams because of potential conflict of interest) and cannot allow community members to partake in the review.

As stated above, the input gathered throughout the engagement process is published in the report and attached to the RFP for development teams to refer to in crafting proposals. Proposals will be scored in part on how well they respond to the visions of the community.

Yes. The RFP and any relevant supplemental information will be linked on the sites individual project website to downloadable as PDFs. 

The results of the community engagement will be summarized in a report. The report is provided as part of the RFP document so that prospective developers can understand and craft proposals that are responsive to the priorities and needs of the community. Amongst other evaluation criteria, proposals will be evaluated in part on how thoughtfully they consider and respond to the priorities and needs. (See what sites are open in your neighborhood.)

Sites under the Neighborhood Builders initiative are considered ready-to-develop, meaning they are small-to-moderately sized with more programmatic constraints and may have outstanding prior commitments from neighborhood plans and citywide initiatives. HPD is committed to delivering on these commitments in an expedited manner. HPD will work closely with local community stakeholders to help spread the word about upcoming projects.

Yes. For people who are not able to make it to public events, there is an online Project Questionnaire available on a project site’s website. Community members can also offer feedback and submit questions about this project by emailing the project site email address. For community members without access to the internet, there will be paper versions of the project questionnaire available at our public tabling events.

HPD will present our findings at a public report back meeting when the community visioning phase is coming to an end.

Yes. The community engagement process does not end with the release of the report. Once selected, the developer and HPD will report back to the Community Board and other key stakeholders about project progress toward major milestones and how to apply for affordable housing.

While we receive input from many different types of stakeholders, our goal is to focus on the big picture and to accommodate as many perspectives as possible. We are conducting extensive outreach in the community to ensure that those who may be most impacted by the new development are informed and have opportunities to provide feedback.

After construction, newly available apartments go through a housing lottery process. Visit NYC Housing Connect online for more information about current affordable housing lotteries. Supportive housing and formerly homeless units are leased through referrals from the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS), Human Resources Administration (HRA), HPD, or other sources.

For help on how to apply for housing, contact a nearby NYC Housing Ambassador Brooklyn.