Medium-form · ~1,200 words · Authored by the Regtime Incentives team
New York City’s inclusionary housing framework has three active programs in 2026: Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), Voluntary Inclusionary Housing (VIH, now mostly grandfathered), and the Universal Affordability Preference (UAP). Knowing which applies to your site — and which controls when more than one could theoretically apply — is a precondition to meaningful feasibility analysis.
Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH)
MIH was adopted on March 22, 2016 as the centerpiece of the de Blasio administration’s Housing New York plan. It applies in Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Areas — specific areas designated through rezonings and listed in Appendix F of the Zoning Resolution. Where MIH is mapped, developers of qualifying projects must provide permanently affordable units as a condition of development.
MIH triggers on residential projects with more than 10 units or more than 12,500 square feet of residential floor area. Projects of 11 to 25 units may satisfy the requirement through a contribution to the Affordable Housing Fund in lieu of on-site units. Projects below the 11-unit threshold are exempt.
Affordability is permanent, enforced through a recorded regulatory agreement, and units are rent-stabilized via DHCR.
The four MIH Options
MIH offers four options, updated by City of Yes in December 2024:
- Option 1: 25% of residential floor area at an average of 60% AMI, with at least 10% at 40% AMI. No band above 130% AMI; maximum three bands.
- Option 2: 30% of residential floor area at an average of 80% AMI. No band above 130% AMI; maximum three bands.
- Option 3 (Deep Affordability): 20% of residential floor area at an average of 40% AMI. Supplemental — must be paired with Option 1 or Option 2, not used alone.
- Option 4 (Workforce): 30% of residential floor area at an average of 115% AMI, with at least 5% at 70% and at least 5% at 90%. No band above 135% AMI; up to four bands. Not available in Manhattan Community Districts 1 through 8. Cannot receive public subsidy. Sunsets after 10 years. Supplemental only.
MIH distribution rules (post–City of Yes)
- At least 65% of residential stories must contain affordable units.
- No more than two-thirds of units per floor can be affordable (previously one-third before City of Yes).
- Unit size minimums were relaxed under City of Yes to allow smaller affordable apartments.
Voluntary Inclusionary Housing (VIH)
VIH was established in 1987 for R10 districts and expanded in 2005 under the Bloomberg administration to include Inclusionary Housing Designated Areas (IHDAs). The R10 program allowed developers to increase FAR from a base of 10.0 to a maximum of 12.0 by providing 20% permanently affordable units at 80% AMI. IHDA-mapped areas used different FAR bonus ratios depending on context.
Key mechanical features:
- R10 new construction without public funding: FAR bonus ratio of 3.5 to 1 (3.5 square feet of bonus for each square foot of affordable floor area).
- R10 preservation without public funding: 2.0 to 1.
- Projects with public funding: 1.25 to 1.
- IHDA bonus ratio: 1.25 to 1 flat, often producing a roughly 33% bonus above base FAR.
- Off-site generating sites and FAR transfers through an Inclusionary Air Rights certificate market.
- Distribution: at least 65% of residential stories and no more than one-third of units per floor — stricter than MIH or UAP.
VIH’s status after City of Yes
VIH is not fully abolished. It is grandfathered. UAP replaces VIH prospectively across most of the city, but existing VIH projects continue under the program’s rules. Specifically, VIH continues to apply where:
- A recorded HPD regulatory agreement existed as of December 5, 2024, or
- A DOB affordable housing application was pending on December 5, 2024, the DOB approves within one year, and HPD signs the regulatory agreement within two years (by December 5, 2026).
The active VIH market in 2026 is principally condominium developers. Condo projects are ineligible for 485-x and continue to buy VIH certificates to unlock FAR bonuses.
How to think about which applies
For a given site, the practical decision tree is:
- Is the site in a mapped MIH Area? If yes, MIH controls — UAP is not available. Select among Options 1, 2, 3, or 4 (with Options 3 and 4 as supplements).
- Is the site in an R10 district or mapped IHDA, with a grandfathered VIH pathway? VIH may remain available for condominium projects or for projects meeting the grandfathering criteria.
- Otherwise, in eligible R6–R10 districts and commercial equivalents, UAP applies. UAP is the default post–City of Yes inclusionary tool.
- In R1–R5 districts, neither MIH nor UAP applies. The relevant City of Yes tools are Transit-Oriented Development and Qualifying Residential Sites.
Side-by-side summary
Permanence: MIH, VIH, and UAP are all permanent. All three record restrictive declarations.
Affordability depth: UAP is the deepest (60% weighted average, 40% AMI set-aside for larger projects). MIH Options 1 and 3 target 60% and 40% respectively. MIH Option 2 targets 80%. MIH Option 4 targets 115%. VIH targets 80%.
Mandatory vs. voluntary: MIH is mandatory where mapped. VIH was voluntary in R10 and IHDAs. UAP is voluntary and as-of-right in eligible districts.
FAR mechanics: MIH is a development condition rather than a bonus. VIH offers bonus ratios of 1.25:1 to 3.5:1. UAP offers a 1:1 floor area increase, where the incremental floor area is 100% affordable.
Distribution: MIH and UAP allow up to two-thirds of units per floor to be affordable. VIH allows up to one-third per floor.
Scale in context
MIH produced approximately 2,000 affordable units through 2020 — a fraction of the housing production it was projected to deliver, largely because so few MIH Areas were mapped in practice. City of Yes expanded the framework’s reach substantially through the introduction of UAP. Across all programs, the city’s total new-construction affordable unit production from 2014 through 2023 was roughly 94,000 units. The New York Housing Conference has estimated that UAP alone would have produced more than 20,000 additional units had it existed across that same decade.
Our take
The inclusionary landscape is finally coherent. For most feasibility analysis in 2026, UAP is the tool you are thinking about. MIH applies where it is mapped; VIH is a grandfathered edge case principally for condo sponsors; UAP is the workhorse. Spending feasibility time on whether to stack VIH for a new rental project is, for most sites, time better spent modeling UAP with 485-x.
Regtime Builder runs MIH, VIH, and UAP analyses as part of every feasibility engagement. Our Incentives team maps the correct program to each site before pro formas are finalized.
