Could That Garage Be Apartments? New York Hunts for Places to Build.

New York City is turning to its own properties — including libraries, parking lots and garages — in a desperate search for space to build new homes.

Mayor Eric Adams is set to sign an executive order on Wednesday that would direct every city agency, from the Parks Department to the police, to see whether new homes could be built on any property it owns. The properties might include places like garages where the Department of Sanitation stores trucks or underused parking lots.

The mayor’s office said that it had no plans to eliminate any libraries or park space to make way for housing.

The city has sporadically scoured its inventory for open land and underused buildings in the past, according to the mayor’s office. They pointed to a new 14-story building in Inwood in Manhattan that includes 174 affordable homes built atop a public library. But the executive order, which creates a task force with representatives from different city agencies, is intended to be a more forceful and urgent directive.

“If there’s any land within the city’s control that has even the remotest potential to develop affordable housing, our administration will take action,” Mr. Adams said in an announcement accompanying the order.

In New York City, where land is scarce and pricey, developing government-owned sites is often cheaper than private ones, and should allow landlords to price apartments at more affordable levels. But new projects may still face major hurdles. Parking garages may need to be rezoned to become housing, for example, a process that includes a lengthy public review period. Converting older office buildings can be prohibitively expensive.