By 2040, LI's housing demand will be more than double what zoning allows

Daily Point

Projections say 250,000 more homes will be needed to account for population growth

Long Island will need to build more than 250,000 new homes within the next two decades to meet the dramatically growing housing demand. Current zoning, however, will only allow about a third of that number to be built.

A recent report by the nonprofit Regional Plan Association stated that 256,843 additional housing units will be needed by 2040. The RPA estimates account for projected population growth as well as demand arising from structures expected to be flooded out from rising sea levels. Given local town and village zoning in place as of mid-2024, when the data in the report was analyzed, RPA estimates that only 102,252 houses can be built by 2040.

The Point recently reported on the steep decline in the issuance of private residential building permits on Long Island thanks to surging construction costs and builders being required to navigate regulatory and zoning hurdles. Soaring housing prices are pushing younger Long Islanders out of the region while exacerbating the current housing deficit.

More than 80% of Long Island is zoned land. According to data from the National Zoning Atlas, constructing two-unit housing structures is not permitted in 80% of all residential land in Nassau, and 94% of residential land in Suffolk. Meanwhile, building housing structures that have four or more units is prohibited in 93% of all residential land in Nassau and 96% of residential land in Suffolk.

The report also estimates that Long Island will lose about 50,568 houses by 2040 to rising sea levels and other climate risks such as storms and flooding.

Breakdown by towns and cities

The RPA calculates deficit ratios that compare housing needs with zoning capacity. The Town of Huntington recorded the largest deficit ratio at 5.9 compared with any other Long Island town or city, implying the town will need to build nearly six times more housing than it currently can. By 2040, the town is expected to need 17,861 new homes to meet its growing population, but current zoning permits construction of only 3,010 homes.

However, RPA’s data analysis did not include the recent December zoning change to the Melville Town Center, which will add as many as 1,500 units to the town’s total count.

Brookhaven Town will need to build nearly 43,100 additional homes to meet population demand by 2040, and currently has the capacity to build only 10,444. With a deficit ratio of 4.02, the Town of Babylon will need to build 17,938 additional houses to meet its residents’ housing needs by 2040. It can only build 4,466 additional homes with its current zoning restrictions.

Click here for a table of Long Island's projected housing needs by town and city.

— Karthika Namboothiri karthika.namboothiri@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Icy weather

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Reference Point

A problem still unsolved

Falling short on housing units is nothing new for Long Island, whether it is 2025 or 1941.

During this same week 81 years ago, in the midst of World War II, Newsday’s first year in circulation, the editorial board highlighted the region’s housing problem.

“There are defense workers in Nassau’s aircraft plants who have to spend four to six hours a day commuting to their jobs,” the board wrote. “Reason for this is that there is not sufficient housing available to them within a shorter distance."

The board went on to emphasize that family homes, not rooms for rent, were what was needed and that rents must be affordable to match manufacturing salaries. A new “desirable” complex had been recently completed in Farmingdale, but it was not suitable.

“The rents start at $46 a month and that’s too much for the majority of the workers,” the board complained in the editorial on Aug. 12, 1941.

The editorial posed solutions, but most had roadblocks with echoes of today. On building small houses, “there are few builders who are able or willing to construct.” On Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages that required 10% of the purchase price in cash, “this makes them unavailable for defense workers.” On developing land immediately around the plant areas, there were objections "to the idea of a future ghost town when the war is over.”

Ultimately, the board pushed for the building of prefabricated portable houses “that can be put up in three hours and taken down in two and one half” and urged the government “get around to giving Nassau the defense housing it so sorely needs.”

Decades later, Long Island is still looking for “A housing solution,” the headline for the editorial.

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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