New York’s affordable housing is also its historic housing. The median age of New York’s residential buildings is now 90 years old; at the same time, nearly a million units of housing, almost half of New York’s rental units across all five boroughs, are rent stabilized. Hardly surprising then, that a disproportionate number of those stabilized units are within historic buildings, whether those structures are officially recognized as such or not. 

Considering these facts, and taking to heart City Planning Commission Chair Dan Garodnick’s point that “ninety percent of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been built,” HDC sees stewardship of New York’s historic affordable housing stock as essential to its mission, and to the city’s future. HDC’s 2025 Conference will focus on New York’s historic rent-stabilized apartment buildings, which together constitute the city’s most abundant form of affordable housing.

Popular discourse often drives a wedge between housing and preservation, but the nature of New York’s historic affordable housing belies that separation. The HDC Conference will offer a meaningful nexus for housing and preservation, bringing together preservationists, community organizations, housing activists, architects and policy makers to share experiences, techniques, ideas and best practices for stewarding New York’s historic affordable housing. HDC hopes this conference will offer a variety of perspectives for an often-siloed field, encouraging participants and attendees to work together in a common effort. For us, the event will be an engine for ideas and potential policy changes which will continue to inform our ongoing work. We hope you will join us!

A full list of panels and speakers will be announced soon.

Saturday, March 29, 2025
9:00 a.m.
The location will be announced soon