New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on Wednesday announced the new Neighborhood Builders Fast Track, an expedited process to speed the delivery of affordable housing on city-owned land. With Neighborhood Builders, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) will pre-qualify affordable housing builders and shorten the pre-development Request for Proposals process by eight months for certain projects.

Together with the new Expedited Land Use Review Procedure approved by voters last November, Neighborhood Builders will cut the pre-development process by more than two years, according to the mayor’s office.

“Our city is facing a historic housing crisis — the last thing we need to do is tie ourselves in red tape,” said Mamdani. “The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track will speed up housing development and make it faster to build on city-owned land.”

HPD is releasing a Request for Qualifications due May 8t for affordable housing developers who will pre-qualify for the Neighborhood Builders program. HPD expects to use Neighborhood Builders to advance development of up to 1,000 new homes over the next two years.