Syracuse Housing Strategy

The completed Syracuse Housing Study was the initial phase of the effort delivered to the Syracuse Common Council in June 2023. The study focused on analyzing the Syracuse housing market and revealed that almost every housing challenge that exists in the city is tied to having either a market or affordability gap.

Market Gap: The cost of generating properly maintained residential real estate in Syracuse exceeds what many households are willing to pay for or improve their housing.

Affordability Gap: The cost of generating properly maintained residential real estate in Syracuse exceeds what many households are able to pay.

These central findings are the foundation of the strategy development work. The most recent draft of the Syracuse Housing Strategy has been released and is open to public input.

The Syracuse Housing Strategy is based on community input and the findings of the Syracuse Housing Study. It provides a multi-year framework for improving housing conditions in the City of Syracuse.

Housing Strategy Recommendations

• Build on efforts already underway including the Resurgent Neighborhoods Initiative, Community Grid Vision Plan, East Adams neighborhood redevelopment, land banking, and code enforcement activities.
• Focus work in areas where interventions are most needed and can be most effective. This includes investing in “middle” neighborhoods and stabilizing “distressed” neighborhoods.
• Use blocks or groups of blocks rather than individual properties. This “cluster” approach allows for more strategic and tailored interventions.
• Focus limited resources around community assets and strengths for maximum impact.
• Develop a new system for addressing housing and neighborhood conditions in the areas of public policy, planning activities, financial resources, and organizational capacity.

The City of Syracuse commissioned a housing study in 2022 in response to growing concerns about the city’s housing supply and its ability to meet existing and emerging needs. Population growth for the first time in decades, the planned removal of the I-81 viaduct, the expansion of downtown housing opportunities, and the announcement of Micron’s plans for the region were all part of the city’s housing conversation. So, too, were stubbornly high numbers of cost-burdened households and concentrations of poverty, the continued presence of longstanding and deeply engrained inequities, deteriorating housing conditions alongside rising prices, and the city’s inability to seriously compete for regional households.