The authors of a new RAND Corporation report on New York housing affordability have stressed the need to the supply of housing in the city. 

They have identified six policies that could spark the production of roughly 300,000 additional new housing units over a decade. 

The policies include increasing allowable building density in strategic areas, streamlining building approval processes, reforming liability rules for construction sites, and introducing incentives to encourage conversion of office buildings to residential uses.

The additional housing units would represent a more than 160 per cent increase over recent annual housing production levels in the city, according to the report.

The authors said the surge in housing supply was likely to lead to increased affordability through greater competition among landlords for tenants in the short term and an increase in naturally occurring affordable housing over the longer term.

“Recent housing policy in...