Even as New York’s public housing deteriorates, many developments are like oases in the city — large properties with rare amounts of open space, sculpted decades ago as a departure from crowded tenements and slums.

Now, amid a funding crisis in public housing, one local official is reviving an idea to turn that land — which can include gardens, playgrounds and parking lots — into a development opportunity. In her State of the City address on Wednesday, Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the City Council, will propose to build new apartment buildings on these open spaces, that will combine both public and private dwellings.

The plan would create needed housing for the city and provide upgraded options for New York City Housing Authority residents in the new buildings, Ms. Adams said.

“The climate is right for conversations like this,” Ms. Adams said. “Affordable housing is at the top of our list everywhere — state, city, federal — it’s at the top of everybody's list.”

She added, “It’s an innovative way of thinking, it’s an innovative way of building.”

But the plan faces many hurdles, and many of its details have yet to be finalized.

What to Know About Affordable Housing in New York

A worsening crisis. New York City is in a dire housing crunch, exacerbated by the pandemic, that has made living in the city more expensive and increasingly out of reach for many people. Here is what to know:

A longstanding shortage. While the city always seems to be building and expanding, experts say it is not fast enough to keep up with demand. Zoning restrictions, the cost of building and the ability by politicians to come up with a solution are among the barriers to increasing the supply of housing.

Rising costs. The city regulates the rents of many apartments, but more than one-third of renters in the city are still severely rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent, according to city data. Property owners say higher rents are necessary for them to deal with the growing burden of taxes and rising expenses for property maintenance.

Public housing. Thousands of people are on waitlists for public housing in buildings overseen by the New York City Housing Authority. But it has been years since the city’s public housing system has received enough funds to deal with the many issues that have made it an emblem of neglect, and plummeting rent payments from residents threaten to make things worse.

In search of solutions. Mayor Eric Adams has presented a plan to address New York City’s housing crisis that includes expanding affordable housing through incentives for developers and preserving existing below-market units. But the mayor’s critics say the budget still falls short of what is needed.

It would likely require the federal government to reverse years of declining investment in the traditional public housing program, which seems unlikely given Republican skepticism of such programs. Millions of dollars of city and state subsidies could also be necessary, especially if officials want a good portion of the new homes to be affordable to lower-income people.

The plan may also see local pushback, as previous plans to build on NYCHA land have withered in the face of fears about private interests encroaching on public housing.

“It’s some of the only unbuilt land in New York City that is actually under public control,” said Nicholas Dagen Bloom, a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College who has written about the history of public housing.

Only a handful of projects to build on NYCHA land — like a senior housing project on a parking lot at the Justice Sonia Sotomayor campus in the Bronx — have moved forward, however.

Mr. Bloom said he was skeptical about the speaker’s plan, which he said “seems pretty much like a recycled version of a number different of initiatives.”

Still, Ms. Adams’s plan comes as a growing number of local officials are increasingly hunting for space to build homes in New York City. The plan would also overcome one of the main challenges of building — the cost of land — because NYCHA properties are already publicly owned.

The New York City housing shortage, decades in the making, is a major factor in the city’s lack of affordability, as home building has lagged behind population and job growth. In recent months, a growing number of officials have proposed ideas to make it easier to build more housing. Community boards, borough presidents, the mayor, the governor and the president have all made their voices heard.

The city’s public housing system, home to some 340,000 residents, is also in a period of flux, and its leaders have grasped for ways to rehabilitate its crumbling infrastructure. Tenants and developers at some developments in Chelsea are considering demolishing and rebuilding thousands of apartments, Politico reported last month.

Tens of thousands of apartments are being transferred to private management under a contentious scheme to generate billions of dollars for needed repairs. Another similar plan, to transfer some apartments to a newly-created public benefit corporation, which could then borrow money for renovations, appears to be behind schedule, the news organization The City reported on Tuesday.

Ms. Adams’s plan could benefit NYCHA tenants in particular, who she said could leave their old buildings to move into the new publicly-owned apartments.

She said the plan would start with a pilot at one development, which NYCHA tenants would help select. Then, the city would determine the specific financing and building details.

The design of many NYCHA developments — clusters of tall buildings surrounded by open land — were influenced by the “towers in the park” architectural style that became popular in the mid 20th century. As New York City ran out of space to build, however, those properties increasingly drew the eye of local officials who saw opportunities to develop.

Officials in the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought to build mostly market-rate apartments on the land, while former Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to build a combination of both market-rate and below market-rate homes. Both plans foundered after generating opposition, particularly among tenants of the developments who felt the city was prioritizing new residents even as their own homes fell apart.

Karen Blondel, who has lived in public housing for some 40 years and is co-founder of the Public Housing Civic Association, a nonprofit resident group, said she was intrigued by the speaker’s proposal. But she said she would want to know how it would be paid for, how big the buildings would be, where they would be placed and how the city would help foster connections between new and longtime residents.

“I’m always going to be open minded to new solutions because we’re going to have new problems every day,” she said.

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