Evidence shows New York City and New York State have moved primarily toward legalizing and regulating basement apartments, not prohibiting them, and flood‑resilient building rules are largely limited to mapped flood zones rather than all new structures.

1. Policy on basement apartments:

   • State legislation backed by NYC officials (Kavanagh/Epstein bill S2276/A1075) is explicitly intended to let the city create a program to legalize and bring existing basement and cellar apartments up to safety standards, not to ban them. (nysenate.gov)
   • The 2024 state budget created a pilot program to legalize basement and cellar apartments in selected NYC neighborhoods, giving owners a pathway to convert them into lawful housing that meets health and safety standards. (thecity.nyc)
   • A 2025 report by the New York State Bar Association recommends legalizing safe basement apartments as a tool to reduce homelessness, reinforcing that the policy direction is toward regulated legalization, not blanket prohibition. (nysba.org)
   • NYC’s 2024 “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” zoning reforms and related implementation work establish accessory dwelling units (including some basement units) in city codes, while targeting restrictions only to coastal and inland flood‑prone areas, rather than banning all basement residences. (thenyhc.org)

   Overall, tens of thousands of basement units are being treated as part of the housing stock to be legalized and made safer, not declared universally “not livable” or illegal to occupy. This is the opposite direction of the prediction’s claim that NYC would “basically have to say … you can’t live in a basement anymore.”

2. Building practices / Miami‑style ground floors:

   • NYC’s flood‑resistant construction rules (Appendix G of the Construction Codes) require, within the 1% annual‑chance floodplain, that the lowest occupied floor be above the design flood elevation and that any enclosed space below that level be used only for parking, storage, or building access; basements and cellars are not allowed in new residential structures in these zones. (nychazardmitigation.com)
   • Zoning for Coastal Flood Resiliency (adopted May 2021, before the Sept 2021 podcast) and its subsequent implementation give owners in flood zones flexibility to elevate buildings and adjust ground‑floor uses to meet those code standards; they do not newly mandate Miami‑style open first floors citywide after Hurricane Ida. (nyc.gov)

   These measures mean that in designated floodplains, some new buildings already have parking or limited uses at ground level so floodwaters can pass through, but that framework predates the prediction and is geographically constrained. There has been no general shift to designing all new NYC structures with Miami‑style open first levels.

Because (a) policy has moved toward legalizing and regulating basement apartments rather than broadly prohibiting people from living in them, and (b) flood‑resilient ground‑floor design is confined to mapped flood zones and generally pre‑dated the statement rather than emerging as a new, citywide standard, the prediction that NYC would move in the described direction is best characterized as wrong.