Michael Dardia, who oversaw the agency for years as deputy director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget and now is a co-director of research at the Citizens Budget Commission, called the plan “very feasible” and said it could very well succeed in helping the Housing Authority operate in the black in a few years.

“Some of the things are not going to be popular,” he said. “But if they’re going to provide subsidized housing, these are the kinds of steps they need to take.”

A proposal to lease land within a number of housing complexes to developers is expected to generate $500 million over 10 years, while also helping to create affordable housing. A similar proposal prompted an uproar two years ago — and was strongly opposed by Mr. de Blasio, then public advocate — when first proposed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a political independent.

That plan, though, required that only 20 percent of the units be affordable to lower-income households and raised fears among residents that it could lead to the eventual privatization of public housing buildings. In the proposal’s current iteration, half of the rental units in new buildings would charge market rates and the other half would charge rents affordable to low-income households earning no more than 60 percent of the area median income, officials said.

Separately, the Housing Authority would give developers land, in exchange for $200 million in fees over 10 years, to build 10,000 low-rent apartments starting at three housing projects — Van Dyke and Ingersoll in Brooklyn and Mill Brook in the Bronx. The units will count toward the mayor’s goal of 80,000 new affordable units over a decade, officials said.

To cut costs, housing officials are also proposing to shed 14,000 apartments in severe disrepair from the authority’s rolls and transfer them to other federal housing programs that allow private companies to lend money for repairs. The conversions are likely to raise further concerns about privatization. But federal officials said those worries were unfounded. Under housing program rules, the city agency would keep a controlling interest in the apartments.