A special city panel appointed by Mayor Eric Adams of New York is moving forward with a plan to put at least five measures on the November ballot that would curb the City Council’s power to reject new housing and would shift local elections to even years, when voters are more likely to come to the polls.
The 13-member panel, known as a Charter Revision Commission, released a 135-page report on Tuesday that details the proposals. A final vote on the exact ballot language is expected later this month.
Together, the proposals seek to “help build a more affordable city and a more responsive government,” said Richard Buery, the chair of the commission and chief executive of the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty group.
Mr. Adams asked the commission in December to search for solutions to ease the housing crisis, though the group is independent and can address any issues it chooses. It has been holding public hearings over the past few months to help shape its proposals.
But many of the measures may be contentious, and the commission itself has been shadowed by controversy. The City Council created its own, separate commission a month before the mayor announced his, but it cannot put anything on the ballot if the mayor’s group does. The Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, has been publicly critical of the mayor’s commission.
Here’s what the mayor’s commission is looking to put on the ballot.
Making it faster and simpler to develop housing
New York City’s housing shortage is at its worst point in more than 50 years while rents continue to rise.
To change that, the commission wants to make it easier to build throughout the city.
One measure would give the City Planning Commission, instead of the City Council, the authority to approve or reject new housing in the 12 community districts that have allowed the least housing to be built. The majority of the Planning Commission’s members are appointed by the mayor.
That measure would also create a much simpler, faster process to approve housing that would be subsidized by the city.
Another ballot measure would speed up the approval of developments that seek only modest increases in density, such as those that increase residential capacity by 30 percent on lots in high-density neighborhoods. After input from community boards and borough presidents — a process that would take 60 days — the final approval would come from the Planning Commission.
The current process takes six months or more.
“I don’t have to be a political expert to understand that affordability is a question that is driving this election, and probably every election in the near term,” Mr. Buery said. “These proposals go directly at the heart of affordability. They are trying to make it easier for more people to build affordable housing in New York.”
Overruling Council members on housing
Some critics have long blamed the unofficial veto City Council members hold over big new developments in their districts, known as “member deference,” for making New York City’s housing shortage even harder to solve.
The mayor’s commission wants to diminish that power by creating a new appeals board consisting of the mayor, the Council speaker, and the president or a representative of the borough where the development was proposed.
If two of the three members agree, the board could overrule a decision by the Council to reject or modify a development plan.
These types of changes are likely to be opposed by Council members who have used the threat of their unofficial veto to negotiate better amenities and cheaper rents from developers and the administration, or to block developments they fear will fuel gentrification. Some labor unions and community boards that rely on member deference to push for neighborhood interests are also likely to resist this change.
And Ms. Adams, the Council speaker who ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor, has disagreed with the suggestion that the City Council is the main obstacle to new housing.
In response to questions about the commission’s proposals, the speaker’s office pointed to Ms. Adams’s assertions earlier this year that the mayor’s commission was created solely to prevent the Council’s commission from trying to give lawmakers more oversight over the administration. She is supporting a bill the State Legislature passed this year to allow both commissions to put measures on the same ballot, though it is unclear whether Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign it.
Ms. Adams has also criticized the mayor for blocking a contentious development in Lower Manhattan that the Council had approved.
“This shows the mayor’s Charter Revision Commission to be the height of hypocrisy and a sham for ignoring the role mayoral administrations play in obstructing new housing for New Yorkers,” she said last month.
A fourth ballot measure targeting development would digitize and consolidate an official city map from the more than 8,000 paper maps currently used in city offices in each borough. The existing complicated system can “impose significant costs” on housing and infrastructure projects, according to the report.
Encouraging more participation in local elections
While most of the proposals focus on housing, the commission is also seeking to improve voter turnout in local elections.
One measure would move the city’s primary and general election dates to even years, to line up with presidential elections. But even if that were placed on the ballot and approved by voters, it would still require a change to the State Constitution.
The commission is also still deciding whether it will ask voters to consider moving to an “open primary” system, which would allow New Yorkers to vote in any primary they choose. Currently, voters have to be registered with a party to vote in its primary.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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