A showdown over who should have the most sway over new development in New York — the City Council or City Hall — has been brewing for months. But the Council may have found an edge: the Board of Elections, whose members are appointed by the Council, could decide to deny voters an opportunity to give the mayor more authority.
A push gaining steam among members of the elections board would prevent voters in November from weighing in on three ballot measures that would curtail the Council’s power over new development, according to two people familiar with the board’s conversations.
The measures, written by a special panel Mayor Eric Adams created last year, were designed to help ease the city’s housing shortage by diminishing an unofficial veto power that Council members hold over housing projects.
In a letter dated Aug. 28, the Council asked the 10 members of the board not to allow the measures to appear on the ballot, saying that their wording did not make it clear that Council members’ power was being reduced or eliminated.
Kathryn S. Wylde, a member of the mayor’s panel, said the board was trying to “abuse” its authority in order to “meddle in the substance of the proposals.” Ms. Wylde, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, said she had been told that some of the board members were wary of limiting the Council’s power.
The City Clerk certified the measures in early August, and the board must approve them by a Sept. 11 deadline — two days after its next meeting — to have them printed on the ballots in time for the election.
The board typically approves everything it has been sent, Frederic M. Umane, its president, said at a meeting this week when the Council raised objections. The board includes five Democrats and five Republicans who were recommended by both parties, and its charge is “to conduct fair and honest elections.”
Mr. Umane, a Republican, said at the meeting that “as far as I know, we’ve never used” the power to reject measures from the ballot.
Frank R. Seddio, a Democrat on the board, spoke about the ballot language at the meeting, saying, “At best, in my reading, it’s ambiguous, and at worst it’s misleading.”
If the board were to reject the measures next week, it would leave essentially no time for the panel to make any adjustments before the printing deadline, raising alarm among the initiatives’ supporters.
Alec Schierenbeck, the executive director of the mayor’s panel, known as a Charter Revision Commission, said in a statement this week that “denying New Yorkers the chance to vote on these proposals would be unprecedented, undemocratic and unlawful.”
Mr. Adams created the 13-member commission in December and asked it to search for ways to tackle the housing crisis by amending the City Charter, a document that is akin to the city’s constitution. Mr. Adams appointed the panel’s members, but they are supposed to act independently.
A spokesman for Mr. Adams did not respond to a request for comment.
The back-and-forth is the latest dispute over the best way to address the housing shortage. The share of apartments available to rent is at its lowest level in nearly 60 years, according to the most recent city figures, and rents continue to rise.
The measures aim to speed up and simplify development by shifting some power to the administration, borough presidents and other city agencies.
One measure would create a “fast track” by giving the City Planning Commission, instead of the City Council, the authority to approve or reject affordable housing projects in the 12 community districts that have allowed the least housing to be built. A majority of the planning commission’s members are appointed by the mayor.
Another measure would make it easier to build “modest” developments, such as those that would be up to 30 percent bigger than the current rules allow. These changes would also need approval from the planning commission, and not the Council.
A third would create an appeals board that could overrule a decision by the Council to reject or modify an affordable housing development. The board would need agreement between two of its three members: the mayor, the Council speaker and the president of the borough where the development was proposed.
The Council has said that the mayor’s commission amounted to a power grab. It had created its own separate charter commission before his, though that panel has not submitted any official proposals. The Council this week called the language of the mayoral commission’s measures “inaccurate” and “deceptive.”
“This major change to remove the only democratically elected entity with voting power in the land use process undermines New Yorkers’ ability to secure more affordable housing and investments for their neighborhoods,” Adrienne Adams, the Council Speaker, said on Tuesday.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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