Adams’ Charter Revision Commission has proposed measures to accelerate affordable housing production in the parts of the city that have produced the least, a move that has drawn criticism from councilmembers and community boards.
Mayor Eric Adams at the groundbreaking for an affordable housing project in 2022. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
On this lawmakers agree: there isn’t enough affordable housing in New York City. But how to build it, and where? Not so much.
Mayor Eric Adams’ Charter Commission voted Monday to advance four land use ballot proposals aimed at reducing the time and cost to producing housing. But they would come at a price: some erosion of the City Council’s powers over land use.
New Yorkers will get to vote on the plans in November’s general election.
One of the changes targets specific neighborhoods. The affordable housing “fast track” would half how long it takes new projects with income-restricted units to go through land use review in certain community districts that have produced less affordable housing than the rest of the city.
The commission and its supporters say that will make it easier to build, while detractors say it will limit the local community’s voice in how their neighborhood looks.
“If you are in the bottom 12 community districts for affordable housing production, it is because virtually nothing is being built in the community district at all. So communities don’t have a voice,” said Alec Schierenbeck, executive director of the Charter Revision Commission.
Communities and councilmembers can’t weigh in on projects when nothing is being proposed, he argued, hoping it will spur more development.
The “fast track,” if enacted, would affect large swaths of the city. That could potentially include Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ district where it overlaps with Queens Community Board 10.
Speaker Adams, who opposes the proposal, touted the Council’s ability to deliver on affordable housing, pointing to investments in her home borough of Queens.
“Accountability to ensure every community contributes to the creation of housing is essential, but it does not require taking away communities’ power to negotiate increased affordability and investments from developers,” she told City Limits in a statement.
Who would be subject to the ‘fast track’ (hypothetically)?
The 12 community districts that have produced the least affordable housing in the past five years have just over a year to permit more, or risk being subject to the fast track.
While the Charter Commission did not name the 12 community boards currently lagging on affordable housing, City Limits followed their formula for affordable housing production to find out which districts would be subject to the rule if it went into effect today.
Two community boards in Manhattan, four in Queens, four in Brooklyn, and two in Staten Island would be in the bottom 12 by rate of new affordable construction compared to their existing housing stock. No Bronx districts would qualify currently.
Many of those are outlying areas of the city that haven’t produced much housing at all, much less affordable housing—but some high density parts of the city would also land in the bottom 12 were the rule to take effect today.
A City Council analysis of the fast track proposal shared with City Limits mirrored these patterns.
Community districts don’t cleanly overlap with City Council districts, but the bottom 12 community boards in City Limits’ analysis cover portions of the city represented by Republican councilmembers on the South Shore of Staten Island, Southern Brooklyn and Northeast Queens.
The potentially affected areas also include much of the districts of Democrats Justin Brannan in Bay Ridge, Robert Holden in Maspeth, and Gale Brewer on the Upper West Side.
“You’re going to see a mix of neighborhoods that haven’t built affordable housing because they don’t want to and ones that haven’t built affordable housing because doing so is so expensive and complex,” said Jessica Katz, former chief housing officer under the Adams administration.
“Take Manhattan off the list,” Brewer told City Limits in a phone call. “We want affordable housing,” she added, noting that it’s harder to get affordable housing built in her already-dense district compared to others.
“Come up with a different formula,” she said.
Brannan and Holden did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
The disparity in housing production persists whether you look at community boards or Council districts. According to the New York Housing conference, in the last year the top seven City Council districts produced as much housing as the other 44 districts combined.
The Charter Commission report said the top 10 Council districts, on average, produced 751 affordable units a year while the bottom 10 produced just three.
Holden and Joann Ariola’s neighboring Queens districts produced just 245 affordable units between them from 2014-2024, among the 10 lowest totals among council districts in a separate NYHC analysis published earlier this year. Over the last decade, Bronx Council districts accounted for five of the 10 areas that saw the greatest number of new affordable units.
How would the ‘fast track’ work?
Under the charter change, the city would run the numbers in October 2026 and produce a report classifying community boards based on the number of affordable units produced in the past five years compared to the total number of units currently in the district.
From there, the bottom 12 communities would be subject to the “fast track” for any land use application that triggers the city’s mandatory inclusionary housing rules–either through a neighborhood rezoning or an individual application for a building of more than 10 units.
The local community board and borough president would then review the proposal simultaneously, as opposed to one after the other, as is the case currently. After those 60 days, the City Planning Commission would have 30 days to vote. If approved, it would advance the project to the City Council.
“The Fast Track is narrowly targeted to address the need to build affordable housing in the few districts that build the least, while leaving the ordinary process of public review in place for the lion’s share of all changes,” wrote the Charter Commission in its report.
A City Council meeting in 2022. Councilmembers have condemned the “fast track” proposal. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
Why is it controversial?
The Charter Commission says that the measures are “modest” and seek to create new pathways to build housing in parts of the city where it is currently time consuming and expensive to do so.
But leaders in the City Council disagree, arguing that the changes would undermine their role in the land use process. Community board leaders, who make advisory votes on land use applications in their district, mostly opposed the changes in testimony before the commission.
Part of the resistance, sources say, might be due to the fact that the Charter Commission has Mayor Adams’ name attached. A joint statement from Council leadership Monday described the commission as a political power play, calling it a “self-serving narrative in support of expanded mayoral power.”
They pointed to the Council’s Fair Housing Framework—which will set production targets for neighborhoods, but stops short of mandating new development—and the passage of City of Yes as evidence of the Council’s motivation to do more on housing.
“There’s no question that we have to change the status quo in favor of building more housing. While I share some of the concerns about how the proposals might undermine our ability to shape outcomes in our own districts, I also believe that we have to take bold action to tackle the housing crisis. The old way isn’t working, and it’s time for something new,” said Keith Powers, whose Eastside Manhattan district could be partially subject to the “fast track” alongside fellow member Julie Menin from the Upper East Side.
A spokesperson for Powers emphasized that building housing is particularly difficult in his district, and said that projects currently in the pipeline might bump them out of the bottom tier by next year. Manhattan Board 6 in Stuyvesant Town and Turtle Bay was 13th lowest on affordable housing production, and Manhattan Community Board 8 on the Upper East side was fifth lowest, when City Limits ran its analysis.
“I think this is really ramming something down people’s throats,” said Brewer. She argued the way to get things done is to work with councilmembers and community boards, not shame them.
‘Appeals board’ also ruffles feathers
Separately, the commission has taken aim at the longstanding practice of “member deference” on land use issues. Under member deference, the Council only advances land use changes if the local councilmember signs off.
The third proposed ballot measure would create a new appeals board, made up of the mayor, council speaker, and representative borough president, which could reverse the Council’s decisions on qualifying affordable housing projects.
The commission argued in its report that councilmembers have bargained down the number of apartments (and affordable units) in potential developments as a result of their review power. An unknowable number of units, the report says, are never even proposed.
“When someone proposes an affordable housing development, the first thing they do is look up who the City Council member is, and if the City Council member is someone who will never say yes to an affordable housing development, they don’t do anything with that site at all,” said Schierenbeck.
“This is really creating an accountability mechanism, a backstop for bad faith actors,” said Annemarie Gray, executive director of the pro-housing group Open New York.
Councilmembers say they are just fighting for the best deal for their community, and pointed the blame at Mayor Adams.
A group of 28 councilmembers, from Democratic Socialists to Republican Joann Ariola, condemned the suite of charter proposals in a statement, saying “unlike this commission, we believe the input of communities, elected officials, and organized labor can make development projects better.”
A building under construction in Brooklyn in 2022. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
How can communities get off the hot seat?
A lot can change in a year. If the ballot measure passes, communities will still have 10 months before the City Council would officially designate the 12 community boards that produced the least affordable housing for their size.
The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which passed late last year, was designed to unlock development potential in areas of the city that were lagging behind on housing production. If some of that construction comes to fruition, the balance could shift.
City of Yes included several carveouts to facilitate its passage through the City Council. The Charter Commission’s packages require no such review—many councilmembers who voted against City of Yes, or, like Brannan, secured an exception to aid their district, are the same councilmembers who may be subject to fast-tracking.
Ariola, a Republican representing Queens, said her stance was not in opposition to affordable housing generally, but wanting to make sure new development is “smart” and not overburdening infrastructure in her district, arguments reminiscent of the debate over City of Yes.
Ariola and Holden both voted no on City of Yes last year.
Community boards could build their way out of the dog house. For example, permitting 90 new units of affordable housing in Ozone Park and Howard Beach, where just 12 new affordable units were built since July 2020, would bump Queens Community District 10 from the third-lowest to out of the bottom 12.
You can weigh in on November’s ballot
On Monday, the commission voted to advance a ballot measure creating the affordable housing fast track, alongside three other land use proposals.
In addition to the affordable housing fast track and the affordable housing review board, the charter changes would streamline the review period for affordable housing developments of a smaller size.
Others include the affordable housing appeals board that can override the City Council, simplified review for modest housing and infrastructure projects, and creating a digital city map.
Look out for those proposals on your ballot on election day, when voters will consider land use reforms as well as a proposal to move New York City’s mayoral elections to presidential election years.
To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org
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The post The 12 Communities Where Mayor Adams’ Charter Commission Could ‘Fast Track’ Affordable Housing appeared first on City Limits.
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