A majority of New Yorkers voted to pass ballot measures that change the land use process for affordable housing. But Republican districts and neighborhoods that built less housing are still resistant to the changes.
The map above shows how neighborhoods voted on Proposal 2, which creates a “fast track” approval option for affordable housing projects. Blue indicates areas where a majority voted in favor, and pink voted against the measure. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)
A total YIMBY victory?
Two weeks ago, New Yorkers passed three housing ballot measures that change how affordable housing projects get permitted, with each receiving more than 56 percent of the vote across the five boroughs.
It was a win for the so-called “Yes in My Backyard” movement, which encourages the production of more housing to control rising costs.
But not every part of the city gave the ballot measures the thumbs up.
Voters in City Council districts that built more affordable housing over the past five years approved the measures with a two-thirds margin. Those that built less were 13 points behind, with 53 percent voting to advance them. Voters also disapproved the measures in five out of six districts represented by Republicans.
Those districts that built less were precisely the target of some of the reforms, which supporters say will ensure all neighborhoods chip in to building housing amid a citywide shortage.
The ballot measures move some of the City Council’s land use authority to boards with members appointed by the mayor. Proposal 2 creates an affordable housing fast track, 3 streamlines building for “modest” development projects, and Proposal 4 creates a board of the mayor, borough president, and Council speaker that can override the Council when it blocks or reduces affordable housing in development projects.
While the changes passed by finer margins than initial polling suggested, supporters touted the vote as a victory for affordable housing in an election that had the highest turnout in a mayoral year since 1969.
“There is a healthy pro-housing consensus in this city. Over a million people voted for an affordable housing fast track, and in every borough and in places where the political system has not been delivering affordable housing in a generation,” said Alec Shirrenbeck, executive director of the Charter Revision Commission, which was convened by Mayor Eric Adams and crafted the measures.
According to the New York Housing Conference, just 10 City Council districts built 53 percent of all the city’s affordable housing over the past decade. Four out of 51 districts produced under 100 total units, according to their tracker.
While changing the power dynamics around housing appealed to YIMBYs and their coalition, the City Council and some tenants’ rights groups saw the ballot measures as a power grab.
“The deceptive language of Mayor Adams’ proposals hid what they changed in order to secure approval from voters, which is fundamentally anti-democratic,” said City Council Spokesperson Benjamin Fang in a statement to City Limits.
The ballot measures passed by wide margins in some City Council districts where members were strongly opposed, like Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ district, where nearly three in four voters on average voted for ballot measures 2 through 4.
The City Council maintains that the proposals were worded deceptively. “Portraying them simply as advancing housing faster rather than honestly as shifting power from a democratic land use process to more mayoral power, helps explain why they were approved and where they earned support,” Spokesperson Fang said in a statement.
The proposals underperformed compared to other recent ballot measures, passing with the narrowest margin in 15 years, according to the Council’s analysis. No measure passed with less than two thirds of the vote in that time, the Council says.
City lawmakers are now pushing for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature on a bill in Albany that would roll back some of the changes passed by New York voters (though Hochul expressed support for the ballot measures before Election Day).
Opponents say they support new housing, but that the measures cut local voices from the process and reduce the leverage that councilmembers have to secure benefits in their districts during project negotiations.
New tools for a new mayor
Amid rising housing costs across the country, cities have been looking for ways to build more, which some experts say will ease rent increases. But local communities often oppose new development—creating a political conundrum for policymakers.
Opposition to projects like the Just Home affordable housing complex in the Bronx, where the local community and councilmembers protested, can stop or slow new construction for years.
“The loudest community voices are a small minority of any area. And those voices get amplified in certain public meetings and certain press, but they do not represent the majority of residents in any neighborhood,” said Andrew Fine, policy director at the YIMBY group Open New York.
But in a sign of changing political dynamics around housing, Republican Councilmember Kristy Marmorato, who won her seat in 2023 in part due to her opposition to Just Home, lost to Democrat Shirley Aldebol earlier this month. The district was also the only Republican-represented district to vote for the ballot measures, which won 52 percent of the vote there.
Signs opposing the Just Home project in The Bronx neighborhood where it was planned. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
In New Jersey, the state’s northern suburbs have built 50 percent more homes per resident than New York City, thanks to a landmark legal decision called Mount Laurel, which requires localities to zone to facilitate housing.
Now, with a fast track to production in the 12 community districts that have built the least affordable housing, New York City will have its own mechanism to build in neighborhoods that are lagging behind.
“This happens all the time, where a larger form of government makes decisions that are best for the greater good, and that can understand the externalities that a smaller form of government cannot,” said Fine.
He also pointed to recent tenant protections, including 2019 state rent laws and good cause eviction, that he says open the door to new housing while assuaging fears about displacement.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani voted for the housing ballot measures on Election Day, after weeks of speculation over his stance.
“I also understand that there are councilmembers in opposition to these measures, and their opposition is driven by commitment to their communities and a deep concern about investment in those communities and I share the commitment to that investment,” Mamdani said after voting. “I look forward to working with them and delivering.”
Supporters said that the changes to the land use process are modest fixes—and the government will still be in conversation with local districts about their needs when it comes to new development.
“You need to do deep community work, that you need to work with all the elected officials. You have to try to find consensus wherever consensus can be found. Nothing about these changes suspends the rules of politics,” said Shierenbeck.
The ballot measures will give Mamdani more tools to reach his ambitious housing goals, which includes building 200,000 affordable apartments in the next decade, Shierenbeck added.
He pointed to the “fast track” provision, which means publicly financed affordable housing projects—like the long-debated Elizabeth Street Garden senior building in SoHo—will be voted on by the Board of Standards going forward instead of the City Council, where opposition from local councilmembers can sometimes derail projects.
In development, time is money. Shierenbeck thinks the new zoning actions will help Mamdani stretch the city’s capital dollars to finance affordable housing, even as he tries to ask the state for more.
“These reforms are not everything, but coupled with other changes and a kind of a multi-year commitment to housing, that we can really see material benefits for working in middle class New Yorkers,” said Shierenbeck.
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