Key Charter Reforms for Housing and Land Use

Allow the City Planning Commission to override or modify Council votes on land use actions with a supermajority vote. This would provide an avenue for officials with a broader geographic purview to check decisions that would compromise the broader public interest. 

• Replaces the current Mayoral veto
• Increases influence of BP appointments
• CPC could take up a vote on its own, following a Council vote to modify or reject; or an affected BP can compel the CPC to take up such a vote
• Would allow line-item modifications, not just the ability to cancel a decision
• No Council override of such a CPC vote (allowing this would preserve member deference intact)

Give the Council Speaker an appointment to the City Planning Commission. This would provide opportunities for cooperative and responsive review, and empower a citywide perspective within the Council. 

• This appointment could replace the appointment currently assigned to the Public Advocate
• Allow this and other CPC appointments to be replaced when a new elected official takes office

Make Council review of all land use actions optional, rather than mandatory. This, combined with the Speaker’s appointment to the CPC, would provide an opportunity to complete the process more quickly if the Council is satisfied with the outcome at the CPC.  

• Gives the Council the ability to take nearly two months off the process

Benefits of this proposal:

• No individual Council member could guarantee that a land use application in their district would be rejected (the implicit “local veto” of member deference). This would remove a blockade on the ULURP process that prevents untold numbers of housing proposals from ever seeing the light of day, and would advance the implementation of the Speaker’s Fair Housing Framework.
• Council members would not need to risk their jobs or careers just to support a housing proposal. They would retain an outsized voice to advocate for and secure modifications to projects, but constituents would know that they could not themselves veto an action.
• The CPC would be empowered to make thoughtful planning decisions that respond to public input, rather than incentivized to send the largest possible project to the Council, in hopes that something significant survives.
• The Borough Presidents, who lost most of their authority in the 1989 Charter revisions, would be empowered to advocate for borough-wide (and citywide) priorities.
• A Speaker’s representative on the CPC would provide an avenue to give voice to Council priorities at this stage of the process and incorporated into modifications, rather than postponed to the last step of the process.
• While the Mayor would retain a majority of appointments to the CPC, the check on member deference would come from other elected officials and their appointees.
• Replacing the blunt Mayoral veto with a line-item modification reflects that at the final stage, refinement of a proposal is more productive than blowing up an agreement.
• These changes do not require exercise of the override vote to be effective. They would create new incentives for the Council and CPC to cooperate toward mutually agreeable outcomes. The Speaker would have greater ability to achieve votes that do not succumb to member deference.

Define a category of small or minor projects of strictly local significance for which the process can potentially end with the BP’s review. This would increase access to the process for small applications that do not raise broader questions of policy.

• The City Planning Commission and City Council would adopt criteria defining a set of actions that would be eligible for this provision. These could include actions such as extension of a commercial overlay, or a change to the zoning for a small parcel. (It could not include actions that require an EIS.)
• For eligible actions, the Borough President’s recommendation may be final, unless the City Planning Commission votes to call up the action. An applicant may request that the CPC call up their action, or the CPC can do so at its discretion.

Benefits of this proposal:

• This would shorten the process for routine or consensus-oriented changes that raise no broader policy questions, and free up CPC and Council bandwidth for items of greater significance.
• Reducing barriers to entry would make the process more navigable for small applicants, rather than just well-resourced developers.
• The Borough Presidents would be able to take a greater role on actions of local importance.
• The option for CPC call-up would provide assurance that individual BP decisions do not produce outcomes that conflict with broader policy objectives.
• Note on precedent: The Charter currently authorizes DCP to determine whether a revocable consent application has land use implications and requires ULURP. Los Angeles has created local Area Planning Commissions to review minor applications.

Exempt from ULURP the disposition of City-owned land for as-of-right development that will consist predominantly of affordable housing.

• This would apply when no zoning changes are proposed in conjunction with disposition.

For public housing campus improvements conducted through a resident partnership process, require only CPC approval for land use actions. 

• Existing NYCHA campuses would be eligible for this process as an alternative to other processes.
• A resident vote, conducted under rules established by NYCHA, would authorize an expedited process.

Benefits of this proposal: 

• It would reduce costs and accelerate the delivery of affordable housing in a housing emergency.
• It will also create greater parity between the creation of permanent housing and of emergency shelters.
• Resident partnership in NYCHA improvements puts the key clients at the center of the process. Procedural delays and a potential ability for neighbors to prevent upgrades perpetuate the hardships of NYCHA tenants.