Big Apple Politicians Clash Over Ballot 'Middle' Housing Reform

Battles over housing reform in most states and cities can be contentious. In the South, it’s a bit more genteel among politicians.

In New York City, politics isn’t merely a contact sport. It’s a cage match, and housing reform in one of the world’s most expensive cities has strayed into the octagon.

Within an already rowdy mayoral race, 28 City Council members want to brawl over a mayoral Charter Revision Commission-crafted ballot initiative that seeks to take a wrecking ball to the city’s housing gridlock, and introduce more missing middle homes that would give more city residents access to affordable housing.  

Developing more affordable housing – a core part of measures to address NYC's cost-of-living crisis – has become a key theme in the mayoral race. Each candidate has proposed a different plan, ranging from expanding rental control to rehabilitating vacant properties to investing public dollars in building more housing.

In a public statement after the commission's final vote on July 21, City Council members said the recommendations from the commission Mayor Eric Adams established will do anything but create more affordable housing. They view the commission's recommendations as the equivalent of handing out golden tickets to luxury housing developers if voters approve.

It is no surprise that an Eric Adams commission is undermining truly affordable housing, good union jobs, and much-needed infrastructure investments to fast-track luxury development,” they said.

Further, the ballot initiative measures would limit the council’s power over zoning decisions by giving the City Planning Commission the final say on affordable housing development in the 12 community districts where the fewest housing units have been built.

The mayor appoints most of the commission members.

City Council members, on the other hand, defend the progress they've overseen on affordable housing, saying they have approved more than 120,000 new housing units and homeownership opportunities over several years, along with securing $8 billion to “tackle the housing crisis and invest in our growing communities.”

The City Council's gambit – to tie the ballot initiative directly to NYC's deeply unpopular mayoral incumbent – is to tank the measure right along with Adam's bid for re-election. Right now, Adams is polling fourth. Democrat state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani leads with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in second and Republican Curtis Sliwa in third.

A remaining risk for City Council members could be that if Adams loses in November, and the ballot initiative passes, a newly elected mayor would have to live with the new rules.

The centerpiece is the creation of an “Expedited Land Use Review Procedure” to streamline a currently sclerotic approval process for projects and bring medium-density housing.

In theory, ELURP would halve the time it takes to get smaller developments and affordable housing through the city’s infamous bureaucratic gauntlet. Projects under 45 feet tall, in low-density neighborhoods, or run by nonprofits would be prioritized.

The commission’s report said ELURP will finally let the “missing middle”—small-scale builders, nonprofit developers, and affordable housing—off the bench and onto the field.

Jessica Katz, a former New York City chief housing officer, wrote in the policy journal Vital City that the reform is needed if the city has any hope of addressing housing affordability.

The (current) process creates risk that no developer — much less a nonprofit or minority- or women-owned business enterprise — would ever take on without first having some certainty of how it will turn out,” Katz wrote.  

Council members, however, have presented the commission’s work as sugarcoating a classic New York tale: powerful interests fast-tracking luxury. At the same time, the rest of the city gets priced out, bulldozed, or sidelined.

This shift toward executive control undermines democratic oversight and meaningful public engagement,” Council member Sandy Nurse said on social media.

This fall, New Yorkers will get to play referee in determining whether to streamline housing approvals or maintain the status quo.

In Gotham, nobody escapes the clinch of politics, and this ballot bout promises haymakers on every side.