New York City Puts Housing Reform to Voters In November

Richard Lawson -

In November, New York City voters will decide not only who will be the next mayor – the headline-grabber – but also whether to take huge steps toward improving housing affordability in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

The New York City Charter Revision Commission has unveiled a series of proposed amendments aimed at addressing what officials call the city’s worst housing affordability crisis in decades. The revisions place particular focus on streamlining the public review process for modest housing projects.

With these proposed amendments, New York City can seize the opportunity to adopt measures similar to those taken by other cities and states to ease or remove barriers to development. For example, California recently reformed its centerpiece environmental law to make it easier to build more housing statewide.

As is the case in cities across the country, developers trying to build in New York City have long complained about restrictive zoning laws, lengthy and bureaucratic approval processes, high costs, loss of tax incentives, community opposition, and regulatory burdens that together make building new housing slow, expensive, and uncertain.

Many headlines highlighted the city’s decline in population during the pandemic. New York City’s apartment vacancy rate rose to 4.5%; however, it soon fell to just 1.4%, the lowest in 50 years, as people moved back to the city amid a chronic shortage of new housing construction.

In recent decades, New York has built far less housing than is needed to keep up with demand to live in the city, driving gentrification, displacement, segregation, and tenant harassment,” the commission’s proposal report said.

Between 2010 and 2023, the city created three times as many jobs as new homes. Additionally, from 2014 to 2024, only 12 of the city’s 59 community districts added as much housing as the remaining 47 combined, according to the report.

A Kiplinger report revealed that Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan are among the most expensive housing markets in the country, with average home prices ranging from $1.3 million to $2.8 million. New York City’s cost of living ranked seventh globally, according to the human resources consulting firm Mercer.

Given the persistent barriers and the urgent need for more housing, city officials are seeking innovative solutions to accelerate development.

One of the most significant proposals to emerge from the Charter Revision Commission is a streamlined review process specifically designed to facilitate the easier and faster approval of smaller-scale housing projects.

Expedited Review for Modest Housing

A major recommendation is creating the Expedited Land Use Review Procedure. The new process is designed to make it faster and less costly to approve smaller-scale housing developments and critical infrastructure projects—categories that have been stymied by the city’s current one-size-fits-all review system, known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

ULURP is so lengthy and expensive that it has all but blocked incremental, community-scale housing projects, favoring only large developments by well-capitalized firms,” the commission wrote in its report.

Under ELURP, eligible projects would include:

  • Housing proposals that increase residential capacity by no more than 30% or allow buildings up to 45 feet tall.
  • Zoning changes in low-density neighborhoods (R1-R5) to permit modest multifamily buildings with a floor area ratio up to 2.
  • Acquisition and disposition of land for affordable housing, especially for Housing Development Fund Companies (HDFCs) that deliver 100% affordable units.
  • City map changes and site selections for affordable housing, resiliency, open space, and solar power projects.Infrastructure improvements, such as flood prevention and voluntary flood buyouts.

The process would preserve the current 60-day community board review period, but the borough president’s review would run concurrently, halving the total review time compared to ULURP. The City Planning Commission would then have 30 days to hold a public hearing and issue a final decision. Projects requiring City Council approval under state law would follow a similar expedited path.

Aimed at Unlocking Incremental Growth

The commission’s analysis found that over the past decade, there were virtually no private applications for modest density increases under the current system, highlighting how the process deters smaller builders, nonprofits, and minority- and women-owned businesses from proposing new housing.

By creating a more predictable and less burdensome review process, officials hope that ELURP will enable more modest, contextually appropriate housing construction, especially in neighborhoods that have historically resisted growth.

The proposal also aims to accelerate the city’s ability to use public land for affordable housing, a reform that drew near-universal support during public testimony.

Broader Housing Reforms

Other proposed reforms include:

  • Fast-tracking affordable housing projects through the Board of Standards and Appeals.
  • Establishing a new Land Use Appeals Board to balance local, borough, and citywide interests.
  • Modernizing the city’s fragmented paper-based city map into a unified digital system.

The commission emphasized that none of the reforms would eliminate public or environmental review, nor would they weaken protections for historic districts or construction standards.

Decades of restrictive zoning and a cumbersome land use process have made it nearly impossible to meet the city’s urgent housing needs,” the report stated. “These reforms are designed to unlock both large-scale and incremental housing production, ensuring every community does its part to address the crisis.”