![\"Placeholder\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750589843_18_placeholder.png\")
<\/p>\nNew York City’s notoriously long development approval process could get sped up for some projects if city voters back a handful of measures that will appear on their Election Day ballots in November.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Majority Leader Amanda Far\u00edas at an Oct. 7 rally against the ballot measures.\n <\/p>\n
The ballot questions have the support of the real estate industry and have been championed by Mayor\u00a0Eric Adams<\/a>. But they have been the source of a power struggle with the New York City Council<\/a>, which would lose some of its power to block what gets built.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s a fairly consequential moment, because these opportunities don’t come along often,\u201d said MaryAnne Gilmartin<\/a>, CEO and founder of developer MAG Partners<\/a>. \u201cWe are in a housing emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n The city has had its sights set on accelerating housing production throughout Adams\u2019 administration, from his \u201cmoonshot\u201d goal to build 500,000 new homes over 10 years to the citywide zoning reform dubbed City of Yes<\/a> that passed last year.<\/p>\n Adams, who announced last month he\u00a0wouldn’t seek reelection<\/a> after a bribery scandal and running fourth in the polls, is making his final push to speed up housing production in the form of three questions on the ballot<\/a>. The impetus to create more housing comes as the city\u2019s supply of free-market units stands at its lowest level in decades,\u00a0at 1.4%<\/a>,\u00a0and rents are near all-time highs.<\/p>\n The second ballot measure expedites the zoning process for city-funded affordable housing developments and forces city council districts that have contributed the lowest numbers of housing units to allow for more development. The third measure creates an accelerated land use review process for smaller developments and infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n The fourth ballot measure \u2014\u00a0and most controversial \u2014 creates an appeals board for affordable housing developments, removing the back-and-forth between the city council\u2019s votes and the mayor\u2019s veto for some projects that require rezoning.<\/p>\n The appeals board would be made up of the mayor, the city council speaker and the local borough president. It would review rezoning applications that were rejected or changed by the city council for affordable housing developments. A\u00a02-1 vote could reverse the council’s decision.<\/p>\n The measure undercuts the existing process of member deference,\u00a0under which council members follow the local representative\u2019s vote. Critics of the policy argue it has led to imbalanced housing developments in neighborhoods where affordable housing is politically unpopular but necessary to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many cases, it really starts and ends with that local city council person. They have a huge weight in the process,\u201d Ariel Property Advisors<\/a>\u00a0founding partner Victor Sozio<\/a> said. \u201cIf you don’t get that initial support, it’s kind of dead on arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n The measures have faced noisy opposition from the city council, which has unsuccessfully attempted to get them removed<\/a> from the ballot. Led by the council\u2019s largely Republican Common Sense Caucus, some city council members claimed in a lawsuit<\/a> that was dismissed last month that the measure violates state laws around environmental review.<\/p>\n \u201cBallot proposals 2,\u00a03 and 4\u00a0are a threat to our communities getting what they deserve,\u201d Majority\u00a0Leader Amanda Far\u00edas said at a rally Tuesday outside City Hall, according to Spectrum News NY1<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Democrats, including council Speaker Adrienne Adams<\/a> and Far\u00edas, who chairs the Progressive Caucus, also oppose Question 4. They implied that the measure<\/a> takes away from local representatives\u2019 leverage to influence what gets built in their communities as recently as this week.<\/p>\n That sentiment has already been reflected by some New Yorkers,\u00a0who have previously\u00a0said they don\u2019t get enough input into rezonings. In the case of one Sheepshead Bay development, residents said they were tricked<\/a> into signing agreements with one developer for a site to be turned into mixed-income housing, but it was later changed to become a homeless shelter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Developers say it will make it easier for them to build affordable housing in more parts of the city, said Justin Pelsinger, CEO of housing developer Charney Cos.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we tend to see is neighborhoods that have strong opinions about not building more housing tend to probably also have strong politicians that mimic the voice of their communities,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat that ends up doing is just stopping housing from getting built.\u201d<\/p>\n The second measure on the ballot creates an expedited process for affordable housing by allowing the Board of Standards and Appeals, an independent board designed<\/a> to resolve zoning disputes, to waive zoning restrictions for city-supported affordable housing developments.<\/p>\n That same measure also allows the City Planning Commission<\/a> to mandate that the 12 city districts producing the least housing would also be subject to the fast-tracked process.<\/p>\n The proposal reduces the influence of local politics for building income-restricted apartments in different neighborhoods, Pelsinger said.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting bogged down to the Board of Standards and Appeals and City Planning is twofold,\u201d he said. \u201cOne, it is a deterrent for people to even go seek anything, but it also is just an elongated process that takes even longer for housing to, generally speaking, get built.\u201d<\/p>\n Ballot Measure\u00a03 replaces the lengthy uniform land use review procedure for smaller housing projects in low-density neighborhoods that require rezoning with an expedited process.<\/p>\n The new procedure compresses zoning reviews into a 90-day review period, split into 60 days for the local community board and the borough president, plus a 30-day review by the City Planning Commission, which will have the final say.<\/p>\n That change could have the biggest impact of all the ballot measures, Regional Plan Association<\/a> Vice President of Housing and Neighborhood Planning Moses Gates said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have to build a giant skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan or if you have to build a four-story apartment building instead of a three-story apartment building in Sheepshead Bay, it’s the same process,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a result, we don’t get a lot of that missing-middle, small development that we could have gotten.\u201d<\/p>\n The change to ULURP<\/a> wouldn’t apply to major projects like the $2B\u00a0Innovation QNS<\/a> development that included 3,000 planned housing units in Long Island City. That development faced stringent local political opposition<\/a> in a bruising ULURP campaign that resulted in approval after its developers agreed to keep more units affordable. But now, the project’s builders say it doesn’t work financially and have shelved it for the foreseeable future<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The fifth ballot measure would digitize and centralize the city\u2019s map, which is fundamental to zoning and development decisions but currently only exists on physical paper and is split among the offices of separate borough presidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCentralization would allow for greater efficiency, consistency and predictability,\u201d said Casey Berkovitz, director of external affairs for the Charter Revision Commission, which put together the ballot measures. \u201cThe outdated nature of the city map adds delay, and thus cost, to the city\u2019s operations.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the sixth and final proposal \u2014 switching NYC\u2019s elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years, based on research showing higher voter turnout in election years that coincide with federal elections \u2014 will have consequences for housing, Gilmartin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHousing policy is really shaped by who we elect,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you increase participation, I think it makes the decision-making at the city level more accountable and more representative.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City’s notoriously long development approval process could get sped up for some projects if city voters…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":298893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[8070,852,5229,152239,55728,152244,152246,152243,152238,405,403,109599,5226,5225,5228,5227,152245,27968,145967,24583,152241,152242,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,152240],"class_list":{"0":"post-298892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-adrienne-adams","9":"tag-affordable-housing","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-ariel-property-advisors","12":"tag-ballot-measures","13":"tag-casey-berkovitz","14":"tag-charney-cos","15":"tag-mag-partners","16":"tag-maryanne-gilmartin","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-new-york-city-planning-commission","20":"tag-newyork","21":"tag-newyorkcity","22":"tag-ny","23":"tag-nyc","24":"tag-nyc-housing","25":"tag-nyc-housing-crisis","26":"tag-regional-plan-association","27":"tag-rezoning","28":"tag-the-new-york-city-council","29":"tag-ulurp","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-united-states-of-america","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","34":"tag-us","35":"tag-usa","36":"tag-victor-sozio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}