What the Charter Revision Commission's Ballot Proposals May Mean for New York City's Housing Production
The New York City Charter Revision Commission proposed in its final report in late July five ballot measures for voters to weigh in on, including three proposals that would impact housing development and the land use review process in New York City:
- Question 2 – Fast track affordable housing
- Question 3 – Simplify review of modest housing and infrastructure projects
- Question 4 – Establish an Affordable Housing Appeals Board with Council, Borough, and Citywide representation
To help contextualize the three ballot measures, this summary provides an overview of New York City’s land use review process and neighborhood development trends. Then the summary provides details on how each of the ballot measures would impact the process.
I. Overview of The Land Use Review Process and Neighborhood Development Trends
New development is not equally distributed across New York City’s neighborhoods. The NYU Furman Center’s analysis shows that just ten of the city’s 59 Community Districts, with only 13 percent of the City’s population, were responsible for 47 percent of the housing stock growth between 2010 and 2024. On the other hand, half of the city’s community districts, with 58 percent of the population, added only 22 percent of the housing stock.
At the same time, land use changes, especially upzonings, are a driver of new housing production. Roughly a third of the new units permitted from 2010 to 2023 were in upzoned areas, and a quarter of new units were permitted on lots where the city initiated the upzoning:
To bring a housing development that requires land use changes from an idea to a building that can provide a home requires five major steps:
The City’s existing charter is most relevant in its focus on the formal Uniform Land Use Review process (ULURP) and some of the reviews that take place during the pre-ULURP process. However, features of the formal ULURP process and the other agency reviews may also contribute to delays, uncertainty, and costs that impact the first step of the process.
For example, in the site selection stage, if a developer believes local elected officials are signaling opposition to the proposal, they may decide not to invest the capital to assess project feasibility and abandon the project altogether. The developer may also propose a project that is designed to start a negotiation, distorting the review process.
In the “pre-ULURP” stage, the developer pays to conduct an environmental review, and to coordinate with various agencies before submitting a “pre-application” statement. The developer may still be facing uncertainty about the commitment of elected officials to support the project while they are incurring these costs.
Finally, in the formal ULURP process projects may be rejected or cut back. During this lengthy process, the regulatory environment, market conditions and the availability of financing tools can change, which creates additional risk. In addition, the informal deference provided to the local council member allows neighborhoods to shirk their obligation to develop housing, while the city’s overall needs are not taken into account.
The Charter Revision Commission believes its proposals will change the dynamics of this process. The ballot measures introduce a shorter expedited land use review process for certain types of projects, and provides for the creation of a new appeals board with a broader geographic mandate. Each ballot measure is summarized separately below.
II. Question 2 – Affordable Housing Fast Track
The first amendment has two parts. The first part would allow the City’s Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) to provide waivers to Housing Development Fund Companies (HDFCs) for zoning relief using a shorter process known as the “Fast Track Zoning Action”. The second part, building on the passage of the New York City Council’s Fair Housing Framework, would propose a new, accelerated review process, called the “Affordable Housing Fast Track,” for projects in the 12 community districts that produced a lower share of affordable housing over a five year period.
1. What Does the Commission’s “Fast Track Zoning Action” Propose?
Under the Fast Track Zoning Action, HDFCs developing publicly financed affordable housing projects could apply to the BSA for a modification of any use, bulk or parking requirements without proceeding through the ULURP process. Applications can only be filed for residential zoning districts. The BSA could issue a decision granting modifications based on at least two findings. First, the BSA would need to find necessity by consulting with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and concluding that the development could not proceed without the regulatory modification. Second, the BSA would need to find that the building would not alter the essential character of the neighborhood. The BSA could also impose other conditions or restrictions on the development.
Importantly, this process deletes criteria the BSA would ordinarily take into account when providing a variance. For example, the BSA does not need to find there is a “unique physical condition” inherent in the property (e.g. small, shallow or irregular lots, sub-surface soil conditions, or the inability to reuse obsolete buildings). The BSA also does not need to find the application is seeking the “minimum variance” necessary for the project to proceed. The process for the Fast Track Zoning Action is provided below:
2. What Does the Commission’s “Affordable Housing Fast Track” Propose?
Under the Affordable Housing Fast Track proposal, in 12 designated Community Districts, rezoning applications that are required to deliver affordable housing under the City’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) program would have access to a new land use procedure that consolidates the Community Board and Borough President’s review of the application, shortens the City Planning Commission’s period for review, and eliminates the City Council’s review:
3. Where Would the “Affordable Housing Fast Track” Be Implemented?
If approved, the Department of City Planning (DCP), in consultation with HPD, would release a report every five years beginning in October 2026 on the rate of affordable housing produced relative to the existing housing stock in each of the City’s 59 Community Districts over a five-year period. DCP would divide the number of “new affordable dwelling units” by the total housing units in the community district at the start of the cycle. DCP and HPD would need to produce a methodology for determining what constitutes a “new affordable dwelling unit,” which is defined to include any income-restricted unit. The proposal says they could use building permits and the effective date of regulatory agreements but the exact methodology must still be developed.
Districts would be evaluated based on relative growth in affordable housing rather than the absolute number of affordable housing units permitted. That means the fast track procedure wouldn’t measure whether a low-density district created as many units as a high-density one, but instead whether it added a similar share of affordable housing. The regular zoning process of land use review would remain in place for the rest of the city.
Several recent analyses produced by the NYU Furman Center may provide a sense directionally of which neighborhoods produce fewer affordable housing units. Based on our analysis, the 12 community districts [1] highlighted in the map below had the lowest rate of completed affordable housing units from January 2021 through June 2025. Importantly, we use completions rather than permits since we do not know how the City will define permitting, and we include all income-restricted units here. The 12 community districts are all lower density neighborhoods, with the exception of the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and Midtown Manhattan.
Importantly, the marginal difference in the production rate between the lowest-producing twelve community districts and the next set of lowest-producing community districts is small, which means it is possible a range of neighborhoods might eventually qualify for the fast track.
For example, 3 community districts (Kew Gardens, Jackson Heights and the Financial District) missed qualifying for the Affordable Housing Fast Track by 3, 7 and 11 units respectively. Put another way, if Kew Gardens had built 55 affordable units instead of the 58 they did build, they would qualify under the methodology used here. There are another 6 community districts within a 200 unit threshold (meaning if they had produced up to 200 units less of affordable housing they would have qualified).
III. Question 3 – Expedited Land Use Review Procedure for Modest Projects
The second housing-related amendment proposes an expedited review process for a subset of eligible projects that would have otherwise required a ULURP application. The “Expedited Land Use Review Procedure” (ELURP) would consolidate the Community Board and Borough President’s review of the application, shorten the City Planning Commission’s period for review, and eliminate the City Council’s review unless a review is required by State law:
Applications eligible for ELURP include the following types of projects:
- In R6+ districts (medium & high density districts), zoning map changes that increase residential capacity (floor area ratio or FAR) by an amount less than or equal to 30%.
- In R1–R5 districts (low density districts), zoning map changes that increase capacity up to that of another low-density district (standard height limit 45 ft; max FAR ≤2).
- Dispositions of City-owned property to HDFCs (with 30-day Council review if required by State law)
- Acquisitions by HPD of property restricted to affordable housing
- Dispositions of City-owned property to adjacent owners under DCAS’ Slivers, Accessways, and Interior Lots program
- City Map changes for government-sponsored affordable housing projects (e.g., street mappings/demappings)
- Resiliency and climate infrastructure related projects including City Map changes to raise streets; site selections for open space, resiliency, or solar; small/irregular site acquisitions; and dispositions for solar generation
For a sense of how the first two categories of applications map onto different neighborhoods in the City see below:
IV. Question 4 – Affordable Housing Appeals Board
The third housing-related amendment proposes establishing a new “Affordable Housing Appeals Board” consisting of the Mayor, the Speaker of the City Council, and the Borough President of the borough affected by an application. ULURP applications for projects creating affordable housing that are limited to one borough and that were disapproved by the City Council during the formal ULURP process could proceed to the Appeals Board.
The Appeals Board could then reverse the City Council’s land use decision if 2 of the 3 members of the board agree to override the City Council’s decision. This process would replace the Mayoral Veto and Council Override part of the ULURP process, and instead empower the Borough President to serve as a potential deciding vote over a project:
V. Conclusion
The NYU Furman Center hosted a policy breakfast on October 15, 2025 discussing the Charter Revision Commission’s proposals. Watch the panel online here.
Footnotes
[1] The 12 districts are: (1) Brooklyn – (a) Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights, and (b) Borough Park; Flatlands/Canarsie, (2) Queens – (a) Queens Village, (b) South Ozone Park/Howard Beach, (c) Bayside/Little Neck, and (d) Ridgewood/Maspeth; (3) Staten Island – (a) Tottenville/Great Kills, and (b) South Beach/Willowbrook, and (4) Manhattan – (a) Midtown, (b) the Upper East Side and (c) the Upper West Side.
