Adams’ second Charter Revision Commission takes aim at land use gatekeepers

From speeding up the land use review process to comprehensive planning, a handful of housing and land use experts have all sorts of ideas on how New York City should revise its governing document to better facilitate housing growth.

On Tuesday evening, they had an opportunity to share their thoughts with the latest Charter Revision Commission convened by New York City Mayor Eric Adams as the panel held its first public hearing at Fire Department headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn. The commission, created by Adams in December, is tasked with proposing amendments to the city charter largely to bolster and streamline housing production as New York City faces a dire affordable housing shortage. Any recommendations ultimately born from the panel would then go on the ballot for voter consideration, perhaps as soon as November. In the weeks to come, the commission will hold more public hearings across the city.

With more than 100 in-person attendees and over 40 people watching over Zoom, Tuesday’s hearing was well-attended – particularly compared to the first public hearing held by the last commission convened by Adams last summer. Public testimony stretched well into the evening. 

“We’re a city of multitudes. We have every political persuasion. Eight million people – double that many opinions. That diversity can make things hard, can make it hard to govern, hard to come together and find the path forward,” said commission chair Richard Buery, Robin Hood CEO, as he kicked off the lengthy meeting. “One of the challenges of this commission is to make sure that as we review the charter that we are creating an opportunity to hear everyone’s voices.”

Former deputy mayor of housing under former Mayor Bill de Blasio Vicki Been, Barika Williams of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, Howard Slatkin of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, and Jacob Anbinder, a historian of urban politics at Cornell University, were among the experts asked to testify Tuesday before public testimony began. 

Some of the suggestions they made on how how to revise the city charter were to speed up the land use review process by setting deadlines for building inspections and other types of coordination between agencies, mandating the city to create a comprehensive plan that uses equity goals to establish targets for both community districts and the city at large, exempting 100% affordable housing projects from the the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, making the City Council’s Fair Housing Framework enforceable if neighborhoods aren’t meeting its mandates, and reducing the City Council’s final say on land-use matters – a tradition known as “member deference” – by giving borough presidents or the City Planning Commission more say in the latter stage of the land use approval process. 

This isn’t the first time Adams has convened a commission to make changes to the city charter – nor is it the first time the decision has been met with strong pushback from the New York City Council. Council members have expressed concerns that potential proposals could weaken their power and dilute public input on land use decisions. They see Adams’ decision to form the commission as only the latest attempt to undercut their authority – especially given the fact it was formed just days after a majority of City Council members approved Adams’ City of Yes housing plan after tough negotiations. The Adams administration has framed the formation of the commission as an opportunity to build on the plan’s wins and remove longstanding barriers to development. While the City Council recently moved to form its own commission, the formation of Adams’ new panel complicates that effort. Any ballot proposals put forward by the commission will again take precedent over any from the City Council. 

Adams’ first charter revision commission, convened last spring, came up with five ballot proposals concerning sundry issues from the scope of Sanitation Department authority to calculating the cost of proposed City Council laws. Despite the City Council’s campaign to defeat them, voters OK’d four of the five proposals last month.