Here are all the major bills still before the New York City Council

There are mere weeks to go for the New York City Council to determine its next speaker, override the mayor’s most recent vetoes and pass a bevy of bills before the legislative clock resets on Jan. 1. 

Advocates have descended on City Hall in droves, hoping to reignite the fight for stalled legislation and drum up enough support to get others across the finish line with just three stated meetings to go on the calendar. Those are currently scheduled for Nov. 24 and Dec. 4 and 18. 

From measures to bolster protections for street vendors to legislation that would scale back the city’s short-term rental law and eliminate parking within 20 feet of an intersection, there’s a wide breadth of bills still under consideration. For some of the measures, the window for passage could be closing fast. Mayor Eric Adams’ and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ tenures are coming to a close and there’s no guarantee that their successors will support them. 

Here’s a rundown of the biggest measures likely to dominate discussion at City Hall in the last leg of 2025.

Strengthening gender-motivated violence protections

Intro. 1297 seeks to reopen a “lookback” window that would give survivors of gender-motivated violence more time to pursue civil actions. The measure would essentially overturn a recent court decision to toss out over 450 lawsuits against the city – many of which had been filed by people alleging that jail staff sexually abused them as teens and children while they were detained at city-run juvenile detention centers. While those individuals filed their cases under a previous lookback window spanning 2023 to earlier this year, they’d been tossed out because the judge argued the initial legislation’s language wasn’t clear enough. 

Intro. 1297, which was introduced by Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers in May, is an attempt to rectify this. It would open a new one-year window starting March 1, 2026 for survivors to file civil suits over acts committed before 2022 while also clarifying that lawsuits can target institutions like the city – not just individuals. 

With 41 members signed on as sponsors, the legislation has broad support within the City Council. There’s a lot of interest in getting it passed and of all the big remaining bills, it’s probably the most likely to succeed. According to a City Council spokesperson, discussions between the City Council and the Adams administration over the legislation are ongoing. Gothamist reported earlier this month that the city’s law department is currently not taking action on many gender-motivated violence lawsuits aimed at holding the city liable as council members hash out the legislation’s details.

Wrongful deactivations 

In a bid to bolster protections for the tens of thousands of app-based delivery drivers working in the city, Intro. 1332 sponsored by City Council Member Justin Brannan would prohibit delivery services like Grubhub, Uber and Doordash from deactivating workers’ accounts without “just cause” or a “bona-fide economic reason.” Going forward, these companies would have to give delivery drivers a reason for why they intend to deactivate or lock them out of their accounts. Another manner of disciplinary action would also need to have been taken prior to that point. Delivery workers have complained with greater frequency about their accounts being deactivated since the City Council passed a minimum pay standard for restaurant delivery apps in 2023.

In a similar vein, Intro. 276, sponsored by City Council Member Shekar Krishnan, would prevent rideshare apps from deactivating drivers without just cause.

The two bills are in separate committees and are not being paired together as a package despite their similarities, according to a City Council spokesperson. That means it’s possible that one could pass this year and the other does not.

Universal daylighting

Another measure, Intro. 1138, would prohibit parking a car within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection. This sort of prohibition is known as “daylighting” and is aimed at repurposing the city curb space near intersections in a bid to improve visibility for cyclists, drivers and pedestrians – theoretically improving public safety. Currently, most intersections in the city allow parking up to the crosswalk, blocking the view for pedestrians crossing the street. 

The measure would also require the city Department of Transportation to install hard infrastructure like benches, concrete blocks or bike racks to at least 1,000 intersections per year. If passed, the bill would bring the city into compliance with the state’s existing daylighting law, which the city has long overridden. 

The bill has generated a lot of controversy since it was introduced by Council Member Julie Won in 2024. Advocacy groups like Transportation Alternatives and Open Plans have billed it as an essential safety measure, one that would make streets safer and lead to fewer traffic-related injuries and deaths. Opponents like the Department of Transportation have argued that universal daylighting would not only offer scant safety benefits, but it could also cause more traffic-related injuries and would eliminate tens of thousands of parking spots. The debate has been duked out in warring reports, committee rooms and rallies alike for months. The City Council has previously taken some action on the issue, albeit on a smaller scale. In 2023, members passed a bill requiring the Department of Transportation to implement daylighting at no less than 100 street intersections each year starting in 2025.

While a majority of City Council members have signed on as co-sponsors, the measure has been stuck in limbo for months. The measure is a priority of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus. A City Council spokesperson said that negotiations are ongoing between the Speaker’s office and the Department of Transportation. Gothamist recently reported that one possibility on the table is the bill could be scaled down to only require daylighting at intersections near schools.

Street vending

A package of bills aimed at strengthening protections for street vendors is also currently under consideration. The centerpiece, Intro 431-A sponsored by Council Member Pierina Sanchez, would gradually expand the longstanding cap on street-vending licenses over the next five years, adding 2,000 new food vending licenses and 2,100 new general vendor license applications each year starting in 2026. An amended version of the bill was introduced following months of feedback from stakeholders. Currently, general licenses for merchandise selling are capped at 853. And while the cap on food vendor permits was increased by 445 in 2021, progress has been halting. 

Another bill, Intro. 408, would establish a Division of Street Vendor Assistance within the Department of Small Business Services. Intro. 24 would allow street vendors to position their carts further from the curb so they can be further from traffic. (Current law requires vendors to be set up right along the curb.)

These measures would build on recent changes passed by the City Council to eliminate criminal penalties for licensed street vendors and misdemeanor penalties for unlicensed sellers. After the mayor vetoed the legislation earlier this fall, citing concerns that it could be a public safety risk, council members promptly overrode it. Calls for the City Council to pass the measures were buoyed in wake of federal agents descending on Canal Street last month to target street vendors. 

Public safety

Intro. 1451, sponsored by Speaker Adams, would require the New York City Police Department to grant the Civilian Complaint Review Board direct access to all footage recorded by officer body cameras. The police watchdog agency would need to have real-time access to the servers hosting the footage comparable to the access that the NYPD’s internal affairs bureau has. While the union representing rank and file police officers have decried the measure as an unfair overreach, this is something Speaker Adams has expressed interest in doing for several years. The NYPD has long faced criticism for failing to meet deadlines to turn over body camera footage through public records requests. Turnaround time to the Civilian Complaint Review Board has been faster, but still been criticized.

Intro. 1460, sponsored by City Council Member Gale Brewer, would require the NYPD to develop a written policy about its radio communication, ensuring that encrypted radio channels are accessible to journalists in real-time and available to the public no more than 10 minutes after it took place. The legislation, which along with Intro. 1451 was introduced earlier this month, comes in response to the NYPD starting to encrypt some of its radio channels in 2023. This has been highly controversial – especially with media outlets and government watchdogs who’ve argued that blocking access undermines transparency and accountability. 

Short-term rentals 

One of the most hotly debated measures currently going through the legislative process is Intro. 0948, which would partially roll back the city’s strict restrictions on short-term rentals – revitalizing third-party booking platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo’s presence in the city. The measure, sponsored by Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, would essentially allow the owners of one and two-family dwellings to rent out their properties for fewer than 30 days to up to four adult guests even if the hosts aren’t present. If passed, this would be a significant rollback of Local Law 18, which went into effect in 2023 and put strict new regulations limiting short-term rentals. Following implementation, Airbnb listings reportedly dropped from about 22,000 down to 3,227.

The legislation is controversial. Airbnb has lobbied hard for the measure, framing it as making modest changes to the law so homeowners can take in some extra rental income while simultaneously making the city more accessible to visitors. This argument has also been framed as beneficial for Black and brown homeowners who’ve used short-term rentals as a key source of income. Opponents like the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and some housing advocates have argued that scaling back the law would spike rents and the cost of homes while also displacing long-term renters in place of short-term occupants. 

Mamdani has made his opposition clear, fueling supporters’ desperation to see the measure passed before the end of the year.  

Construction safety 

Intro. 910, dubbed the Construction Justice Act and sponsored by Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, would require housing developers to pay construction workers on certain city-funded affordable housing projects a minimum combined wage and benefits package of at least $40. At least $25 of that would need to be paid in direct wages.

Opinion is fairly split and debate has been contentious. Unions like Laborers’ Local 79 and the Mason Tenders District Council have billed it as an essential measure to improve the lives of thousands of construction workers. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development meanwhile has pointed to the high costs implementation would impose, arguing that it could discourage would-be developers from participating in the city’s subsidized projects – potentially cutting housing production by 1,000 to 2,500 units each year. With 43 co-sponsors, the bill has a veto-proof majority, meaning that if the City Council does end up passing it, members would be able to override any mayoral vetoes.

Land use 

There are also three bills seeking to impose affordability and size requirements on city-subsidized affordable housing projects. In a bid to make it easier for families to stay in the city, Intro. 1433 sponsored by Council Member Eric Dinowitz, would require newly built rental apartments to include more two-and three-bedroom units. Intro. 1443, sponsored by Council Member Sandy Nurse, would require half of the rental units in construction and rehabilitation projects approved by the city each year to be set aside for households making no more than 50% of the area median income. And Intro. 1437, sponsored by Council Member Crystal Hudson, would put a cap of 50% on the number of studio apartments intended for older adults. This comes in wake of the passage of several housing-related ballot proposals that council members have argued diminish their power to deepen affordability and fight for community benefits during the land use process.

Officials from the Housing Preservation and Development department have expressed concerns about the package, arguing that they would cause affordable housing production to drop given high costs and urged council members not to pass them.

A city land bank

A major package of bills, including Intros. 570-A, 1407, 1411, 1419, 1420, would change the city’s controversial tax lien sale process, collectively shifting the city towards using a city-established land bank. That bank would be tasked with acquiring, warehousing and transferring property to develop, rehabilitate and preserve affordable housing while also ensuring that unpaid city taxes and debt are collected. The city currently sells liens to a financial trust based in Delaware. The package, which comes several months after the city resumed its tax lien sale, seeks to prioritize homeowner protections and community stability while still allowing the city to efficiently recover municipal debt. The measures draw from the recommendations made in a recent report released by the Temporary Task Force on Tax Liens, which was formed in 2024  to review ways in which the lien sale mechanism could be improved.

Bring on the overrides

After New York City Mayor Eric Adams vetoed four bills passed by the City Council earlier this month, members also plan to override each of them soon. That includes two bills to expand pay equity reporting requirements to large private companies, legislation limiting how much certain housing voucher recipients need to contribute to rent and a measure codifying the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and expanding its authority in hopes of paying nonprofits on time. 

With tensions high between the two wings of city government, members weren’t surprised that the mayor will veto a number of bills on his way out the door.