NYC Council members bracing for a sea change in housing development

You get affordable housing and you get affordable housing! Everyone gets affordable housing! 

That’s the goal, at least, of a new fast track land use process for the 12 community districts in New York City with the lowest rate of affordable housing construction over the past five years, as calculated by the Department of City Planning. In the traditional land use process, City Council members have the final say in housing development inside their district – barring mayoral vetoes, or more recently, reversal by an appeals board. But starting in January, land use reviews for qualifying affordable housing projects located within the 12 districts on the new affordable housing naughty list can now completely skip over that approval from the council member whose district would house the proposed development. 

The affected community districts – the boundaries of which are distinct from council districts – entangle more than a third of council members, though some members only share a small overlap with the community district. City & State reached out to 29 council members affected by the Affordable Housing Fast Track list and found bipartisan frustration with the new housing review process, with many questioning whether it was the correct approach to the city’s affordable housing crisis.   

“You’re creating two classes of council members,” Council Member Frank Morano said in an interview with City & State, arguing he and his fellow fast-trackers are now less powerful than their colleagues. “I’m talking with some attorneys about this, and we’re working towards [a lawsuit].”

This fast track review process was established through a 2025 city ballot proposal New Yorkers voted in favor of, to many City Council members’ chagrin. Many council members said that building affordable housing is a must for the city, but lamented the way development projects will move forward without them. 

The uniform land use review procedure, or ULURP, requires developers to seek nonbinding input from the respective community board and borough president sequentially, before passing the proposal through to the City Planning Commission for a determining vote. If it passes, it moves to the City Council for final approval, with the individual council member whose district would house the proposal holding informal sway through a practice called member deference. For the more than 20 City Council members within the list, the community board and borough president in their district now give concurrent reviews but the council no longer has any say in what does or doesn’t get developed. 

Coupled with the loss of control in what gets built was the fear many council members expressed regarding whether upcoming developments will make sense for the needs of their neighborhoods, and their loss of leverage with developers. 

“The best way to protect our neighborhoods is to decide for ourselves where new housing should go, before someone else decides for us,” Council Member Susan Zhuang said in a statement.

For some members, however, the upcoming changes have spurred a proactive approach to housing development in a bid to wrest some control back in anticipation of the new fast track. Council Member Kayla Santosuosso of Bay Ridge, who resides in the actual lowest producing community district, is currently working on the rezoning of a nearly 10-block area filled with auto repair shops and empty lots to introduce residential units in a way she says will make sense for the neighborhood.

Part of that rezoning includes a controversial proposal to turn a former Staples store into an 11-story apartment building, with half of the units consisting of two- to three-bedroom, family-sized apartments, and 200 underground parking spots. Responding to online critics who took issue with the changes from the initial proposal which had more apartment units and fewer parking spots, Santosuosso argued the changes were meant to accommodate housing geared towards families. 

“I have to balance citywide need for housing versus what my specific neighborhood needs are and what the conditions are,” Santosuosso told City & State. “My concern is that all at once, there’s going to be thousands and thousands of new residents that are coming into the neighborhood, and we are not even taking the slightest look at infrastructure, other than through this rezoning effort.”

Other council members mentioned increased flooding and traffic as well as the loss of a neighborhood’s unique characteristics as potential future issues the sped-up process could fail to consider. But community board input as well as environmental review and landmark protection requirements are still baked into the fast track.

Nevertheless, this proactive approach to tackle affordable housing development in areas that haven’t seen much of it, much like Santosuosso is doing, is in the spirit of the initial ballot proposal voters supported last year according to Annemarie Gray, executive director of the pro-development housing group Open New York.

“For a very long time, a small number of loud voices have been able to stop the housing that New Yorkers really need,” Gray said. “We’re seeing real evidence of how the ballot measures are starting to reshuffle the politics of housing, and we’re seeing local elected officials start to talk about how they can be proactive leaders and build more housing in their communities.” 

If the fast track has a lot of members bracing for a sea change, there are a few who didn’t need to be convinced and who say they’re completely on board with the fast track process because of the need for affordable housing. Council Member Shaun Abreu said his district would benefit from the fast track and acknowledged the need for affordable housing to be distributed across the city. 

The Bronx was the only borough left off the list entirely, whereas Queens had the most community districts tagged as a low-performer. The twelve districts in total produced just 724 affordable units over the past five years, which made up just over 1% of the total amount produced citywide. Community District 5 in the Bronx, the top performer in affordable housing development on the list, built 4,058 units, more than five times the amount of the 12 worst districts built combined.

Despite the clear disparity in housing development across the five boroughs, many council members still find the released list and subsequent fast track process as the wrong way to approach the city’s housing crisis.

“I’m a bit fearful that the process built for speed may end up disregarding desires that folks have in this community,” Council Member Mercedes Narcisse said in an interview with City & State. “Putting the list out there, to me, some of the process is not fair to us.”