City Charter Revisions Expose Fake Supporters of Housing

30 October 2025

Warren Buffett famously said, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”

In the same vein, the proposed City Charter revisions are revealing who is truly pro-housing and who has just been faking it.

Last year, the City of Yes vote similarly exposed certain politicians and neighborhoods as anti-housing, but we already knew who they were — people who oppose change to their neighborhoods, aka conservatives.

On the charter questions, being voted on through Nov. 4, it’s the progressives’ turn to show their true colors.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and many of her colleagues have spent taxpayer money (illegally, in my view) to persuade New Yorkers to vote “no” on revisions that would help certain housing proposals to win approval even if the local Council member objects.

They claim their campaign is legal because it does not explicitly call for voting “no.” That’s laughable, as any impartial reading of the Council’s mailers would make clear. The Council should have raised private money to fight this battle, just as supporters of the ballot questions did.

But the greater problem is that self-proclaimed progressives oppose these measures in the first place.

Some, like Brooklyn Council member Lincoln Restler, have tried to split the baby.

Restler supports a “yes” vote on Questions 2 and 3 but not on Question 4. Opponents of Question 4 argue that Council members can use their de facto veto power to force developers to make projects more affordable or add community benefits. Allowing developers to appeal rejections to a three-person panel would undermine that, they say.

Reality check: The appeals panel (the mayor, borough president and Council speaker) would also have a strong incentive to deliver community benefits.

But they would also have an incentive to help a wider area — the borough or the city — because they have broader constituencies.

The housing crisis was caused in part by allowing hyperlocal self-interest to prevail over the greater good. Maybe Restler would resist this pressure and make the right call on project approvals, but his colleagues and successors might not.

The evidence is the housing crisis itself. The current land-use approval framework, known as Ulurp, hasn’t worked. After 35 years, it’s time to try something new.

The appeals panel, from which applicants would need two votes out of three, would be less vulnerable to local opposition like the Jamaica Campaign Against Rezoning. JCARE fears new housing from the upzoning of the Queens neighborhood would push out people of color, despite a large body of research to the contrary.

“It’s definitely heartbreaking,” co-founder Nafisa Mahmud told NY1. “The vast majority of the housing will not be affordable for working-class families, and in many cases, middle-class families, so the people here are looking at the real risk of displacement.”

The article’s very next sentence was: Over the past decade, the average rent in Jamaica rose from $1,681 to $2,737, an increase of 63 percent.

How’s that no-rezoning strategy working out, Nafisa?

She might say the average rent would have increased even more if new housing had been built, because most new units are priced above the average.

But if her concern is current Jamaica tenants, her question should be: What effect would new supply have on their rents?

RealPage just reported that nationwide, the average advertised rent last quarter decreased for only the second time since 2009. It’s not because landlords suddenly became charitable. Rather, a wave of new apartments gave tenants more options, forcing owners to reduce rents to fill units.

Some tenants renewing leases, in turn, got concessions to match the rents on vacant units in their buildings. “Renters in good standing aren’t going to want to pay more than someone coming in the front door,” housing expert Jay Parsons tweeted.

This won’t last, however. Rents will go back up because multifamily development is projected to slump, giving landlords the upper hand — especially in New York City.

“Ground-up starts have slowed nationwide, and New York’s pipeline has contracted more than any other major U.S. market,” wrote Lev Mavashev, founder and principal of New York brokerage Alpha Realty. “That means fewer completions through 2026 and 2027 — less new competition, a firmer rent floor, and a more predictable revenue base for multifamily assets.”

Nafisa Mahmud is never going to see Mavashev’s piece, or this one, or any of the research on the effect of new supply. Perhaps Restler will, but even if he does, Council members will always be more influenced by their loudest constituents, such as Mahmud.

That’s why a “yes” vote on the charter questions is crucial. But if nothing else, like a receding tide, the proposals have separated New Yorkers who really want to make housing affordable from those who have nothing below their waist.