We are all pro-housing here, ok?
Whenever someone says they know New York City needs more housing, wait for the “but.”
Consider the lawsuit brought by members of the City Council’s Common Sense Caucus last month. The complaint argued that while the members don’t oppose increasing the city’s housing stock, three measures that will appear on the November ballot — aimed at streamlining housing construction — mislead voters.
State Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey Pearlman on Wednesday denied the group’s petition, which asked the court to void the questions until an environmental review of the potential impact of the proposals is completed. The Common Sense Caucus plans to appeal the decision, an attorney confirmed.
City Council leaders have separately argued that the ballot questions are deceptive and dangerous. And when they talk about the measures, they invariably emphasize that their opposition to the proposals isn’t an objection to ramping up housing construction.
“Yes, we know we have to build housing, but what about investing in our schools? What about investing in our parks, the streets, the roads? What about adding economic opportunity?” Council member Kevin Riley, who chairs the Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, said at a rally last week. “This gives us the opportunity to negotiate with those coming in our community for the things that we need in our community to grow.”
The City Council’s “but” is that the ballot proposals strip away members’ ability to fight for funding and other benefits for their communities. The Council is effectively the last stop and most consequential part of the city’s land use review process. The body tends to vote according to the wishes of the local Council member, giving that member leverage to squeeze concessions out of developers, funding out of the administration and guarantees that a project will be built using union labor.
On Wednesday, Comptroller Brad Lander, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine spoke at a rally to support the ballot measures. (Lander spoke for only a few seconds before climate protestors emerged from the crowd behind him with signs reading “BlackRock Brad” and “Keep Your Word.” The protestors have shown up at other events, calling on Lander to divest the city’s funds from BlackRock.)
Reynoso acknowledged that when he was a Council member, he loved member deference, the tradition of the City Council deferring to the local member on land use matters. But he said some City Council members have lost their seats for supporting affordable housing projects. (He was perhaps alluding to Marjorie Velázquez, who lost her reelection bid after supporting a Throggs Neck project.) Reynoso said this threat should be removed from members’ calculus when considering affordable housing in their districts.
“Many Council members don’t take the risk at all. They build no housing, especially affordable housing, in an effort to preserve their seat in the City Council,” he said. “There are other members that put their necks on the line and support housing and don’t get kicked out of their seats, but we shouldn’t leave this up to chance. We shouldn’t make this risky.”
Amit Singh Bagga, who is leading YES on Affordable Housing, a campaign that plans to spend $3 million on promoting the ballot questions, said that the current City Council has been approving housing at a faster pace than its predecessors. But that doesn’t mean future Councils will follow suit.
“We cannot rely on just one good speaker … to solve a structural problem that’s been decades in the making,” he said at Wednesday’s rally.
Last week, the City Council advanced the rezoning of Jamaica, Queens, which is projected to pave the way for nearly 12,000 new housing units in the district. As part of the Council’s deal with the administration on the rezoning, City Hall committed to providing more than $400 million in funding for infrastructure and other improvements in the neighborhood.
At the time, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams pointed to the additional investments as another example of what is at stake in the fight over the ballot measures.
“We have not only approved housing, but this Council has improved initial proposals by deepening the affordability of the homes that they will create while securing major investments for our neighborhoods,” she said.
But the approval also shaved nearly 500 units from housing projections, because allowable density in some parts of the rezoning area was reduced and some areas were removed from the rezoning entirely. Council members explained that the changes were aimed at creating a smoother transition from higher-density downtown to the occupied homes to the south.
Crain’s reports that the Council has also been distributing talking points to community boards, emphasizing the danger to single- and two-family homes posed by the ballot questions. The thinking goes that the measures will make it easier for multifamily buildings to be constructed in areas dominated by single- and two-family homes. The PowerPoint distributed to the community boards, per Crain’s, indicates that one of the ballot questions “effectively eliminates 1- and 2-family home zoning in NYC.” (The ballot questions do not, on their own, change zoning.)
Such concerns were also prevalent among opponents to the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. Before passing the text amendment, the City Council made changes that largely excluded such neighborhoods from transit-oriented and town center development.
It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the conversations about these measures would have been had they taken place 10 years ago. For one thing, the preamble to criticism would not be: “Of course to solve the housing crisis we need more housing.”
I doubt, though, many would object to question 5, which asks if the city should drag the city map into the 21st Century.
What we’re thinking about: Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano is calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to investigate the reasons MGM Resorts dropped its bid for a casino license for its facility in the city. In a post on Instagram, Spano said the decision to pull out of the competition “defies all logic” and is “nothing short of a betrayal to the people of Yonkers and Westchester County.” He also pointed to the fact that President Donald Trump stands to benefit from Bally’s receiving a license for its golf course in the Bronx. As part of its agreement to take over the golf course lease from Trump, Bally’s agreed to pay Trump $115 million if it snags one of the casino licenses. Why did MGM drop its plans for a full-fledged casino at its Yonkers facility, and can the existing slot parlor survive without a license? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: A 2022 study found that Hart Island, a 101-acre public cemetery in Pelham Bay between the Bronx and Long Island, will run out of suitable burial space in eight to 12 years. City Council committees are holding a joint oversight hearing on the island’s future on Thursday.
Elsewhere in New York…
— Billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman gave $1 million to Defend NYC, an anti-Zohran Mamdani super PAC, Politico New York reports. Ackman previously gave Fix the City, a super PAC backing Andrew Cuomo, $500,000.
— While three candidates vie for the top job at City Hall, Mayor Eric Adams says he has his pick of three “dream jobs.” During an appearance on “The Reset Talk Show,” Adams said he’s looking at three job offers, according to the New York Daily News.
— Even legalese needs a human touch. A state judge on Wednesday slammed residents of public housing in Chelsea for filing a lawsuit using AI, Crain’s reports. The lawsuit, which is seeking to prevent the city from demolishing the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea houses, was written by the AI chatbot Grok and cited legal filings that don’t exist. The judge called the lawsuit “garbage” and threatened to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. The residents have since hired an attorney, who said his clients were “unfamiliar with the dangers” of relying on AI.
Closing Time
Residential: The top residential deal recorded Wednesday was $8.5 million for a 7,000-square-foot townhouse at 330 West 88th Street on the Upper West Side. Jaime Richichi with Sotheby’s International Realty had the listing.
Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $510 million for a 10-story commercial building at 1334 York Avenue in Lenox Hill. Sotheby’s sold its New York headquarters to Cornell University.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $24 million for a 10-room co-op at The Dakota, 1 West 72nd Street on the Upper West Side. John Burger with Brown Harris Stevens has the listing.
— Matthew Elo
