UPDATED, Sept. 9, 2025, 3:17 p.m.: The city’s Board of Elections on Tuesday approved three contentious ballot measures that would speed up housing construction and weaken the City Council’s informal veto power over rezonings, likely setting the stage for a legal battle before the general election.
The board, after listening to six speakers urge the questions’ approval, didn’t ask any questions and signed off on the proposals being placed on the November ballot. The decision likely means the fight over the ballot measures is heading to the courts, as the City Council has already hinted that it would file a lawsuit once all other avenues to challenge the questions were exhausted.
In a statement, a City Council spokesperson said the questions attempt to “trick voters with buzzwords and slogans,” but stopped short of confirming the Council will file a lawsuit.
“We as New Yorkers shouldn’t be surprised that this effort to give the public’s power to developers comes from Mayor Adams, someone who has been selling our city out to Trump and aiding in his authoritarianism at nearly every turn,” the spokesperson said. “We will take action to protect democracy from Mayor Adams’ dishonest ballot proposals, which would strip Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods of their power to secure more affordable housing and community investments.”
A lawsuit could delay printing the ballots for the general election. The deadline for finalizing the ballots is Thursday.
The board vote was somewhat anticlimactic after a week of speculation that the commissioners might side with the Council. The meeting room was packed with reporters and pro-housing group leaders and members. An attorney for the City Council was in the audience, but told commissioners that he was only there to field questions, not testify.
The vote was initially unanimous, but later in the meeting, Michele Sileo, a commissioner from Staten Island, asked that her vote be recorded as a “no.” Still, the board overwhelmingly voted to move the ballot questions forward, in a blow to the City Council.
Typically, the board approves ballot questions without incident. But in a letter sent to board President Frederic Umane on August 27, City Council leaders called on the board to reject three of the five questions, claiming they conceal the consequences of the proposed changes from voters, quietly transferring power away from local Council members.
The Charter Revision Commission fired back with its own letter, asserting that the board does not have the authority to reject the questions and that courts have consistently ruled that its role is ministerial. Schierenbeck also emphasized that the language of the ballot questions closely adhered to state election law, which sets word count limits for the questions: 15 words for a title, 30 words for a summary of the proposal and another 30 to describe in “plain language” the outcomes of a yes or no vote.
After the vote, Schierenbeck said he was relieved that uncertainty over how the board would act is over.
“We had a little bit of a heart attack over the last week, and my pulse is down,” Schierenbeck told reporters. “We’re prepared to move forward on a robust public education campaign, which is what we should have been focusing on to make sure that New Yorkers understand what’s going to be on the ballot and can make an informed choice.”
Amit Singh Bagga, who is leading a campaign that plans to spend $3 million on promoting the land use-related ballot questions, said part of that education process will be demystifying for voters why projects do not move forward.
“There is an unknown ‘they’ that stops things from happening,” he told reporters. “We need to educate New Yorkers that this system is in fact that unknown ‘they.’”
He, like the Council, also invoked Trump, calling attempts to prevent the ballot questions from moving forward “Trumpian.”
“BOE, nice try cosplaying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said. “But we won.”
Three questions
The Council viewed the three ballot proposals as a threat to member deference, the longstanding tradition of voting according to the wishes of the local member. The City Council effectively has the final say over projects that go through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or Ulurp, a fact that provides members with leverage to negotiate for neighborhood investments, pledges to hire union labor, deeper affordability and other commitments from developers as a condition of approval.
One of the questions the Council wanted eliminated asks whether the city should replace the mayoral veto in Ulurp with a three-member appeals board for certain housing projects. The board, consisting of the mayor, City Council speaker and applicable borough president, could only reverse Council decisions on projects that would result in affordable housing in one borough, not citywide land use actions.
As the system stands, the mayor rarely vetoes land use actions, given the likelihood that a City Council supermajority would then override the decision. Proponents of this change hope that a developer may be more willing to pursue a project if given hope of winning over the appeals board. Few builders will bother filing a project application if the local Council member has a record of opposing development.
Another ballot question asks voters if modest housing and infrastructure projects should go through a quicker review process, dubbed Expedited Land Use Review Procedure, or Elurp, that bypasses City Council or City Planning approval, depending on the project type. The third proposal would fast-track housing (avoiding a Council vote) in the 12 districts that have approved the lowest rates of affordable housing over a five-year period. It would also allow the Board of Standards and Appeals to waive zoning requirements for publicly funded affordable housing projects.
The other two questions, which the Council has not challenged, ask if local elections should be moved to even years, coinciding with presidential elections, and if the official street map of the city should be digitized and consolidated. The board signed off on all five questions being printed on the November ballot.
A contested commission
In July, the Charter Revision Commission voted to put the five questions on the ballot after eight months of public hearings.
The City Council saw the commission as an affront to his authority from the start.
The commission was the second convened by Mayor Eric Adams, which superseded another commission formed by the City Council. The Council’s commission, dubbed the “Commission to Strengthen Local Democracy,” considered proposals to curb the mayor’s power, including by increasing the Council’s authority to approve or reject mayoral appointees.
The mayor’s commission was focused on building on the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, a text amendment that reduced parking requirements for new development in the city, created new district designations that allow for higher residential density and made other changes aimed at making it easier to build housing.
The measure was opposed by some Council members and was even the subject of a lawsuit brought by Conservative members who argued that the city failed to do a comprehensive environmental review of the potential impacts of the zoning changes.
The Council only approved City of Yes after securing a commitment of $5 billion in public funding and making several changes that ultimately reduced housing projections, including maintaining parking minimums in parts of the city and limiting where accessory dwelling units are permitted.
During a City Council hearing hours before the board’s meeting, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams touted commitments made as part of a proposal to rezone more than 200 blocks within Jamaica, Queens, which she represents. The plan is expected to pave the way for more than 12,000 housing units, and the administration has already committed to a number of community investments, including $300 million for sewer upgrades. Adams alluded to the ballot measure controversy.
“It’s important to note that none of these investments and community benefits would be possible without the City Council’s direct role within the land use process to negotiate and secure commitments that fulfill community needs,” she said. “New Yorkers, through their democratically elected representatives, deserve the ability to fight for more affordable housing and neighborhood investments.”
Quinn Waller contributed reporting.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a statement from the City Council.
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