If you like these proposed changes to the New York City charter, I encourage you to drop a kind note to the charter revision commission with a link to this post. You can do that here. Let me know if you do so.
My recommendations to the charter revision commission convened by Mayor Eric Adams are:
These changes right-size key offices and institutions, and enable them to focus on, execute on, and be accountable for their missions—all while bringing them more in line with the better angels of New York City’s citizenry.
1) Amend §197-d to add emergency housing approval provisions
Unlike most traditional emergency declarations, the city council’s local declaration of a rental housing public emergency does not trigger any extraordinary powers that the government can use to solve the emergency. While the declaration does enable rent regulation to go into effect while the city’s vacancy rate remains at 5% or below, it does nothing to speed the delivery of new housing supply, specifically private residential construction, which state and city rent regulation laws directly note as the solution to the emergency.1
It is no wonder that our legally declared rental housing emergency has existed for over 50 years since the advent of rent stabilization, and 80 years since rent control. It is time for the city charter to take the city council at its legally declared word, and end this emergency by unlocking the power and procedure to do so.
Suggested reform: amendments to §197-d of the city charter
To that end, I recommend amending section 197-d of the charter to facilitate expedited approval of new housing supply in a manner commensurate with the city council’s legally declared emergency. Alternatively, these changes could be added to a new section 197-e for the sake of clarity.
✏️ My (very) draft changes to §197-d of the charter can be found here. In summary, they make the following changes to city council review of city planning commission land use application decisions that concern adding new residential units during a city council-declared housing emergency:
The council shall only disapprove a decision with a three-quarters vote of all council members.
The council may approve a decision with modification with a majority vote of all council members, if those modifications do not decrease estimated housing unit production.
While the city council will likely not be pleased by these amendments, they are appropriate given: (1) the council’s own declaration of an emergency for the past five decades, and (2) the council’s inability to act to solve the emergency. But this is not merely because the council votes housing proposals down; the mere prospect of council review chills many projects that would otherwise enter the land use pipeline:
“However, elected officials’ past resistance to new development can also have a chilling effect on future proposals by dissuading applicants from considering discretionary projects in the first place.”
Notably, even passing the very modest City of Yes for Housing Opportunity was a herculean task, which the council could not pass without first reducing estimated housing unit production by 20% and securing billions in follow-on funding for its own priorities. Until the city exits its housing emergency (declared by the council itself), the council should have limited land use approval power over new housing supply—a good incentive for them to get us out of the emergency expeditiously!
Further: these changes would make the city planning commission the primary point of approval for many land use applications, subject to the “emergency brake” of a three-quarter council override vote. This is an appropriate arrangement for an emergency, because the CPC is already a composite entity with appointment input from the mayor, public advocate, borough presidents, and city council. It already represents the city, with more of a bias for action.2
Finally: these provisions would be protected from unilateral revision by a two-thirds majority of the city council by §38, paragraph 16, of the charter.
Further recommendation 1: add legislative findings to clarify the nature of the housing emergency
The city’s Rent Stabilization Law of 1969, enacted in our administrative code, presents legislative findings in §26-501. Taken together with the legislative findings sections of relevant state law concerning rent regulation, they explain the causes of—and solution to—the housing emergency.
Legislative findings help contextualize and explain the laws they’re attached to, and reveal the force and quality of thought behind them. The charter should do the same—and it should include details that current housing emergency legislative findings sections do not, including acknowledgements that:
The emergency has been ongoing since the second world war, and the government has not acted meaningfully to solve it.
The city and state government previously solved a legal housing emergency between 1920 and 1929 with aggressive action, and they did it by facilitating massive new housing supply.
The “housing emergency” has been allowed to take on the appearance of a permanent fact—so it is either not an emergency, in which case rent regulation must fall, or it must be solved with extreme expedition and all necessary action. The policy of inaction of the past half-century or more cannot be further tolerated.
These findings could be added either in §197-d or a new §197-e.
Further recommendation 2: add a non-enforceable categorical exclusion for housing under SEQRA to help move the state to action
New York State’s State Environmental Quality Review Act requires costly, lengthy reviews for new housing that almost certainly facilitates a better local environment. Further: most states do not have these kinds of laws, and certainly not to the burdensome degree of New York; they are well-intentioned, but have a devastating, anti-building effect—even when building helps the environment through efficient and well-managed density.
To help move the state to reform SEQRA, the New York City charter should exempt the development of new housing from SEQRA review. This would not preclude review by the city, but it would preclude a second undue layer of restriction from state law. This would give rhetorical force to the ideas already manifest in the Green Fast Track.
Of course, these charter provisions would be non-operative as long as SEQRA does not contain categorical exclusions for housing, but they would show that the city is actually serious about SEQRA reform. The city charter already supersedes state election law regarding designating and independent nominating petition signature requirements,3 and the city already prepared zoning districts with FAR caps beyond contemporary state law approval last year.4
Leaders in land use and housing policy have long been calling for SEQRA reform, and it’s time for the city to press the issue. Per Vicki Been in a 2022 panel interview with the Citizens Budget Commission: “…I would jump in by just saying the time is now. We’ve been hearing these kinds of proposals, for example, on SEQRA, for two decades, and we can’t keep waiting for the perfect solution. We need to move now.”
2) Add citywide voices to the city council with 10 “at large” seats
The New York City Council as we know it, with 51 voting members and the non-voting participation of the public advocate, was born after the 1989 charter revision commission in the wake of Board of Estimate v. Morris.
It’s been about 34 years since then, and I think we have enough information to say this: many small city council districts cannot come together to legislate effectively on citywide zoning or housing supply issues. We’ve run the experiment that was rigorously debated in 1989; and while the council has achieved, among other things, the goals of representation sought by the 1989 commission,5 it has not shown an ability to do citywide planning well. In this, it mirrors the now-extinct Board of Estimate.
This is due to two strong forces that operate on a council comprising voting representatives from many small districts:
Member deference: when the entire council votes according to the preference of one member regarding a land use change in their district, in the hope that they will receive reciprocal treatment when development comes to their district. The most egregious example of member deference’s effect came a few years ago with the defeat of One45 in Harlem at the hands of then-Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan.
The constituent concerns of small districts are heavily biased towards “build in someone else’s district.” Ideally, the whole council would come together and these constituent effects would be moderated by the legislative process. Given New York City’s housing production rate, that has generally not happened.
The fears of Mayor Koch and the New York Times Editorial Board from 1989 have been realized.6 From the mayor:
In earlier correspondence with the [Charter Revision Commission] I have expressed my fear that an overly broad legislative power to review land use matters will lead to the transcendence of parochial concerns…and will ultimately threaten to bring rational development in the City to a halt…
From the New York Times Editorial Board:
The newest draft [of the city charter] makes an expanded and inevitably more parochial Council the final arbiter on most land-use issues.
Suggested reform: amend chapter 2, §22
Both member deference and small-district constituent effects can be balanced by adding new, citywide (or “at large”) seats to the city council. I propose amending chapter 2, §22 of the city charter to add 10 such seats to the current council, for a total of 61 members. This is closely in line with proposed council sizes considered by the 1989 commission.7 For further discussion of how to structure these seats, see the next subsection, “further considerations with citywide council seats.”
In New York City, there seems to be a strong correlation between the size of an elected official’s jurisdiction and their willingness to support new housing on a citywide basis; the same person often changes their views in a pro-supply direction as they move to “larger” offices. The city council could use more of this perspective baked into its structure, and it would help make the body more representative of the city as a whole too.
Finally, citywide seats would help to counterbalance the constituent severance effects of New Yorkers moving throughout the five boroughs. Many are forced to do so to chase affordable leases (myself included), and this limits their ability to form a connection with their district-based council member. For many New Yorkers, this means they will never have a chance at an enduring familiarity and relationship with any council member, let alone the district itself (this is ironic, given the role that those council members probably played in creating this quasi-disenfranchising situation). But citywide seats are not subject to this dynamic; like the mayor, the citywide council seats represent everyone, and connections to them are not severed at the district’s edge.
Further considerations with citywide council seats
Citywide seats would not be subject to redistricting.
Citywide council members would need more resources and staff than district-based council members. The extent of these would depend on, among other things, whether the seats are added in an ex officio capacity to the same roles that their district-based counterparts are, like community board membership.8 The charter revision commission would need to consider how much these seats resemble citywide offices like the mayor, and how much they resemble, and have obligations similar to, their district-based counterparts.
City ballot complexity would increase with 10 citywide council seats. But I don’t think the extent of it would make a functional difference to most New Yorkers.
Another way to increase the citywide voice on the council is to give citywide seats two votes each, but I think a more prudent balance would keep them with one (unless the commission thinks otherwise).
These seats would be a good opportunity to experiment with non-partisan primaries. Since voters would be voting for the “top 10” in the general election, they should probably just vote for the “top 15” in the primary, regardless of party affiliation. Among other things, this has the salubrious civic effect of allowing everyone in the city to vote in the same primary.
Restructuring the city council is curtailed by MHR §10 1(ii)a(13)(f): “…no local government may restructure its local legislative body (pursuant to provision of this chapter or any other provision of law) more than once in each decade commencing with the year nineteen hundred seventy…” This means that whatever change is made by this charter revision commission will be locked in for the next ten years—this is a great moment to cement citywide voices.9
I recommend adding these seats effective as of the upcoming 2026 election, to serve for three years, after which they would serve four-year terms elected on the same cycle as the mayor beginning in 2029. This allows the seats to get the extra input of the higher turnout year of 2026’s gubernatorial election, and then stay on the relatively higher turnout years of mayoral elections.
Historical concerns about changing city council composition
Review by the Justice Department. This doesn’t seem to be a large problem for the at-large seats, not least because New York City’s legislature—and government generally—is not in danger of losing minority representation.10
The fear that these citywide seats will be “Manhattan dominated.” Again, reference to the recent and present city government show that these fears are unfounded. If anything, the council is currently dominated by Queens.11
3) Right-size community boards to enable functionality
Any regular spectator and casual participant in New York City politics will quickly learn the following about many community boards:
Borough presidents and their staff struggle to fill all of their seats with qualified, interested, well-tempered, punctual individuals. The “talent pipeline” is broken, and has essentially never existed in a functional way. This produces and magnifies every difficulty listed next.12
Community boards almost universally fail at training their members in their own bylaws and parliamentary practice. Most members are not aware of their own rights and privileges, and never learn, because they are never taught. This is a civic dereliction, although one that is so common as to be rendered unshocking.
Community boards struggle with conducting meetings in an expeditious, efficient, and minimally interesting fashion. Most members are not engaged most of the time.
Community boards struggle with attendance.
Community boards are generally not representative of their communities in the way that borough presidents would want. This is changing, but slowly.
These problems are not new, and have plagued community boards for decades. My intention is not to speak ill of the many talented individuals who have dedicated their time and brilliance to community boards over the years. They have made a difference, and the city would be worse off without their work. But the structure of community boards, especially their size, has forced these individuals to “drive with the parking brake engaged.” It would be a disservice to the lessons of their experience—readily observable by most people—not to address one of the structural roots of community board dysfunction.
You could sum up their challenges as: talent, training, procedure, and attention. These are all downstream of structural features that can be changed.
What can charter revision do to remedy these thus-far intractable problems in our community district layer of government? While nothing can absolutely guarantee functional community boards, charter reform can give them a structure that is more functional by default.
Suggested reform: amend chapter 70
I recommend the following changes to the structure of community boards, which would require changes to chapter 70 of the charter:
Reduce maximum board size from 50 to 25 per community board. This could be done on a variety of timelines to give boards a chance to adjust, and could mesh well with incoming turnover from term limits that will become active in 2027 and 2028.13
Incorporate the text of Introduction 1065-2024 into the charter, setting terms of four years for district managers, with borough president removal authority.
Remove council member nomination authority as present in §2800(a)(1) of the charter. Of course, council members are free to still submit recommendations, and should. But borough presidents should hold the exclusive pen—it’s their corner of government, and this makes the make-up of boards electorally accountable in a straightforward way.
These changes right-size community boards to help address the challenges they’ve had since their inception.
Smaller boards make it easier for the borough presidents and their staff to fill an entire board with ready, willing, and capable individuals, in addition to removing all the frustrating overhead from sourcing and dealing with less-capable appointees.
Smaller boards are also easier to train, easier to manage staff-side, easier to liaise with as an agency, and easier to find space for. Smaller community boards would likely find that they suddenly have useful slack in their budgets for technology, programming, and robust training that goes beyond a Zoom call that no one pays attention to.
A common objection to smaller boards is that they can’t be representative of a community district. Well—why are 50 people representative, instead of 100? Or 200? There is no perfect number. The right number is one that enables a functioning community board that accommodates the grass-roots concerns of the community through borough president-appointed stewards.14
This can be done with 25 people, and likely done better, especially as they are free to appoint as many public members to their committees as they see fit. Consider: 50 people is about the same size as the current city council! Community boards should be right-sized to reflect reality, and even their name: board. A board of 50 is not workable, and 25 might still be too large (but seems to balance functionality with representation).
Further recommendation: combine land use advisory reviews conducted pursuant to sections 197-c and 200
The Citizens Budget Commission recommended this change in their 2022 land use report as well (all of their city charter recommendations seem reasonable):
Option 4a: Consolidate advisory reviews into a single process led by Borough Presidents. Community Boards are already appointed by Borough Presidents; consolidation of their reviews would allow communities to benefit from the Borough Presidents’ centralized planning staff and resources. While Community Boards and Borough Presidents may not always agree, local reviews could benefit from the Borough Presidents’ broader perspective. Consolidation would also reduce the time and expense of holding multiple meetings, though its benefits would mostly accrue from improving engagement. A more incremental version of consolidation would be allowing the advisory reviews to occur concurrently instead of sequentially in order to encourage collaboration between Community Boards and Borough Presidents. This would require changes to the City Charter.
Smaller, better trained community boards would make the process above much easier to implement—it’s worth right-sizing them in order to reap the efficiencies of further procedural reforms that rely on community boards.
4) Right-size historic preservation to prioritize vital landmarks and historic districts
When the city Landmarks Law was passed in 1965, it embodied a great compromise.15 Shocked by the destruction of the old Penn Station, the political constituencies of New York City came to an agreement: the city would have historic preservation, but it would be limited to historic priorities, and respect the rights of property owners and the need of the city to keep evolving.
In order to legally instantiate this compromise, the following provisions (among others) were included in the Landmarks Law of 1965:
The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) could only landmark the exterior of buildings.
After an initial operating period of 18 months, the LPC would take a 36-month break. After that, it would alternate between six-month periods of landmark designation and 36-month breaks. The idea here was that if the LPC sat perpetually, it would landmark too many things. When the LPC was first established, it and its proponents had 700 buildings in mind to landmark.16
This compromise was soon retired for a new paradigm, and the landmarks law was amended to permit interior landmarks, scenic landmarks, and for the LPC to sit perpetually without breaks.17
Whatever one thinks about the different kinds of landmarks (they seem fine), one undoubtable consequence of abandoning the moratorium period was an increase in the amount of landmarked buildings in the city. Today there are about 38,000 that stand individually and as part of historic districts.
This expansion has no real limiting function, and it undermines historic preservation itself; it imposes no need to truly prioritize history balanced against the present and future—this is how you get the surprisingly common headline about “historic parking lots.” The LPC chair herself has affirmed that the commission does essentially no delandmarking (“de-designation”), ensuring a continued monotonic rise in “historically preserved” New York:
There is no application process for removing [a landmark designation] but, as part of the Landmarks Law, there is a hardship provision, which is a safety valve when designation may cause an undue hardship or burden to a property owner and so that's a really important part of the Landmarks Law, and it strengthens the Landmarks Law, and it does require robust analysis, including an economic analysis. They're very rare. We've had less than 20 in our 60 years of existence, and they really don't happen that often, but we do take them very seriously. Other than that, we might… In the case of a fire or sort of a catastrophic event that results in the demolition or collapse of a building, we have in those cases de-designated the site, and a dedesignation process is the same as the designation process. We initiate it and, ultimately, it would come to the City Council.18
The hardship provision mentioned above is essentially never granted by the LPC, and cannot be thought of as a proper means of right-sizing historic preservation.
Suggested reform: amend chapter 74
To correct the original deficiencies in the city’s landmarks law, right-size historic preservation in New York City for the future, and ensure the prioritization of true historic landmarks, I recommend the following changes to chapter 74 of the New York City charter:
Insert a cap of 9,000 total landmarked buildings across all individual landmarks and buildings within historic districts.
Add a formal delandmarking application process, which does not currently exist. No application must necessarily be approved, but the LPC and the public need to have a good idea of delandmarking pressure. Many people would certainly apply, especially those whose buildings were landmarked against their will.19
Provide a 24-month period after the landmark cap becomes effective where no more landmark applications will be accepted, but those in process already can proceed. During that period, the LPC will bring their total landmark portfolio into compliance with the cap. If, at the end of 24 months, their portfolio exceeds 9,000, then: all landmarks will be considered in chronological order, and the first 9,000 will retain landmark status, the rest will not. Historic districts will be considered as individual units for the purposes of this analysis, and will be removed as a whole until the portfolio is at 9,000 landmarks or below. For example: if, at the expiration of 24 months, there are 10,000 landmarked buildings, and the most recently landmarked item was a historic district with 2,000 buildings, then that whole district would be removed, rather than automatically cut in half somehow.
Finally, the section into which the cap of 9,000 is inserted must be added to §38, paragraph 17 of the charter. If it is not, it runs the risk of becoming a political football in the city council like the federal debt ceiling has been in Congress in recent years—constantly up for revision.
These changes would have the following effects:
Incentives would be aligned in the direction of true historic prioritization.
The monotonic increase in historically preserved NYC would stop.
The city’s historically preserved portfolio would become more administratively feasible for the LPC and staff, and reduce application and consideration timelines.
While some proponents of historic preservation do not want it to be limited in any fashion (which implicitly leads to a future where the whole city is landmarked), voters will almost certainly embrace a common-sense cap of 9,000 landmarked buildings—many will be shocked that they are being asked to approve a cap that high in the first place!
5) Change the title of the office of “Comptroller” to “Chief Financial Officer”
I gave this recommendation to a previous charter revision commission in June 2024, and I reiterate it here. For my full testimony on the subject, see here.
The following is an abbreviated version of that testimony:
Change the title of the city’s Comptroller to the Chief Financial Officer, or CFO.
While this suggested change might seem trivial to some, it would serve the interests of a free and democratic electorate as well as the city. It also fits the spirit of the “modernization” section of this commission's preliminary report. Why?
Because almost no New York City resident or voter knows what “Comptroller” means; it is an archaic term.
…While they do not understand the manifold audit and control functions the office performs, this is understandable, and arguably not their job. The actual problem is that they do not even vaguely understand what that role does, which means they can’t do their job of effective voting, among other things.
Comptroller inscrutability means that the general public cannot possibly vote for the office in anything resembling good faith. This is quite distinct from the mayoral race: while citizens will not know the full job description of the mayor, they directionally understand that the mayor operates as an executive, and is “in charge of getting things done.” If the Comptroller were the CFO, citizens would directionally understand that the office was in charge of overseeing the city’s money, and that itself is already a huge leap in understanding.
Changing the name of the Comptroller to Chief Financial Officer serves the interest of voter education and electoral legitimacy, and would do more for these causes than millions spent in any kind of broader citizen education effort. It is, in fact, how those in the civic sphere already explain what the Comptroller does: they say it’s “New York City’s Chief Financial Officer,” and this includes the Comptroller’s website itself.
On the candidate side of the equation, the title “Chief Financial Officer of New York City” is a much more compelling title, and would change the rhetorical and competitive landscape of Comptroller elections. People would be more inclined to vote for the office on the basis of sound financial experience and competency in money management, and prospective candidates in the worlds of accounting, banking, and finance would be more compelled to run.
This suggestion is not without precedent. In 1993, in the wake of the Board of Estimate’s dissolution, the City Council passed Local Law 19, which changed the name of the President of the City Council to the Public Advocate. Legislative testimony in favor of this law highlighted the confusing nature of the Council President’s title, and the need to clarify its role relative to the Speaker of the Council.
Although there are obvious considerations when changing the name of a principal city office in the law, including the many references to it in state law, I urge the Commission to study this potential charter change as expeditiously as possible, with an eye to implementing it in time for the city’s 2025 election. Thank you for your consideration.
See my earlier piece, “New York's Rent Regulation Laws Say Housing Supply Is the Answer”
For the current CPC appointment arrangement, see §192 of the charter: “There shall be a city planning commission to consist of the chair and twelve other members. The mayor shall appoint the chair and six other members of the commission, the public advocate shall appoint one member, and each borough president shall appoint one member. Members shall be chosen for their independence, integrity and civic commitment. Appointments of all members, except for the chair, shall be subject to the advice and consent of the council.”
For an overview of the extended, detailed debate about structuring the city planning commission by the 1989 charter revision commission, see The Policy and Politics of Charter Marking: The Story of New York City’s 1989 Charter, pp.854-872.
See the New York City charter, §1057-b, which imposes lower signature requirements than state election law, which can easily be found on New York State’s 2025 political calendar.
See “Adams Administration Unveils Initiative to Create Tens of Thousands of Affordable Homes in High-Demand Areas, Continues Urgent Call for Action to Address Housing Crisis,” March 28, 2024. https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/232-24/adams-administration-initiative-create-tens-thousands-affordable-homes-in
This assumes that “…more than once in each decade…” does not literally mean once per demarcated decade (e.g., 1970-1979, 1980-1989, etc). I assume it means a ten-year rolling period, otherwise you could change a local legislature in 2029 and again in 2030. But I’ve seen stranger twists of seemingly obvious statutory construction than this.
Even the 1989 charter revision commission (with the benefit of hindsight) overestimated the amount of structural reform needed to increase minority electoral opportunity. For example (p.731):
First, writing ten years after the events in which we were such central participants, we may be tempted to speculate on what might have been the outcome of the process had we been able to predict the occurrence of certain events. For example, in the fall of 1989, David Dinkins was elected mayor, the first minority to hold a citywide elected office. We saw the dearth of elected minority officials and the sense by minorities of exclusion from the City's political processes as a problem with the City government structure. This supported several Commission changes. What would we, or the Commission, have done had we known that, within several short months, a minority would be elected mayor? We will not attempt to answer this or any similar speculative "what if" questions for two reasons. First, our focus is on what was done and why. Second, the Charter revision process was too complex and interrelated to speculate on how a particular change in facts might have affected its outcome.
For concerns about “Manhattan domination,” see The Policy and Politics of Charter Marking: The Story of New York City’s 1989 Charter, p.778.
Borough presidents are not required to appoint 50 members to each board. Per §2800(a)(1), the boards are made up of: “…not more than fifty persons appointed by the borough president…” In practice, however, borough presidents appoint as many as they can, not least because of soft-power pressures throughout their borough, or more durable soft-power threats if a longstanding board member isn’t reappointed. This is made even more difficult by council member nomination slates, which further diminish the borough president’s ability to right-size community boards.
For further discussion of community board term limits, see the “Final Report of the 2018 New York City Charter Revision Commission,” pp.75-96.
Per §2800(a), borough presidents must (among other things) “…assure adequate representation from the different geographic sections and neighborhoods within the community district,” and “consider whether the aggregate of appointments fairly represents all segments of the community.”
See “Landmarks Bill Signed by Mayor: Wagner Approves It Despite Protests of Realty Men” in The New York Times, April 20, 1965.
See “Landmarks Bill Signed by Mayor: Wagner Approves It Despite Protests of Realty Men” in The New York Times, April 20, 1965.
Most of these changes were affected by Local Law 71 of 1973. For a summary historical view, see The New York Preservation Archive Project’s timeline.
New York City Council, Land Use Committee, March 21, 2024; committee transcript, p.54(21:25)-55(1:14).
The chair of the LPC affirmed the lack of a delandmarking process in a March 2024 city council land use committee hearing.
For a recent example of an involuntarily landmarked building, see The Strand Bookstore.
Excellent, rigorous work