City Board of Elections Approves Housing Ballot Questions

Chair of Herrick's Land Use & Zoning Group, Mitchell A. Korbey, spoke with the Commercial Observer about the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) vote to approve ballot proposals that could reshape the process of how affordable housing gets made in the city.

According to the article, "[t]he decision over whether New York City Council, the City Planning Commission (CPC) or the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) will approve rezonings for apartment buildings now falls to the voters, who will be faced with three questions on their ballots in November.

Love it or hate it, a change to the city charter needs to happen considering the urgency of the housing crisis, and the fact that many developers find the current Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) too clunky to navigate, said Mitch.

"What you have to understand is that there are many projects that don’t even begin because of the barrier that a very lengthy public approval process creates, and so you have folks that aren’t even able to get started because they are aware of the hyper-localism involved in some of these challenges," Mitch said. "The delays, the holdups and the failure to move forward are often the result of very local challenges."

Mitch also argued against the City Council’s point that the deciders in these projects will no longer be elected officials, saying that all the officials in the CPC and BSA are appointed by elected leaders such as the mayor. That includes the city clerk, who is appointed by the City Council.

Read the full article in the Commercial Observer here. Access may require a subscription.