NYC Voters Reject ‘Unofficial’ City Council Vetos of Housing Projects

New York City voters approved a raft of housing measures that streamline permitting and eliminate the “unofficial veto” that individual city council members had over housing projects in their districts, reports Mihir Zaveri for The New York Times.

“The proposals’ supporters said the council members’ veto makes the development process too unpredictable, and holds back construction,” Zaveri explains. Voters seemed to agree, voting for the measure that shifts approval authority for affordable housing projects from City Council to the City Planning Commission at a time when affordability is at its lowest point in decades and the rental vacancy rate in the city is just 1.4 percent. 

A second measure makes it easier to build “modest” developments up to 30 percent bigger than current regulations allow, and a third “creates an appeals board that could overrule a decision by the Council to reject or modify an affordable housing development.” The board will be made up of the mayor, the Council speaker, and the president of the borough where a development is proposed.