de Blasio Balancing Act Puts Manufacturing Jobs, Hotel Industry Interest in the Balance

David Goodman follows up on a list of regulations proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in late 2015 to protect manufacturing businesses from hotel construction encroaching into industrial areas around the city.

"…a draft of those rules, which the City Council was told to expect by October, has yet to be written," repots Goodman. "Instead, without an announcement, the de Blasio administration set aside the effort in favor of a much broader and more ambitious one favored by an influential union, the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council."

Goodman reports on the story as an example of New York City Hall sausage making with broad impacts for land use in the city. Figuring out why the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council would agree to a law limiting hotel development in certain areas isn't difficult. According to the proposed rules, "[s]pecial permits would be required to build hotels in certain industrial areas of the city. That would force hotel owners to seek City Council approval for projects — most likely subjecting the projects to union labor requirements." Instead of requiring special permits for hotel construction only in Industrial Business Zones (IBZs), as the original proposal called for, the new rules would apply the rules to manufacturing zones citywide, "putting the administration in potential conflict with a far greater number of hotel owners." The new approach affects three times as much of the city, according to City Hall sources mentioned in the article.