The Most Important Vote You’ll Take In November
Move aside, mayoral election—we have charter amendments to pass
The mayoral race has been full of twists and turns, with the sitting mayor skipping the primary after an indictment, the disgraced ex-governor seeking redemption through an office it’s unclear he really wants to hold, and a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist defying all odds to win a commanding primary victory.
But there’s been another drama related to the November ballot unfolding—one whose impact could outlast the next administration, no matter who wins. That’s the Charter Revision Commission (CRC), which voted on Monday to put five amendments to the city’s constitution on our ballot.
We’re very excited about these questions, and we’ll be doing everything we can to help them pass in November. But you can be forgiven for having missed the memo on this commission, or for wondering what the fuss is about. Below is more about the policy and the politics of the ballot questions to catch you up!
The Policy: Addressing the Housing Crisis
Three of the five ballot questions are designed to address our dire housing shortage. We’ve been underbuilding for decades, leaving us with a devastatingly low 1.4% vacancy rate and rents rising seven times faster than wages.
The housing shortage underlies so many of our crises, even beyond skyrocketing rents: record homelessness, dislocation that undermines public safety, sprawl that drives carbon emissions and climate change, and population loss that weakens New York’s political power.
Relative to other big cities, New York is lagging—badly. In 2023, we were in the bottom five of large metro areas, approving one new home for every 6,300 residents. At the top of the list, Austin approved a new home for every 570 residents. The result of more building? Dropping rents.
Why are we doing so poorly? Our system for approving new homes is onerous, long, and expensive. The “Uniform Land Use Review Process” (ULURP, pronounced “you-lurp”) requires new homes to go through reviews from Community Boards to Borough Presidents to the City Planning Commission to the City Council—delaying them, inflating costs, and providing many potential veto points.
Most challenging is “member deference,” a custom leading the full City Council to reject new homes if the local council member is opposed. It doesn’t matter what the neighborhood or city needs—just what the local council member thinks. That’s a big problem when political incentives make it much harder to say yes than no: residents who already have good housing are more likely to oppose new neighbors, and they’re the ones already living and voting in a district. Member deference may also run afoul of fair housing laws that attack segregation.
The ballot questions address some of these concerns, importantly but modestly:
Question 1 expedites housing approval in the community districts producing the least housing
Question 2 provides a faster process for small buildings that are infeasible under current ULURP rules
Question 3 creates an appeals process should the council reject new affordable housing
These are all great steps towards a process that reduces some of the barriers that mean only the biggest developers are capable of navigating the approvals process, and that only the politically weakest neighborhoods contribute new homes to the city stock.
Most importantly, these changes mean that we can build more homes, and particularly affordable homes, faster. Today, over half of households are rent-burdened—and that’s excluding the New Yorkers pushed out of the city, into shelters, or onto the street.
With these amendments, we can reduce the affordability burden our neighborhoods are facing and live up to New York’s promise of vibrant, diverse, and welcoming neighborhoods.
The Politics: Challenges to Entrenched Power
Getting here wasn’t easy, and getting these ballot questions over the finish line won’t be a walk in the park. Here are some of the political forces at play, and our take.
Preserving Existing Power
The City Council’s role in new home approvals is limited by these changes, since small projects and homes in low-producing districts would skip council review—and because their rejection of affordable housing could be appealed. Council leadership, led by Speaker Adrienne Adams, released a statement opposing the changes; dozens of members then released their own letter.
Beyond the Council, we can expect Community Boards to object to processes that in some cases reduce their role. Additionally, some labor unions oppose these changes because prolonged negotiations over rezonings allow them to win concessions in exchange for allowing new homes.
👉 Our take: There are benefits to the community feedback and negotiations that come from ULURP—but that’s why the CRC retained Community Board review, kept the City Council role in negotiating significantly sized projects, and limited the appeals board to urgently needed affordable development. On labor, it’s a mark of a broken system that critical new homes are a bargaining chip for unions advocating for their members. Setting that aside, the new homes that will be built after these amendments would otherwise not be built at all: they will be projects in districts currently producing no housing, or projects otherwise rejected or never proposed in the first place.
Thinking about the council, we want political leaders to be more concerned with solving New Yorkers' problems than with maintaining their parochial prerogatives. As such, we’re disappointed that council members are opposing these amendments—including some we endorsed in the recent primaries. We are grateful for the council members who did not sign either anti-housing letter, like champions Erik Bottcher, Shaun Abreu, Pierina Sanchez, and Chi Ossé.
The Eric Adams of It All
Separate from substantive critiques of the potential charter amendments, some opponents attempting to delegitimize the CRC are pointing to its convener: Mayor Eric Adams. Adams has been tainted by corruption charges and increasing closeness to President Trump, casting a pall over any actions coming out of his administration. More than that, the mayor has an imperfect charter review record after convening a commission last year—a move largely seen as a political ploy to block a City Council commission. (State law currently allows a mayoral commission to preempt a Council commission.)
👉 Our take: This Commission should not be hobbled by the reputation of its convener. The current CRC was created specifically to address the housing affordability crisis, to build on the Adams administration’s success in updating the city’s exclusionary 1961 zoning code through the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. Its membership is stacked with civic leaders including chair Richard Buery (CEO of Robin Hood), Kathy Wylde (CEO of the Partnership for New York), and Shams DaBaron (the “Homeless Hero,” a formerly homeless New Yorker and advocate). The CRC has worked diligently—and independently—over all of 2025 to research the reasons for the city’s housing crisis, study solutions, and gather perspectives from New Yorkers across boroughs through extensive hearings.
Getting the Left on Board
An important part of the ballot proposals is what didn’t make it in. In interim reports, the CRC floated changes to election processes in New York to increase turnout—including an “open primaries” system allowing New Yorkers unregistered with a particular party to still vote in primaries, as happens in many other states. But partisan groups on the left and the right stridently opposed that change, and it was ultimately dropped from the package to give the rest of the changes a better chance of passage.
The organized left, like the Working Families Party and many of its affiliate advocacy groups, has more power in New York City than the Republican party to impact how New Yorkers vote on these measures in November. If open primaries had made the cut, it’s likely the left would have launched a vociferous “no” campaign that could have taken everything else down, too.
👉 Our take: It remains to be seen what the left will say about the rest of the pro-housing ballot questions. In our minds, there’s nothing progressive about the status quo. However, the progressive caucus is split. Some members, like Chris Marte, are leading opponents of new housing in their districts and are opposed to the charter changes. Others, like Chi Ossé, are leading the fight for housing abundance, noting that housing scarcity only helps landlords and hurts the working class.
Then there’s Zohran Mamdani. The Democratic mayoral nominee has said he supports ending member deference and wants to build on the achievements of the City of Yes. He hasn’t explicitly endorsed the CRC proposals yet, but Mamdani made affordability the centerpiece of his campaign. To make New York more affordable, we must make it easier to build affordable homes: exactly what these amendments will do. The other leading progressive in the mayoral race, Brad Lander, has expressed his support for these charter amendments—another sign of growing pro-housing commitments among the city’s progressive leaders.
Still Want to Learn More?
🗳️ Question 4 uncontroversially addresses digitizing the city’s paper maps. Question 5 endorses moving city elections to higher-turnout even years (which would still require an amendment to the state constitution before taking effect). Read a Citizens Union report about the proposal.
👂 Listen to CRC Chair Richard Buery and Executive Director Alec Schierenbeck on Max Politics.
📖 Read an op-ed about the ballot questions by Abundance community member Cara Eckholm.