A City Council planning and land use attorney briefed Bronx community board leaders on proposed city charter changes that would alter how zoning and other land-use actions are reviewed and approved. The attorney said the proposals would make the community board and borough president review concurrent and allow the City Planning Commission or other appointed bodies to issue final approvals that now go to the City Council.

The changes are part of three ballot questions that will appear on the November ballot, the presenter said, and include an “ELERP” proposal for faster review of moderate or small changes in housing density, a “fast track” process for publicly financed affordable housing and a separate measure that would replace the mayoral veto/City Council override step with a three-member appeals board. "This is a very big change that your board understands," the presenter said. "It would be done. It would not go to city council."

Why it matters: community board members and staff said the City Council plays a negotiating role under the current Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), securing infrastructure, public space and deeper affordability when rezonings are approved. Under the proposals described at the meeting, that negotiating leverage would be reduced because a final, unelected panel could approve projects without council amendments.

The presenter summarized the three main changes discussed: an ELERP track that would make community board and borough president review concurrent and send many applications straight to the City Planning Commission (CPC) without a City Council vote; a two-part “fast track” for publicly subsidized affordable housing that would send projects to the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) (2a) and a mechanism (2b) that would identify 12 community districts with the lowest relative production of affordable housing over a five-year period so that rezoning producing a share of affordable units in those districts would also bypass the council.

The presenter described specific technical effects for low-density residential districts: under ELERP, properties in many low-density zones could be approved for up to 45 feet (about four stories) and 2.0 floor-area-ratio (FAR) through the expedited process. "Anything in a low density district could be up could change to be up to 45 feet, which is 4 stories, and 2 FAR," the presenter said.

Community board members raised concerns about affordability and oversight. The presenter said the charter language does not require deeper affordability levels and noted that "affordable" can be defined broadly; in one exchange the presenter said a typical share might be "around 20 to 25%" of units in a project, but that the ballots and draft language do not set a firm cap or income targeting and that council members currently negotiate levels and related community benefits.

The fast-track affordable-housing route would also rely on appointed panels. The presenter noted that the majority of appointments to the CPC are made by the mayor, and that the BSA is likewise not an elected body. "The majority is appointed by the mayor," the presenter said when asked who selects those bodies. The proposals therefore shift final decisionmaking power toward bodies whose members are not elected by neighborhood voters, the presenter warned.

Another proposal would replace the mayoral veto and the council's ability to override it with an appeals board composed of three officials: the mayor, the City Council speaker and the borough president. The presenter said that appeals board meetings would be limited to “meetings” rather than public hearings and that the board could reverse City Council changes without a public hearing. "They can undo city council votes," the presenter said.

The presenter used the Atlantic Avenue mixed-use plan as an example of outcomes the City Council has secured in negotiations—additional affordable units, street redesign funding, park money and homeowner protections—and said those kinds of negotiated community benefits risk being harder to obtain under the proposed structure.

Board members asked procedural and local-impact questions throughout the presentation, including whether parking requirements would be waived for projects that change a low-density area to higher-density housing. Deborah, a community board member, asked, "in terms of changing from a low density to a high density, zoning, how we can speak to the parking requirements if that's going to be waived or do you have any vision as to how that's gonna be handled?" The presenter said she had not yet received that specific question and pledged to follow up by email with the meeting organizers.

Next steps: the presenter said the items appear on the November ballot and that voters will decide whether to adopt the charter revisions. She directed attendees to a City Council information page and said she would email the presentation and additional details to board staff. "What'sonmyballot.nyc" was cited as a public resource to check ballot text and related materials.

The community board did not take any formal vote on the charter revisions at this leadership meeting; discussion focused on information, clarification of likely effects in low-density neighborhoods and requests for follow-up data on parking and affordability thresholds.

The board indicated it would discuss the materials again at its next full board meeting and requested that the presenter send the slide deck and links to staff for distribution.