By Ili Pecullan
Weighing in on land use decisions is one of the key responsibilities of a borough president in New York City, and several land use themes came up in a recent debate among the three Democrats running this year to become the next Manhattan Borough President.
The debate among Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Keith Powers, and Calvin Sun was hosted June 3 at New York Law School by its Center for New York City and State Law and was moderated by Ben Max, the Center’s executive editor and program director. The debate took place exactly three weeks before primary day, June 24, with early voting set for June 14-22 and mail-in voting already underway. Brad Hoylman-Sigal is a State Senator representing parts of Manhattan’s West Side. Keith Powers represents parts of the East Side in the New York City Council. Calvin Sun, who has not held any previous public office positions, works as an emergency room physician and runs an online travel community.
Throughout the debate, the candidates were asked about housing and other land use matters as they relate to addressing some of the major challenges facing New York City residents and improving life for those who live in Manhattan or hope to, or who travel to the borough for work or pleasure. Each of the candidates was asked, for example, their opinion of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, through which zoning changes for what-can-be-built-where must pass and borough presidents have an advisory but important formal role.
All three candidates agreed that the borough president should have a more centralized role in determining land use actions and are in support of increasing the power of the borough president in the process in order to make it more efficient and productive. A city charter revision commission empaneled by Mayor Eric Adams is currently considering putting changes to ULURP on the general election ballot for voters to approve or disapprove this fall, including the possibility of empowering the borough presidents more so that fewer projects are rejected by local City Council members as part of a practice known as “member deference,” where the entire Council largely defers to the opinion of the member whose district the project is in.
“The borough president’s the only one with that 360 view,” Hoylman-Sigal said, “who can see the bigger picture. There’s something to be said for member deference, and I think it should be certainly considered, but it shouldn’t be the end all or be all of projects getting built or not, especially when we have this current housing emergency.” However, he still believes that community boards should play a large part in the process, and talked about improving the credibility of the boards, whose members are appointed by borough presidents, in part by providing them with more planning expertise to rely on.
Powers took a more aggressive approach, saying, “I am proposing that the Borough President is a final determinative vote on land use actions with the right purview, the right resources and the right ability to see what is a housing crisis to both respond to the local and community concerns here and negotiate on behalf of those communities, but also frankly, not to be a stranglehold by deeply parochial interests that can really hurt our ability to grow as a city and to have reasonable housing growth here in the city.”
Sun was also in favor of giving the borough president more power, but added, “We need to increase not just the representation, but also the accessibility for community board meetings, and ensure they’re truly diverse so that I can rely on them as localized triage for all the neighborhoods.”
Manhattan’s affordable housing shortage was discussed at length, with a focus on how the borough president could do more to address the crisis. Hoylman-Sigal’s housing plan involves requiring affordable housing in all new developments on city- or state-owned land, where he said the borough president’s office can have the most leverage in negotiations. Sun said that he would take advantage of empty commercial real estate in the city and work to speed up its conversion into affordable residential space.
Powers, who has been running on a platform prioritizing housing growth, said that the housing crisis should be treated as a state of emergency and promised to pursue 100,000 new housing units. Talking about the importance of the borough president’s role in the process, he said, “we have to stop the stranglehold that parochial interests and local interests have on our ability to build new housing in this city.”
He discussed advancing ongoing rezoning plans for Midtown South, touted the City Council’s passage of a major citywide zoning reform to spur housing growth (known as City of Yes for Housing Opportunity) and said he would have liked it to have gone even further. Asked about the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning changes to spur housing growth, Hoylman-Sigal said he would have voted for it if he had been in the City Council.
The candidates were also asked about their plans for strengthening mass transit in Manhattan. All three expressed more support for busways, where there is very limited car travel allowed, like currently exists on 14th Street and is proposed for 34th Street. Powers didn’t specify a street, but said he would support an additional busway uptown. Sun agreed, and listed 72nd Street, 79th Street, 86th Street, 96th Street, 110th Street, and 125th Street as suggestions. Hoylman-Sigal simply said that a busway could be added to any major cross street.
Sun talked about increasing the number of accessible subway stations and protecting bus lanes to allow for easier traffic flow. Hoylman-Sigal agreed, and also called for creating more bike lanes to allow for more diverse modes of transportation. Powers plans to ensure Manhattan public school students have access to an Omni Card, improve the countdown clocks in transit stations, and upgrade subway signals.
At the end of the debate, several other land use issues were mentioned in the lightning round. When asked if they support the construction of a casino in Manhattan, Sun and Powers didn’t give a definitive answer, while Hoylman-Sigal said, “100%, absolutely no.” Powers supports moving ahead as planned on the construction of the affordable senior LGBTQ housing development known as Haven Green, but both Sun and Hoylman-Sigal said it needed to be rethought in an effort to preserve the Elizabeth Street Garden at the site.
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Ili Pecullan is an intern with CityLand.