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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Howard Slatkin, Executive Director from Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC) on ULURP, member deference, and charter history
0:40:40
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5 min
Howard Slatkin discusses how political incentives within the ULURP process, specifically NIMBYism coupled with member deference, skew outcomes against housing. He argues the 1989 Charter revisions inadvertently empowered local council members over citywide needs, breaking the original intent of ULURP, and suggests reforms to rebalance local voice with citywide responsibility.
- Slatkin represents the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC).
- He frames NIMBYism and member deference as rational systemic phenomena, not individual failings.
- Member deference gives local council members effective veto power, making it politically difficult to approve housing needed citywide.
- The 1989 revisions shifted final authority to the Council, effectively delegating it to the local member, unlike the 1975 intent.
- He notes the housing shortage is now more severe and city demographics have changed significantly since 1989.
- Reform principles include: checking member deference, promoting cooperation, streamlining minor actions, and accelerating urgent affordable housing projects.
Howard Slatkin
0:40:40
Thank you.
0:40:41
Good evening, chair Burien commissioners.
0:40:43
I will, associate myself with, professor Bean's, gratitude for your service.
0:40:51
My name is Howard Slatkin.
0:40:52
I'm the executive director of Citizens Housing and Planning Council, an eighty seven year old policy research organization.
0:40:59
I'm pleased to be with you to share lessons from CHPC's recent research on the Euler process as well as from my own experience in more than two decades with the Department of City Planning.
0:41:10
With my testimony, I'll be submitting a report that CHPC released today on the subject of Eulerp, housing, and charter reform.
0:41:17
I'm going to focus tonight on three topics, the political incentives that are embedded in the Euler process as it's currently structured, how the 1989 charter revisions, got us here, some of the history behind it, and finally, some principles that, I suggest to guide reform.
0:41:35
There are many strengths to the Euler process.
0:41:37
I won't detail them here in the interest of time, but the process also contains built in political incentives that are skewed ultimately against housing.
0:41:45
The problem is rooted in two intertwined factors, nimbyism and member deference.
0:41:50
We need to understand these not as irrational behaviors or personal failings that can be resolved through individual effort, but rather as rational systemic phenomena that we need to account for when we design our decision processes.
0:42:06
I don't need to explain to people what nimbyism is.
0:42:09
It is natural that nimbyism is louder than the voice of people who are in need of housing in a local action.
0:42:15
The future occupants of new apartment buildings and the millions of people who benefit a little bit from the addition of housing don't show up to public hearings.
0:42:24
This quiet majority is represented in the process by officials who have a broader geographic purview.
0:42:32
The practice of member deference is essentially an unwritten agreement that enables each council member to effectively wield the authority of the full council regarding matters in their own district.
0:42:43
It there there is an internal logic to it as a practice among legislators, but it introduces systemic bias against new housing and the equitable distribution of housing.
0:42:53
Under this system, local elected officials who oppose new housing have the power to bar the door.
0:43:00
And electeds who might actually favor new housing are consigned to a Thunderdome style battle with project opponents where they face harsh political penalties if they dare advocate for citywide needs.
0:43:13
Simply put, the system is skewed to make it too difficult to say yes and too easy to say no or often not now.
0:43:20
Proposals are cut back, delayed, or often not introduced at all because the local members made it clear that this would be a futile investment of time and resources.
0:43:30
The key question is not whether residents or council members are behaving rationally, but whether our decision process is designed rationally.
0:43:38
The Euler process actually wasn't designed with this in mind.
0:43:41
It was, created in 1975 to replace the top down master planning model of the 1936 charter.
0:43:48
It had the idea of local voice citywide responsibility.
0:43:51
Locals get the first say in the process, but the decision authority rests with officials who have citywide or borough wide purview.
0:43:59
In 1989, when the city council replaced the board of estimate, effectively, the introduction of member deference broke this concept because the final vote in the process is effectively delegated to the only elected official who could potentially be fired by local project opponents.
0:44:15
Instead of contextualizing local perspectives through a citywide lens, the process elevates localism above citywide interests.
0:44:21
It's important to note that land use is the only arena where the council votes on actions of a strictly local nature.
0:44:29
CHPC analyzed data on EULARP, actions approved since the dawn of EULARP, and there have been fewer rezonings, since the 1989 charter revisions.
0:44:38
And the neighborhoods that have resisted rezoning through this process have actually added less housing in recent decades.
0:44:44
A couple of addition additional reasons that it's apt for this commission to look and reexamine the 89 changes.
0:44:51
One, our housing shortage is much more severe.
0:44:54
I won't go into detail on that, but that is a dramatic difference between now and the nineteen eighties.
0:44:59
And second, demographic changes.
0:45:02
The 1989 revisions were animated by the imperative of improving representation for communities of color in a majority white city.
0:45:11
Today, however, the demographics of the city's population and elected representation have changed dramatically, and the minority communities protected by member deference today are often whiter, more affluent homeowner communities.
0:45:25
Would offer a few principles for charter revision, to recommendations.
0:45:28
I'll just cite them here.
0:45:30
One, return to the original concept from 1975 of local voice citywide responsibility.
0:45:36
Find ways to build a check against member deference into the process.
0:45:41
Find ways to promote cooperation within the Euler process rather than a structure that stokes conflict or rivalry.
0:45:49
Find ways to make minor actions faster and more and less resource intensive, and accelerate urgent affordable housing investments with procedural relief for things like the disposition of city owned land for affordable housing and NYCHA campus investments made through the resident partnership model.
0:46:06
I'll be happy to answer any questions that the commission have.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:46:09
Thank you so much.