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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Sean Campion from the Citizens Budget Commission on streamlining ULURP
1:45:05
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5 min
Sean Campion of the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) presents findings that NYC's land use process is excessively long and costly, hindering housing production.
CBC proposes three main charter revisions to streamline ULURP: merging community board and borough president reviews under the BP, creating an appeals board (City Planning Commission plus the Council Speaker) to review council rejections with a supermajority override provision, and shifting non-zoning actions and smaller, low-impact zoning projects out of the full ULURP process to agency or CPC review.
- NYC's land use review takes 2-3 years median, adding significant cost (~$82k/unit).
- Recommendation 1: Consolidate community board and borough president advisory reviews under the BP.
- Recommendation 2: Create an appeals board (CPC + Speaker) requiring a 10/14 supermajority vote to override council rejections, aimed at countering member deference.
- Recommendation 3: Reserve full ULURP for significant zoning changes; move non-zoning actions and small ("Type 2") zoning projects to faster administrative or CPC review.
Sean Campion
1:45:05
Thank you.
1:45:05
Good evening.
1:45:06
My name is Sean Campion.
1:45:07
I'm director of Housing and Economic Development Studies at the Citizens Budget Commission.
1:45:10
Thank you, Chair Burry and the other commissioners for the opportunity to testify today.
1:45:14
I submitted our full testimony, I just wanted to give some highlights.
1:45:18
CBC's twenty twenty two report on New York City's land use review process found that it's too long, it's too expensive, and it's too uncertain.
1:45:26
The median private application takes two to three years to make it through the process, which adds as much as $82,000 to the cost of developing each new housing unit, putting numbers to some of the issues that Kurt was talking about before.
1:45:39
And those are just the projects that actually get through the process and get approved.
1:45:43
Unfortunately, process itself discourages projects from getting proposed at all.
1:45:47
And too often, concerns and member deference override the citywide need to build more housing everywhere in all neighborhoods.
1:45:56
Some of that cost uncertainty results from environmental review, which is a matter of state law and not the charter.
1:46:01
But the review process, known as ULURP, is entirely within the city's control.
1:46:05
So accordingly, CBC is making three recommendations for revisions to EULRP to make the land use process simpler and faster while maintaining the intent of EULRP as a time limited review that incorporates both local and citywide perspectives.
1:46:18
So the first recommendation is to merge the community board and the borough president advisory reviews into a single review under the BPs.
1:46:25
So consolidating those two reviews, which now take ninety days, would make the advisory review process shorter and more productive.
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BPs have a larger constituency, which allows them to balance neighborhood concerns with borough wide and citywide needs, including the residents who may actually live in housing they get built.
1:46:42
And they also have professional land use staff that can support reviews.
1:46:47
They also still appoint community board members, so they can still incorporate community board opinions into their own decision making as well.
1:46:54
The second is to allow applicants to appeal actions rejected by the city council to a ULURP appeals board consisting of the city planning commission and the council speaker.
1:47:05
The council has an important role in the EULAR process, but a well designed appeals process could maintain that role while better balancing citywide and neighborhood concerns.
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So that's why we're recommending the creation of appeals board with a temporary addition of the city council speaker as a fourteenth member just for the appeal to ensure the representation of the council's perspective as well in that process.
1:47:25
And to override, the appeals board would need to approve an application by a supermajority of 10 of 14 votes.
1:47:31
And our hope is that that would encourage Speaker to bring more projects to a vote and potentially more applications to come forward, particularly for well considered projects who are never getting proposed in the first place due to member deference.
1:47:45
And our third is to focus ULIP on zoning and shift review of both non zoning actions currently subject to ULIP and monetary zoning applications with no adverse impacts to city agencies or commissions for advisory reviews.
1:47:58
So first on the non zoning actions.
1:48:00
As Eric was discussing too, ULURP makes a whole host of non zoning actions subject to public review as well, along with legislative zoning changes.
1:48:10
We think that full ULURP should be reserved for those zoning map amendments that are legislative in nature, and that other actions currently subject to ULURP be shifted to those city agencies for administrative reviews.
1:48:22
With those agencies given the discretion to approve or deny based on specific findings and in accordance with city and state laws, Our full testimony outlines where we think all those actions should go, which we'll need to get into right now.
1:48:35
For the modestly resized zoning applications, CBC recommends that review and approval of smaller projects shift to a review that ends at the City Planning Commission.
1:48:45
This shorter review could apply to projects that, based on their size and their location, wouldn't have an adverse impact on communities.
1:48:52
For example, projects designated as type two in the city's environmental review process, a standard that would pick up projects that now qualify for the green fast track environmental re streamlining.
1:49:04
That matters because the review process increases the cost of small residential projects, the most, if any, by 15% at least, not including financing.
1:49:13
Those are the small projects that Kurt mentioned aren't worth going through ULURP and that Vishan prevented at a previous hearing as well.
1:49:20
And that's even before considering member deference, which may lead to concessions or exactions, which might make projects infeasible.
1:49:31
Still, both those pathways shouldn't replace New York City's azurite development system, nor should it be an alternative to neighborhood rezoning, the citywide rezonings, are needed to increase and then provide additional residential as a right capacity that we need to boost housing production everywhere.
1:49:47
Ultimately, any changes to the charters, as we mentioned, need to be crafted with care, unless they make the process more complicated or introduce unintended consequences.
1:49:57
So we welcome your input and feedback, and we'll continue to evaluate other revisions that come forward as well and may comment on them or endorse them in the future as well.
1:50:06
Thank you.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
1:50:07
Thank you so much.