The 2025 Charter Revision Commission: How You Can Influence Housing and Elections in NYC
Participate in local governance and policymaking by attending the 7/7 public session or submitting written testimony!
With the primary elections now behind us, all eyes in New York are on in the general election in November. Much is being made of Zohran Mamdani’s capture of the Democratic nomination and what his mayoralty may look like. And while the mayoral election is of central importance, it is not the only issue voters will weigh in on this fall.
Along with choosing the next mayor and a host of other representatives, New Yorkers will also be voting on several proposals put forth by the 2025 Charter Revision Commission (CRC). These proposals have the opportunity to shape the future of our city even more than the next mayor, for they represent permanent changes to NYC’s charter, AKA our city’s constitution.
With today’s release of the Interim Report, the CRC has produced five amendments for voters to decide on:
Fast Track Affordable Housing by making it easier to build more affordable housing across the city, allowing affordable housing to be produced more quickly and at lower cost, and helping ensure that every community adds affordable housing
Much of the housing changes the CRC is proposing focuses on reworking ULURP - the procedure by which land use decision are made, and which currently involves numerous bottlenecks that either slow down or completely block new buildings
The CRC is proposing to shorten some of the review periods for entities such as community boards, reduce the influence of member deference in the City Council which allows individual council members to veto developments in their districts, and generally make the whole land use process a more citywide approach
Simplify Review of Modest Housing and Infrastructure Projects by creating a streamlined review procedure for actions that will add modest amounts of additional housing, protect New Yorkers from flooding, and create new open space
Strike a Better Balance Between Local, Borough, and Citywide Views in the Land Use Process by eliminating the Mayor’s power to veto certain land use actions by the City Council and replacing it with a new Appeals Board made up of the City Council Speaker, Borough President, and Mayor
Modernize the City Map by centralizing and digitizing a City Map that currently exists as over 8,000 paper maps across five separate offices
Significantly Boost Turnout in Local Elections by moving City elections to the same year as Presidential elections, when turnout is far higher and the voting population looks more like New York
Shifting local elections to occur in even- instead of odd-numbered years would align them with state and/or federal elections, reducing the number of times NYC residents need to get out to vote and likely increasing turnout by taking advantage of the national news cycle
One more amendment is still being considered for submission to the voters:
Establishing Open Primaries for City Elections, in which all voters and all candidates participate, regardless of party membership, and the top two candidates advance to the general election
With increasing numbers of voters identifying as independent rather than Democrat/Republican, this would allow more voters to participate in primaries. In a city like NYC where the winner of the Democratic primary is often the winner in the general election, this is doubly impactful.
See this PDF to read the exact text of the proposed charter amendments.
The passage of these CRC amendments into the City’s Charter would have drastic implications for NYC’s housing development, political representation, and all manner of economic and policy outcomes. Encouragingly, these are some of the most pro-housing and pro-democracy recommendations that the CRC has ever produced. Now it’s a matter of getting these proposals across the finish line. Voting on these measures in the fall will determine their fate, but prior to then, residents still have the opportunity to shape the proposals themselves.
On July 7th, from 5 to 8 pm at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the CRC will be hosting its final public input session. This is an incredible opportunity for any citizen to speak directly to the CRC about their thoughts on the current proposals or recommendations for additional ones. For one example of excellent public testimony, see Sebastian’s recorded testimony here. If you cannot make the 7/7 input session, or prefer to provide your testimony in written form, the CRC is also accepting such public submissions at CharterTestimony@citycharter.nyc.gov.
In addition to these opportunities to contribute, the final meeting of the 2025 CRC is also open for the public to observe and will occur on July 21st at 1 pm.
What is the CRC and how is the 2025 CRC structured?
Since NYC’s consolidation in 1898, the Charter has acted as the governing document for the city, defining all the procedures and organization of the city government. While further rulemaking and laws occur in the Administrative Code and the Rules of the City of New York1, the Charter effectively acts as our city’s constitution, outlining the essential structure and running of the municipal government.
And like the U.S. Constitution, the Charter can be amended by certain processes - one of them being the temporary Charter Revision Commissions that tend to convene every 5 to 10 years. Either the Mayor or City Council can enact a new Charter Revision Commission, with no otherwise set rules on how often or when they must occur. For example, previous CRCs have occurred in 2019, 2018, 2010, and 2005. CRCs may propose any revisions to the City Charter that are compliant with state law, and submit their revision proposals to the voters.
The directive of the current iteration of the CRC, established by Mayor Eric Adam’s office in Dec 2024 and Local Law 2024/121, is to “consider ways to promote fair housing and make municipal government more transparent and responsive”.
Some other relevant rules governing the CRC:
Must hold at least one public hearing in each borough, and maintain a public website with recordings of all hearings
May also conduct private hearings, take testimony, subpoena witnesses, and produce “books, papers, and records”
Commission employees may not be registered lobbyists. However, they are allowed to hold public office or any other employment, and membership in the CRC is uncompensated!
The members and commission itself remain in operation until the day of the election in which the charter revisions are voted on.
Revisions can be submitted to the voters by either general or special election, but must occur “not later than the second general election after the date of the effective date of this local law.” (December 2024)
Charter Revisions can be massively impactful
Past Charter Revision Commissions have proposed and enacted major changes to NYC’s Charter and the very shape of city government.
Following the Supreme Court’s strike down of NYC’s charter in 1989, a CRC was convened to create a new charter that is the basis for our current government
The 2003 CRC proposed eliminating party primaries in municipal elections (though voters ended up rejecting this one)
After the City Council had extended term limits to three terms for elected officials, the 2010 CRC successfully reinstated two-term limits
The 2018 CRC increased public matching funds for municipal campaigns, created a civic engagement commission to support the participatory budgeting process, and imposed term limits on community board members
The most recent CRC in 2019 established ranked-choice voting in both primaries and special elections in NYC
What’s next?
The revisions proposed by the 2025 CRC would have hugely beneficial impacts to the operation of municipal government and the lives of both current and future residents. The current process for approving new housing developments often takes months, with numerous opportunities for actors to slow down the approval process at every stage. Removing vetoes and making development decisions more citywide would allow lawmakers to consider the needs of all of NYC holistically and reduce the power of individual neighborhood NIMBYs.
Whether you agree with the above proposals or not, I highly encourage you to either speak at the July 7th public hearing or submit written testimony. Providing your thoughts to the CRC is a direct way to shape local governance and influence how our city is run.
The commission has so far heard from a combined 850 New Yorkers between spoken and written testimony, which is a great start, but also an infinitesimally small portion of the city’s population. By testifying to the CRC, you may change a proposal t
hat will go up for a vote by the entire city this fall!
In addition, CRC amendments are being discussed and voted on at community boards across the city. At our June Manhattan Community Board 3 meeting, we held a rigorous debate over the latest proposals of the Charter Revision Commission. Attending these public sessions is another avenue of influencing the CRC and voters themselves, who may factor in their local board’s support (or lack of) when making their own decision.
For those seeking a greater understanding of the content of the NYC Charter and what differentiates it from the Administrative Code and Rules of the City of New York, I highly recommend Maximum New York’s Foundations of New York City course. You can sign up to learn about the course here, with a new class planned for this fall.