End the Council’s land-use veto

The oldest non-profit developer of affordable housing in New York City, Phipps Houses, wants approval to turn a parking lot in Sunnyside, Queens, into a 100% affordable apartment building. For a city where thousands of people are homeless and thousands more struggle to pay the rent, approval of the project should be a breeze.

If only. Under the City Council’s longstanding practice of “member deference,” Council approval of any land-use change — like allowing affordable housing on a lot zoned for parking — turns on the opinion of the local member. In this case, that means the fate of the project is in the hands of Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, whose opposition doomed an efford by the same nonprofit to build affordable housing on the site three years ago.

In sinking the 2016 Phipps project, Van Bramer explained that the “only people [he] work[s] for are the people of [his] district.” Evidently, enough of those constituents preferred parking spots to affordable housing. As for those who’d love to live in Sunnyside if only they could afford it, or those who will soon be pushed out of the neighborhood due to rising rents: tough luck. They won’t be voting in the district.

Maybe it’s inevitable that people who’ve already secured their spot in a neighborhood will focus more on the downsides of neighborhood change than on the benefits of new affordable housing. And maybe we shouldn’t expect anything better from local councilmembers who depend on those same constituents to keep their jobs.

But we can, and should, end a City Council practice that ensures the narrow preferences of each member control all of the Council’s power over land use. Because the forces behind rising rents, gentrification, and homelessness don’t stop at Council district lines, our solutions can’t either.

As Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has thoughtfully explained, one troubling result of member deference is how it promotes residential segregation. The current residents of higher-income communities don’t see much benefit in new affordable housing, so member deference makes change in those neighborhoods a political non-starter.

And when they refuse to build, they exclude potential neighbors from the opportunities that come from proximity to high-quality jobs, schools and transit — mainstays of wealthy neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, lower-income communities are asked to shoulder all the burden of new development, because only residents who acutely feel the pressure of rising rents and gentrification see enough value in new affordable housing to let their councilmembers greenlight development.

Little wonder, then, that all of the neighborhoods that have so far been rezoned under Mayor de Blasio’s mandatory inclusionary housing program have been low-income communities of color.

What’s more, this dynamic results in less affordable housing altogether. When only low-income neighborhoods are asked to authorize new development, many residents understandably balk. Because while the downsides of altering a neighborhood are more certain — be it construction noise, school capacity or accelerated local gentrification — no single neighborhood’s contribution of affordable housing can make more than a dent in the citywide housing crisis.

In other words, most upsides of new affordable housing development are incremental and citywide, but the downsides are pronounced and hyper-local. Under a system of member deference that makes every land-use decision hyper-local, the result is less affordable housing development overall, and a housing crisis that worsens every day.

More than a year ago, Council Speaker Corey Johnson said local members would get deference, but “no veto” on land-use decisions, an attempt to distinguish himself from his predecessors. So far, it’s hard to see what the practical difference is.

Moving forward, the Council should ditch member deference and let members vote their conscience on land use, as they do on other issues. More broadly, the city should whenever possible pursue landuse changes on a city-wide basis, with every neighborhood — especially wealthy, already gentrified ones — asked to carry its fair share of new development. That way, council members who understand the need for affordable housing but don’t want their district to be the only dumping ground for development can vote yes with confidence.

Schierenbeck is a lawyer from Brooklyn.