NYC’s borough presidents wield new power over housing decisions. How will they use it?

The city’s five borough presidents now wield more power over housing decisions than they have had in decades — and some are already strategizing for how to transform what was a largely ceremonial role into a final authority on what gets built and where.

Voters last November approved a ballot measure that establishes a three-member appeals board — made up of the mayor, city council speaker and local borough president — with the power to overturn Council land use votes that kill or modify housing plans. The referendum restored tangible land use powers to the borough president for the first time in nearly 40 years and upended the city’s review process, which gave tremendous influence to individual councilmembers and typically ended with binding Council votes.

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso on Tuesday unveiled a complex rubric to guide his decision-making for when a developer appeals to the newly created panel. Three others say they will take a “case-by-case” approach to potential projects that come before them, with an eye toward areas producing few new homes.

”There is a housing crisis and we cannot solve a crisis on a community-by-community basis,” Reynoso said. “Whatever we’re doing to get us out of this crisis needs to be all-hands-on-deck.”

Reynoso, who is also running to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez in Congress later this year, said his guide is an attempt to “depoliticize” housing issues and instead base his votes on where homes are being built, and where they are not.

“How we come to this decision is universal,” he said. “The formula is the formula.”

Reynoso released a comprehensive plan last year that assigns development goals for every neighborhood in the borough. He said he would consider voting to reverse a Council decision blocking or modifying housing applications in any neighborhood that falls short of the “density target” he set, especially in areas like Bensonhurst, Midwood, Borough Park and other large swaths of southern and central Brooklyn.

“The places where we’re seeing the least amount of housing built are the places that are very clear and that are in South Brooklyn,” Reynoso said.

An October 2025 analysis by the New York Housing Conference, a policy group, found parts of Brooklyn are producing among the lowest number of new affordable housing units in the city.

In particular, four Council Districts spanning low- and mid-density Brooklyn neighborhoods south of Prospect Park accounted for a total of just 604 affordable housing units from 2014 through 2024, compared to more than 11,200 in two districts covering Greenpoint, Williamsburg and East New York, the report found. Those north Brooklyn neighborhoods were all the sites of major rezoning plans that spurred high-rise construction that continues to the present day.

Reynoso’s housing plan doesn’t hold those lower density, suburban-style districts to the same housing production targets as waterfront Williamsburg, but it finds many of those areas are falling well short of the totals he has prescribed.

The new rubric also states that he could override no votes by the Council in north Brooklyn because he considers the area “amenity-rich,” with easy access to public transit. He would represent many of those neighborhoods if elected to Congress in a closely watched primary contest against Assemblymember Claire Valdez. Reversing Council decisions could appeal to voters who want the city to build more housing, while alienating others opposed to some developments.

The appeals board was proposed by a charter revision commission convened last year by then-Mayor Eric Adams with the purpose of breaking a City Council tradition known as member deference, in which the entire body votes in line with the local member on land use applications in their district. After equivocating for months, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced his support for the ballot question and two others on Election Day last November. The measures give him significant sway over where new housing is built in the city.

Some community groups and elected officials — including most members of the City Council — have voiced concerns over the new appeals board process.

Then-Speaker Adrienne Adams said that the appeals panel would “effectively undermine the ability of the Council to negotiate greater affordability of housing and other needed public benefits on behalf of communities.”

She specifically warned that the appeals board could make binding decisions to approve neighborhood-level rezoning proposals that are introduced by the Department of City Planning, allowing the mayor to rubber stamp his own administration’s proposals with nothing more than buy-in from the borough president.

But the board would only come into play if the Council opposed or modified a housing plan, and the developer or city agency behind the application then filed an appeal.

Newly anointed Speaker Julie Menin, who would be one of the three members, said the appeals board was not “designed as a routine override of the Council.”

“It’s a backstop, and any consideration of its use will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” Menin said in a written statement. “The Council is focused on advancing proactive, citywide solutions to increase affordable housing production.”

Supporters of the appeals board, including the charter revision commission, said the outsize power wielded by individual councilmembers often led developers who failed to sway the local Council member to pull their application before the formal review process even began because it was effectively doomed.

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a former state senator who assumed his new office on Jan. 1, said he suspected the opportunity for a developer to now appeal a Council decision could result in more housing applications.

“ I’m eager to see whether just the creation of the appeals board spurs new projects for housing,” Hoylman-Sigal said.

Hoylman-Sigal and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said in interviews that they had not created a formal rubric to guide their decisions, but, like Reynoso, will consider reversing decisions that block new housing in areas that are producing very little.

”We’re going to use this tool in the toolbox when necessary to ensure that every district is contributing to ensuring that every day New Yorkers could stay in this city,” Richards said.

He said he is specifically eyeing proposals for new housing development in neighborhoods like Bayside, Fresh Meadows and the western portion of the Rockaway Peninsula, where new development is scarce.

“We’re going to look at them on the merits, of course, and we want to hear community concerns,” Richards said. “But there has to be a scientific reason why either you’re going to kill the project or have a substantial reduction in the unit counts.”

Reynoso, a former councilmember, said he understood the concern among opponents of the appeals board but that he planned to defer to the local member in districts producing a significant amount of new housing.

He said he had already heard from lobbyists for the company behind a proposed 600-foot apartment complex in Greenpoint that local councilmember Lincoln Restler has so far opposed. Borough presidents have long issued advisory opinions on land use proposals as part of the city process ahead of a Council vote.

But Reynoso said developers should not think of his new role as a way to bypass Council authority and win automatic approval.

“They should be negotiating with Lincoln,” he said

Hoylman-Sigal and Richards each said they had not yet heard from developers with plans currently in the review process.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossela, who opposed a comprehensive package of land use reforms known as “City of Yes,” did not respond to requests for comment about the appeals board.

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson will also evaluate each proposal on a “case-by-case basis,” according to her spokesperson, Laylah Wilson.

“This thoughtful, flexible approach ensures that each appeal is assessed on its merits and in the best interests of The Bronx,” she said in a written statement.