Council members chafe as affordable housing Fast Track nears in 12 districts, from Bay Ridge to the Upper West Side

Less than three months before a voter-approved shortcut for affordable housing takes effect, many City Council members whose districts are covered by it say they are unhappy with the new rules, and at least one is talking about going to court.

City & State reached out to 29 council members whose districts overlap the 12 community districts on the city's new Affordable Housing Fast Track list and found frustration on both sides of the aisle. "You're creating two classes of council members," Council Member Frank Morano told the outlet, adding that he is talking with attorneys and "working towards" a lawsuit.

What the Fast Track does

New Yorkers approved the change to the City Charter in November 2025, 58.5% to 41.5%, amNewYork reported. Staten Island voted sharply the other way, with about 68% against, and two of its three community districts are now on the list.

Starting Jan. 1, 2027, eligible rezoning proposals that create affordable housing in the 12 districts will go through a streamlined 90-day public review, cutting roughly four months from the standard Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, according to the Mayor's Office. Community boards and borough presidents review at the same time, over 60 days, instead of one after the other. The City Planning Commission then makes the final decision. Those projects do not go to the City Council, and there is no mayoral veto, amNewYork reported.

The Fast Track does not rezone any neighborhood by itself, and it does not change environmental review requirements or landmark protections, City Hall said. "It does not mandate housing. It does not automatically rezone," Department of City Planning Director Sideya Sherman told reporters when the list came out on Oct. 1.

The 12 districts

• Brooklyn: CD 10 (Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights), CD 12 (Borough Park, Kensington), CD 18 (Canarsie, Flatlands)
• Manhattan: CD 7 (Upper West Side), CD 8 (Upper East Side, Roosevelt Island)
• Queens: CD 4 (Corona, Elmhurst), CD 5 (Ridgewood, Maspeth, Middle Village), CD 10 (South Ozone Park, Howard Beach), CD 11 (Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston), CD 13 (Queens Village, Bellerose, Rosedale)
• Staten Island: CD 2 (Mid-Island), CD 3 (South Shore)

The districts were picked by measuring affordable housing production against each district's existing housing stock, under a methodology the Department of City Planning adopted in April. Together they produced 724 of the 63,870 new affordable homes built citywide over the past five years, or 1.1%, according to City Hall. No Bronx district made the list. It will be recalculated every five years, next in October 2031.

Why members are pushing back

Under the traditional process, the council member whose district would host a project holds informal sway over the final council vote, a practice known as member deference. Council members told City & State they worry about losing that leverage with developers, and about whether projects will account for local needs such as flooding, traffic and infrastructure. "The best way to protect our neighborhoods is to decide for ourselves where new housing should go, before someone else decides for us," Council Member Susan Zhuang said in a statement. Council Member Mercedes Narcisse said she feared "the process built for speed may end up disregarding desires" in her community.

Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer, who opposed the ballot measure, called the list "bad policy" when it was released, arguing that the city's calculation misses senior housing conversions and other affordable projects in her neighborhood, amNewYork reported.

Some members are trying to get ahead of it. Bay Ridge Council Member Kayla Santosuosso, who lives in Brooklyn CD 10, the lowest-producing district on the list, is working on a rezoning of a roughly 10-block area of auto shops and empty lots, including a proposal to turn a former Staples store into an 11-story apartment building, City & State reported. Annemarie Gray of the pro-housing group Open New York said the ballot measures are "starting to reshuffle the politics of housing." Council Member Shaun Abreu told the outlet his district would benefit from the Fast Track.

What's next

Sherman said there is no projection yet of how many homes the Fast Track will produce, amNewYork reported. City Hall says the administration will explore city-sponsored land use actions in the 12 districts in the coming months. The Department of City Planning will host a virtual public information session on Dec. 3, and an interactive map is on its website.