Mayor Adams announced early Thursday he’s convening another Charter Revision Commission to advance referendum questions onto next year’s local election ballot — and just like his first one, this initiative is set to block a plan by City Council leaders to launch their own effort to amend the city’s constitution.
The mayor’s new 14-member commission will look into proposing ballot questions for the November 2025 ballot that would amend the City Charter to help “combat the city’s generational housing crisis,” according to a press release from Adams’ office. The move comes on the heels of the City Council passing the mayor’s “City of Yes” plan that seeks to boost housing production in the city.
The announcement didn’t elaborate on any specific housing proposals the commission will dig into but two sources familiar with the matter told the Daily News the panel will, at least in part, be tasked with reviewing the role the City Council plays in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP.
The Council currently holds large sway in the ULURP process, which proposed real real estate developments and other large land use changes must undergo before shovels can hit the ground.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the mayor would like to see the Council’s ULURP powers amended. Spokespeople for the mayor didn’t immediately respond to questions.
Besides housing, the sources said the mayor’s team have engaged in discussions about tapping the commission to look into repealing components of New York’s “sanctuary city” status.
The status bars city resources from being used to help federal authorities with deporting immigrants, except in cases involving individuals convicted of serious or violent crimes.
Adams has long lamented changes made under the de Blasio administration that strengthened protections for the city’s undocumented population. His interest in rolling back those changes comes as incoming President Trump has vowed to launch mass deportations of immigrants across the country, regardless of whether they’ve been convicted of any crimes besides crossing into the U.S. illegally.
City & State first reported Wednesday evening the mayor was expected to soon launch another Charter Revision Commission.
The new commission will be chaired by Richard Beury, the CEO of Robin Hood who was a deputy mayor under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Other members of the panel include Partnership for New York City’s Kathy Wylde, homeless advocate Shams DaBaron and Adams adviser Diane Savino.
Adams’ first Charter Revision Commission, formed this past spring, advanced five ballot questions onto this year’s presidential election ballot.
Four of the questions passed, including the two most meaningful ones — which placed new requirements on how the City Council drafts and assesses the cost of new legislation.
The mayor launched that commission after Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said her Democratic majority was planning to advance their own ballot referendum questions that would have given the Council more power to block certain top city government hires that the mayor can currently make unilaterally.
Because of a quirk in city law, referendum questions advanced by the Council can’t appear on a ballot that features questions advanced by the mayor. Thereby, the mayor’s commission this year derailed the Council’s effort.
That dynamic prompted Speaker Adams and scores of her Democratic colleagues to accuse the mayor earlier this year of deliberately launching his commission to stifle their initiative. The speaker said in July the mayor was behaving like an autocratic “king” and added: “We don’t want a king in New York City.”
Just like this year, the mayor’s second charter revision effort will likely infuriate the speaker and her colleagues as it stands to block an announced plan by them to roll out their own Charter Revision Commission for next year’s election.
Last month, the Council overwhelmingly passed a bill introduced by the speaker that would convene a 17-member Charter Revision Commission tasked with looking over the full charter to find ways to improve it.
The speaker hasn’t floated any particular ballot questions she might want her commission to advance but sources have indicated there could be a push to resurrect the blocked initiatives to expand the Council’s oversight of mayoral appointments.
Regardless, with the mayor launching his second commission, the speaker’s panel could be dead in the water, at least as it relates to the 2025 election ballot.
The speaker’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the mayor’s announcement.