LAND USE REVIEW, PLANNING, AND COMMUNITY BOARDS

THE PROBLEMS AND HOW TO FIX THEM

Presented to the New York City Charter Commission, June 24, 2010
By Tom Angotti
In the brief time allotted I will first discuss the problems with the city’s land use
process, city planning, and community boards, then offer proposals to fix them.

THE PROBLEMS
1. The Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP)
• There is a sharp divide between the pre-ULURP and ULURP processes,
and between private and public discussions in the decision-making process.
Because many applicants do not want to risk the cost and uncertainties of a
7-month public ULURP process, they informally meet with and engage
public officials and community representatives in the pre-ULURP period,
often negotiating concessions that involve public expenditures or private
deals. Substantive decisions are made before the ULURP process and side
agreements are shaped behind closed doors.
• This leads to frustration, cynicism, division and anger within communities
because people perceive that they are presented with a fait accompli. They
feel the time and resources invested in the ULURP process are wasted and
are constantly reminded that the community board’s vote is only advisory.
• The environmental review process is not used as it was intended: to inform
decision-makers about potential environmental impacts. The environmental
reports are too long and complicated and not analyzed or interpreted in
useful ways. They usually do not inform decision-making.
• Rulemaking by the Department of City Planning (DCP) has turned the
ULURP process into a public relations game with little substance. As
another example of poor rulemaking, rules for the Charter-mandated Fair
Share process, which was intended to prevent the concentration of heavy
infrastructure and city facilities in certain neighborhoods, have made the
process meaningless.
2. Planning
• Citywide comprehensive planning is inadequate. DCP is fixated on ad hoc
localized zoning instead of planning. Zoning is only a regulatory framework
for the built environment and does not deal with the complex issues that
New Yorkers care about. It regulates new development but does little for the
existing city.
• Charter-mandated comprehensive planning documents such as the
Strategic Plan and the City Planning Department’s strategic plan, are not
subject to public review and approval. They are virtually unknown
documents that get filed away.
• The first major publicly-disseminated comprehensive plan in decades was
PlaNYC2030, issued in 2007. But it was not submitted for debate and
approval by the City Planning Commission, community boards, City Council
and Borough Presidents in accordance with Section 197-a of the City
Charter. While it includes many good projects, it has major gaps, does not
recognize a role for neighborhoods, and remains a strictly executive
document that may have a life limited by the tenure of the mayor.
 • Since the 1989 Charter revision gave community boards explicit authority to
introduce comprehensive plans under Section 197-a, almost a dozen “197-a
plans” have been approved. At this rate it will take a century before every
community board has an approved plan. Because of narrow rule-making by
the Department of City Planning, the process is lengthy and onerous, and
the City Planning Commission can hold it up indefinitely.
• Community boards do not have adequate resources to do planning.
• By terming the plans “advisory” DCP has rendered them meaningless.
• The city does not help implement community plans.
• In some cases DCP has rezoned neighborhoods in ways that undermine
previously-approved community plans – Williamsburg in Brooklyn is but one
of the more dramatic examples. This has discouraged many communities
from planning. There is little incentive for submitting 197-a plans; there are
some 100 community plans but only a fraction were submitted for approval.
3. Community boards
• They are the major venue for civic participation and democracy in a highly
centralized city government, but participation is too limited.
• They lack the professional and financial resources to plan and fully engage
in the land use review process. The average board has a budget under
$200,000 a year - and shrinking - to cover an average 135,000 people,
larger than most municipalities in New York State. Together the boards get
less than .0001% of the city budget.
• Too often community board members do not reflect the diversity in their
communities.
• Too often community board members do not understand the complex land
use issues before them because there is no systematic training for
community board members.
• Oversight of community boards is limited and shortcomings can become
systemic and longstanding.

HOW TO FIX THE PROBLEMS

1. The Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP)
• Make public participation matter. Bring sunlight to the pre-ULURP process
by requiring open, public meetings and full reporting. Side agreements
between the city, developers and communities must be incorporated in the
approvals process, subject to audit, and fully enforceable.
• Every community board should be able to hire and fire their own
professional planner.
• Restructure the environmental review process to ensure greater
transparency, public understanding and oversight.
2. Planning.
Basic principles: Good planning is essential for good policy. It will save everyone
time and money. Planning should be both top-down and bottom-up. Reports are
not plans.
• DCP should be required to complete and regularly update a comprehensive
strategic, city-wide plan that serves as the framework for community plans
and provides specific guidance to community boards.
• All comprehensive city plans should be subject to approval in accordance
with Section 197-a of the Charter.
 • Don’t let zoning trump planning. All zoning and ULURP actions should be
subject to a thorough review of plans and a determination of consistency;
actions that are inconsistent with a plan may be accompanied by a proposal
to change the plan.
• The city should create an office of plan implementation that holds agencies
accountable for implementing proposals in approved plans and sees that
the priorities set out in the Community District Needs Statements of
community boards are followed.
• In approved plans, every proposal that has budget implications must
become part of the city’s capital and expense budgets.
• Rules governing Fair Share (Sections 203 and 204 of the City Charter)
should be tightened so they cover all city and private infrastructure and
cannot be by-passed, and should be linked with the comprehensive
planning and environmental review processes.
3. Community Boards
• Establish a rigorous outreach and application process for community board
membership that is consistent throughout the city.
• Establish independent panels to select community board members based
on a set of criteria that insures diversity and fairness.
• Community board votes need to have greater weight and no longer be
downgraded as “only advisory.” For example, two “no” votes, one of which
may be a community board vote, should be sufficient to deny a ULURP
application.
• The Public Advocate should provide regular oversight of community boards.
• As part of the efforts to give community boards a real voice in decisions, we
should stop the practice of encouraging community boards to include
conditions with their votes. Conditions attached to a “yes” vote should be
binding, but conditions attached to a “no” vote are meaningless and should
be prohibited.
• This is but one of many practices that should change as community boards
gain more responsibilities and become an important part of the land use
decision-making process. It is the foundation for forging partnerships
between community boards and other branches of government, and for
promoting community-based and city-wide planning.

SOURCES
Many of the recommendations above are the result of the decade-long work of the
Task Force on Community-based Planning, which is endorsed by 50 organizations,
13 community boards, 11 elected officials and 22 professionals. See Planning for
all New Yorkers: A 21st Century Upgrade for New York’s Planning Process.
Municipal Art Society Planning Center.
I am also grateful for the policy papers by the New York Environmental Justice
Alliance on Fair Share and the 197-a Planning Process.