Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the Charter Revision Commission’s draft charter amendments to make government work better for New Yorkers. We are grateful for your work and engagement with New Yorkers who need the government to work more effectively in order to make the City more affordable, resilient, and responsive to our many challenges.

Regional Plan Association is a non-profit civic organization that has been advocating to improve the prosperity and quality of life for everyone that calls the NYC metropolitan region home since the 1920s. At the root of all our recommendations is the need for improved government efficiency and accountability in delivering on its promises.

The following comments draw upon our research and policy recommendations to highlight support for specific provisions recommended by the commission and additional areas to consider beyond the ballot.

What it does

The proposal would simplify the process for restaurants, businesses, and property owners to use streets and sidewalks for outdoor dining, accessibility ramps, benches, planters, and similar improvements.

Key Components:

• Application Consolidation: Merges the sidewalk and roadway café processes into a single application, eliminating redundant hearings and duplicative fees.

• Legislative Streamlining: Removes the City Council’s ​“call-up” authority for sidewalk cafés, which currently adds 30 days to the process.

• Modernize Notification: Ends the requirement for newspaper advertisements, making hearings discretionary and moving to modern notification methods.

The Commission estimates that these changes could cut an outdoor-dining approval process that can currently take eight months approximately in half and eliminate as much as $1,800 in costs for a small business.

What we think

In our Re-Envisioning the Right-of-Way report, we highlight that NYC’s approximately 32,000 acres of roadway acts as one of the City’s largest and most adaptable public resources, but that most of it is dedicated to the storage and movement of vehicles. RPA recommended that the City differentiate among types of streets and accommodate a wider range of uses to address transportation, social and environmental needs.

During the pandemic, the outdoor dining program proved itself a tremendous new way to expand outdoor social activity to communities. As noted by the commission, we saw a significant uptick in establishments implementing outdoor dining across the City to support local jobs and create new spaces for people to meet.

Through our Alfresco NYC research and advocacy campaign and beyond, RPA has continued to advocate for reforms to the permanent outdoor-dining program to make it more accessible. We have also continued to call on more ambitious targets and resources to implement the Streets Plan and do more to reclaim street space for public and community uses.

As the commission notes, the existing revocable consent process can require essentially the same steps for a modest improvement, such as an accessibility ramp or bench, as it would for a more impactful and long-term use of public property. Such a process is not suited to supporting the type of active, accessible public realm that New Yorkers need.

RPA supports the changes suggested under this proposal provided that information remains publicly available and hearings can still be required for proposals with significant neighborhood, accessibility, transportation, or land-use effects. This proposal strongly aligns with RPA’s view that streets and sidewalks should be managed as flexible public assets rather than principally as corridors for moving and storing private vehicles.

What more can be done

Make equity an explicit implementation objective. Our efforts on improving the public realm consistently highlight that communities have very different capacities to maintain and program public spaces. Streamlining should therefore include investment in neighborhoods with less capacity, not simply fewer approval steps. Onerous regulations and costs left only well-resourced establishments in certain geographies to participate in the outdoor dining program before the pandemic. The success of the pandemic-era program was due in large part to support from local community groups and BIDs that provided grants, technical assistance and other resources. The City should ensure that small businesses are able to access things like no-cost technical assistance, pre-approved design standards, reduced fees and other resources and coordination to engage the program and ensure its equitable impact.

Don’t undermine the Office of Curb Management. The amendment streamlines the approval process for certain individual installations. The City should ensure that this does not inadvertently prioritize some uses over others given the Office of Curb Management is tasked with a more comprehensive approach for allocating scarce curb space among competing needs. We must continue evolving our corridor-level planning to account for the diversity of potential needs and investment opportunities in the right-of-way.

Track whether the reform actually expands public benefit. The proposals are estimated to reduce costs and process timelines to expand programming. The City should ensure proper data capture and tracking, with a commitment to publicly report out on how outcomes compare to the estimated benefits. Reporting should include an assessment of metrics that help the public understand whether the program is leading to a more equitable use of the public realm.

Formally realign NYCDOT to also focus on public space. In our Re-Envisioning the Right-of-Way report, RPA recommended that the NYC Department of Transportation be re-oriented into the NYC Department of Transportation & Public Space. If done along with the oversight from a new leadership structure, NYCDOT would be able to more effectively carry out implementation of public space programming that is critical for thriving streets, sidewalks and open spaces.

Move Street Activity Permit Office (SAPO) under NYCDOT. End the on-going jurisdictional conflicts that inevitably come up when, for example, NYCDOT controls surfaces, NYCDEP manages sewers, and NYCDPR manages trees. This siloed nature of managing our public realm results in lack of coordination that ultimately costs the City time and money, and results in reduced opportunities in the right-of-way. Coordinated under one agency doesn’t reduce the importance of other departmental regulations or oversight, but it would streamline the permitting process similar to what is proposed with building permits in Question #4.

What it does

The proposal brings together several reforms intended to help the City act more quickly when implementing street safety projects, disposing of small or other types of City properties that are difficult to use, transferring development rights from City owned landmarks, and leasing office space for City agencies.

While these provisions concern different activities, they share the objective of applying a shorter and more proportionate review process where the current process adds substantial time with limited additional public benefit.

Key Components

• Street Safety Fast Track: Simplifies review for ​“major transportation projects” and allows the DOT Commissioner to bypass certain consultations to address immediate safety needs.

• Land Disposition: Speed the sale of small plots (under 10,000 sq. ft.) and landmark development air rights through use of the new Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP) process.

• City Office Leasing: Simplifies the City’s office leasing process while maintaining oversight through required notification to the community, elected officials and comptroller.

The Commission estimates that these proposals would speed up street safety projects by at least 33%, reduce the time needed to authorize certain small property dispositions to approximately 90 days, shorten office leasing by up to 50 days, and unlock more than $200 million from small surplus lots and transferable development rights.

What we think

Street safety and transportation projects

RPA strongly supports reducing procedural delays that prevent the City from implementing critical street improvements.

In our report, Building Better Streets, RPA highlighted the challenges resulting from fragmented responsibility for City streets divided among DOT, DEP, DDC, Parks, utilities, transit agencies, and other government entities. Project reviews often proceed sequentially, and no single entity is accountable for the total time or cost burden caused to a project. The result is a system in which even standard improvements can be delayed by multiple layers of review even where agencies agree on the underlying public objective.

In Re-Envisioning the Right-of-Way, we called for streets to support a broader range of transportation, social, and environmental purposes. Fast and reliable implementation is necessary if adopted street plans are to produce meaningful changes in safety, transit performance, accessibility, and neighborhood quality of life.

The Commission reports that existing consultation requirements have delayed some safety projects by nearly a year. Those delays carry real consequences and preventable deaths and severe injuries should not continue while agencies repeat internal approvals. RPA supports allowing DOT to move quickly in response to immediate safety needs. The City should maintain opportunities for agencies to identify legitimate conflicts or concerns, and engagement efforts should aim to improve project design and implementation, but such engagement should not give every agency an indefinite veto over a project.

Small City-owned properties

RPA supports an expedited review process for genuinely small, isolated, or undevelopable properties. Requiring ULURP for a sliver lot that can only be used by an adjacent owner may not be the most effective use of public resources.

However, even a small parcel may provide value as part of a larger assemblage or as a site for green infrastructure, an accessibility improvement, a pedestrian connection, affordable housing, open space, a community facility, or another public use. The City should properly evaluate whether identified surplus parcels can advance long-term public priorities before disposing of them for revenue.

Landmark development rights

RPA supports using air rights to preserve landmarks and direct growth toward appropriate receiving sites. RPA has previously supported more flexible use of public development rights where proceeds and development opportunities advance clear public objectives. RPA’s analysis on NYCHA air rights, for example, emphasized how flexible transfers of NYCHA’s unused air rights should support the long-term preservation and improvement of public housing.

The same principle should apply to other City-owned landmarks. Transfers should be transparent, appropriately valued, connected to a maintenance plan, and evaluated in relation to the infrastructure and neighborhood context of the receiving site.

City office leases

RPA supports the streamlining and shortening of the leasing process to help the City be more nimble in achieving its office leasing objectives. However, location decisions by the City do impact communities. Transit ridership, municipal costs, neighborhood economic activity, accessibility, energy use, and exposure to climate hazards are among the considerations and impacts that should factor into the City-as-tenant decision making process. The shorter leasing process should be paired with a strategic City real estate framework.

What more can be done

Identify opportunities for other safety-related fast-track approvals. In our report, Preventing Another Ida, RPA found that by increasing the acreage of stormwater management in Central Queens to 5% of the right-of-way (120 acres), we could handle storms like Hurricane Ida and prevent the loss of life and property associated with such storms. Our streets and sidewalks have many competing needs and opportunities, and we should properly evaluate the most appropriate interventions in a community. Fast-tracking a limited set of projects may inadvertently prevent other necessary projects from moving forward.

Establish clear and proactive criteria for fast-tracked street projects. NYCDOT should publish objective criteria for determining when a project qualifies for expedited implementation. These should be data-driven and strategic, linking to the Streets Plan and aiming to address existing gaps or critical hot spots. Where applicable, such projects should be incorporated into existing scheduled capital work.

Preserve meaningful community engagement without creating a veto. Public engagement should improve implementation, but it should not create an indefinite waiting period for safety improvements. NYCDOT should provide early and accessible engagement focused on practical design issues such as loading, accessibility, transit, emergency access, school circulation, sanitation, and local business operations. The agency should publish a summary of comments received, design or operational changes made, and the rationale for decisions.

What it does

The proposal would simplify the process for obtaining construction related permits and approvals by creating a centralized system through which applicants can manage requirements currently administered by numerous City agencies. It would also consolidate waterfront construction permitting and enforcement within DOB.

The Department of Buildings would get greater flexibility to organize its staff and issue final determinations and certificates of occupancy.

Key Components

• Centralized permitting hub: Creates a single point of entry for construction related permits and approvals across City agencies.

• Greater DOB flexibility: Gives DOB commissioner discretion on who to authorize to make final determinations and approve certificates of occupancy.

• Waterfront permit consolidation: Transfers waterfront construction permitting and code-enforcement responsibilities to DOB.

This proposal will bring 40 approvals from 18 separate offices and agencies relating to construction permits into one place to save time and improve coordination.

What we think

RPA strongly supports the objective of improving interagency coordination and making it easier for New Yorkers to navigate the City’s construction permitting and approvals processes.

The existing system increases costs for anyone interested in building in New York. Applicants may have to submit similar information to multiple agencies, receive comments on different timelines, and resolve contradictory agency requirements with no point of accountability for the overall process.

Time spent waiting for approvals increases construction costs and can delay much needed affordable housing, accessibility improvements, climate protection, small-business openings, and other important projects intended to help New Yorkers.

In our Building Better Streets report, we identified similar structural barriers for street capital projects: fragmented authority, sequential review, limited information sharing, unclear accountability, and applicants or project managers being left to coordinate agencies themselves.

RPA also supports consolidating waterfront construction permitting within DOB, provided that the City preserves the specialized expertise needed to properly assess such projects. Waterfront structures face conditions that differ substantially from upland buildings, including erosion, coatal flooding and sea-level rise, and added coordination with State and federal regulators.

In our Averting Crisis report, we discuss the need to respond simultaneously to a severe housing shortage and growing climate risk. Achieving those objectives requires permitting systems capable of processing housing, resilient retrofits, and climate infrastructure upgrades much more efficiently.

RPA supports providing the DOB commissioner with greater organizational flexibility. The Charter should not lock any agency into a structure that prevents it from adjusting to staffing conditions, new technology, different types of development, or changing operational needs. However, delegation must be accompanied by consistent standards, training, quality control, transparency and accountability so applicants do not receive varied interpretations depending on the reviewing office or personnel.

To be truly effective, the centralized hub must be more than a new website. If the same applications continue moving through the same separate queues, with the same conflicting requirements and no shared timeline, the City will have improved the user interface without addressing the underlying sources of delay.

What more can be done

Report outcomes. Consolidating these permits and improving user experience is important. But the focus should be on what the intent of this effort really is, which is to reduce the time and cost to builders in order to keep projects moving forward. Standard reporting to highlight how the new coordinated system is improving project delivery can inform and help iterate on what other steps should be taken to make it easier to build.

Incorporate climate risk and other critical site information into the permitting platform. Across our research and advocacy, we have seen the challenges New Yorkers face with getting the right information at the right time. This coordination effort would be made more valuable with a consolidation of critical information for users. This could include information on current and future climate risk, existing or planned infrastructure projects, financing programs and technical services available, and other critical information that would benefit applicants in knowing more about their building site and surrounding community.

Provide a permit navigator or assistance. We expect that through many of the reforms and past charter amendments, small and medium-sized firms may be able to increase their project work in the City. However, these smaller firms don’t have the same expertise or experiences with navigating City processes. Pairing this coordination effort with technical support for those who need it can help ensure a more equitable impact from the proposal.

Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. Large, complex, multi-year projects will require consistent support and accountability. In such cases, users should not have to ping-pong among different staff that are unfamiliar with the project or treat each iteration as a new project. The system and staff support should be developed to address the varied needs and spectrum of construction projects.