With huge rezonings looming in a dozen neighborhoods, a housing crunch making land-use decisions ever more weighty and forces like population growth and climate change increasing the need for sound planning, New York’s 59 local boards are facing new demands and tough questions.
Funding for the bodies has increased steadily, if slowly, since 1996. But resources are still scarce for the entities that represent the city’s most local level of government.
Even as borough presidents have been offering incremental changes, like the appointment of several teenage board members in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, several Council bills to reform term limits and mandate demographic reporting from board members have stalled.
Recent citywide projects like the mayor’s affordable-housing plan have reignited long-standing critiques of community boards—about the value of their advisory votes and how effective they are at reflecting the will of the diverse community districts they represent.
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