William Alatriste for the NYC Council/NYC DCP

The hopefuls (clockwise from top left): Ydanis Rodriguez, Ritchie Torres, Mark Levine, Jumaane Williams, Corey Johnson, Donovan Richards, James Van Bramer and Robert Cornegy.

On January 3, each of the 51 city councilmembers will cast a vote to choose the colleague among them who will lead their pack. The position of City Council Speaker holds significant power to shape the Council’s legislative priorities and handle negotiations with the executive branch. Occupied by Christine Quinn for eight years under Mayor Bloomberg and by Melissa Mark-Viverito during Mayor de Blasio’s first term, the position will now go to one of eight men vying for the position (though rumors are that one of the candidates is about to drop out of the race).

It’s not clear how much average New Yorkers’ opinion matters for this internal election. Political commentators have predicted that the results of the Speaker’s election will in fact be dictated from on high, with councilmembers likely to pledge their votes according to the choice of county Democratic leaders, perhaps under a deal brokered with the mayor. That, however, hasn’t stopped labor and tenant groups from organizing in favor of particular candidates. And it shouldn’t stop a public discussion about the differences between the candidates.

City Limits used several methods to evaluate where the eight candidates stand on questions of housing and land use. It’s clear from this analysis that the candidates share similar positions on a number of fronts, but some differences also emerged.

Introducing the candidates

The first chart offers an introduction to the candidates based on two sources: their introductory speech at the televised NY1 debate on December 1, and a Q&A we sent to all the candidates and due on December 11 (only Williams and Rodriguez responded).

The mayor’s housing plan

In this chart, we first examine the candidates’ stances on the de Blasio administration’s mandatory inclusionary zoning policy, or MIH—the most significant citywide housing policy decision on which the Council has had a voice. We rely on two sources: answers to the Q&A e-mailed by City Limits, and the candidates’ remarks on March 22, 2016, when the Council voted on the proposed policy.

MIH requires that developers granted an upzoning make a percentage of the housing “affordable,” with the Council allowed to choose the affordability scheme for each rezoned area from among four possible rent-level options. Thanks to “member deference,” local councilmembers have the ability to choose the rent level option for projects in their district. While the Council made changes to the policy, including adding a new option at lower rent levels, critics say even the council’s revised version did not go far enough to address the housing crisis for the poorest New Yorkers. 42 councilmembers voted for the proposal, including all but one of the candidates: Williams was one of five councilmembers who voted against the proposal.

The chart also looks at the candidates’ stances on just how much affordable housing should be targeted to the lowest income New Yorkers—those making below 50 percent Area Median Income, which is roughly $40,000 for a family of three. Our sources are the City Limits Q&A and the November 30 debate on housing issues held by Metro-IAF, a coalition of faith-based organizations representing many New Yorkers of color. Williams, Johnson, Levine and Cornegy attended the debate; the other four were invited but did not attend.

Finally, we’ve included the answers to our Q&A question on the use of public land for housing development. (Only Williams responded.)

Public housing and homelessness

This chart looks at the answers candidates offered to questions about NYCHA and homelessness at the Metro-IAF November 30 debate.

To several questions, their answers were similar. Asked how many extra billions they would put in NYCHA’s budget to deal with repairs, Williams and Johnson both said they would dedicate more funds to NYCHA, but couldn’t give a specific figure (Levine wasn’t directly prompted to answer the question and Cornegy was not present at the time).

Williams, Johnson and Levine also expressed support for the creation of a new construction authority, as suggested by Metro-IAF, that is focused on NYCHA repairs. (Cornegy wasn’t present.) And when asked by organizers whether they approved of the mayor’s plan to roll back homelessness by 1 percent annually or 2,500 people over four years, and what their goal would be, everyone followed Levine’s suggestion of a 50 percent rollback—though the timeframe was not clear.

Metro-IAF also sought a commitment from the candidates to their goal of building 15,000 units of affordable senior housing on NYCHA or other city-owned vacant lots. All four candidates agreed to that goal, though later on Levine did note that he wanted to work hand in hand with NYCHA residents and not have anything built without residents’ consensus.

Their answers differed more significantly when they discussed the lead paint scandal—the fact that NYCHA had falsely certified to the federal government that it had been in compliance with lead paint inspection requirements—with Williams and Cornegy appearing to be more willing to challenge the tenure of NYCHA’s chair Shola Olatoye. They also had differing answers to the question of how many units in the mayor’s housing plan should be set aside for families making below $40,000, with Williams offering the biggest number. He also called for the consolidation of the housing and homelessness plans, with the elimination of one commissioner or deputy mayor.

Johnson, at a few points, tried to offer a realist’s perspective: He was the one who reminded the room that it’s up to the state to create a construction authority, and so the next Speaker would need to lobby Albany. As for the 15,000 units, Johnson said it was not something he could do on his own: “I want to be honest, I don’t just want to pander…whoever the speaker is cannot wave a magic wand and force the mayor to do anything. So what this is going to take is inside agitators and the speaker should be working with outside agitators,” he said.

Rezoning and member deference

Using answers to the City Limits Q&A, we looked at the candidates’ stances on neighborhood rezonings.

We also looked at the candidate’s responses at the NY1 debate to the question of whether they would continue the practice of “member deference,” in which all other councilmembers defer to the local councilmember’s decision on land-use projects in their district. Advocates say the informal policy recognizes the councilmember’s local knowledge and provides a councilmember with backing during negotiations with developers, while critics say it allows “NIMBY-ism” (Not In My Back Yard!) to triumph over citywide goals.

Most of the councilmembers said they would continue the practice of local deference, but Richards and Williams both stressed the importance of the speaker using their leadership to help the body make difficult decisions about citywide goals. Williams, in particular, has a history of being a dissenting, activist voice when he feels a project doesn’t live up to citywide goals, and recently released a vision for the next four years that includes giving the Council more land use powers.

Legislative accomplishments

This chart quantifies the number of bills and resolutions introduced to the Housing and Buildings Committee or the Public Housing Committee within the Council by each candidate during the last four years, and provides a few examples of such bills. You can see full lists of those bills, by candidate, here. Oftentimes it’s the councilmembers who belong to a committee who submit the most bills to that committee, though Cornegy and Richards were exceptions, with Cornegy submitting few bills to the Housing and Buildings Committee on which he sits, and Richards submitting none to the Public Housing Committee, of which he’s also a member. Richards, it should be noted, has had a major role in shaping land-use deals over the past few years as the chair of the council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises—and those efforts don’t show up in the legislative count. The chart does not include Levine’s landmark legislation establishing a right to counsel.

Donations from real estate

We looked at each of the councilmembers’ donations from the last election season and used search+find to uncover every donation labelled “real estate,” “realtor,” “realty,” “architect,” “architecture,” “construction,” “properties,” “developer,” “development,” or “property management” under name, occupation or firm. We double checked that those that fell under developer or development weren’t referring to non-real estate entities, and excluded construction unions and nonprofit affordable housing developers when we could, because while such entities are engaged in real estate development, they are not profit-driven and in some (though not all) cases have in fact been major critics of redevelopment projects like neighborhood rezonings. We also corrected completely obvious mistakes when we spotted them, such as the inclusion of donations from employees of the School Construction Authority. Finally, we added in any donations from those who listed their employer as one of the top twenty developers, as ranked by NY Curbed in 2014, or who is the head of that company or their spouse.

Granted, it’s an imperfect method—one that will sweep up architects who are really just academics, construction-firm workers who are also anti-displacement activists, and real-estate agents not seeking to influence politics. It also doesn’t distinguish between a candidate who receives hefty donations from big developers and candidates who receive many smaller donations from local construction contractors, small-time realtors, and the like.

Ranked by raw dollars, Johnson received the most donations from real estate. It’s possible this could be because he is considered the front runner in the race for speaker by some and represents one of the hottest real-estate markets in the city. It’s also true that he received a boost from real estate donors, though much less support than in this past election, when he first ran in 2013, and that he worked in real estate: for the Wall Street firm GFI Development Corporation from 2008 to 2010 and a stint for a hotel developer. Van Bramer, who represents the hot real-estate market of Long Island City, comes second.

Ranked by percent of donations out of total donations received, it’s actually Richards who leads over Johnson—not surprising, given the power he holds as chair of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises.*

Projects of significance

Using LUCATs, the city’s database of land use applications, and referencing media coverage land use and zoning issues, we highlighted a significant land use project in each district. It’s not the best method for making direct comparisons because the varying density and demographics of each district mean each councilmember faces his own unique set of pressures. But it does give a sense of the land-use issues that have preoccupied these councilmembers recently.

*Corrections: Previously misstated that Donovan Richards chairs the Land Use Committee. He chairs the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises. In the section about land use projects, accidentally stated that the existing residents of Lambert Houses would not be relocated within the buildings during the renovation. In fact, the buildings will be sequentially demolished and rebuilt, but tenants will be relocated in the buildings and will not be displaced.