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There seems to be a lot of voter confusion around ballot proposals two through four, partly because the coalition against them is kind of weird — Staten Island Republicans and the Crown Heights Tenant Union both want you to vote “no,” for example. When it comes to the mayoral candidates, Andrew Cuomo is a “yes” and Curtis Sliwa is a “no” on the matter of shifting power away from the City Council when it comes to building new housing. Zohran Mamdani, though, has so far sidestepped the question, saying only that he’s still having “active conversations with labor leaders, elected officials, and other stakeholders” about the measures. But someone with his ear on housing has shared how they’re voting: Cea Weaver, a housing adviser to Mamdani and the executive director of Housing Justice for All, is voting for them.
“I’m planning to vote yes on the ballot measures,” Weaver said on the Max Politics podcast last week. “I understand the concerns that are coming from some of the Council, and I hope that Mayor Mamdani can ensure that all neighborhoods get the investment that they need to serve their people.” She added that she believes the current land-use process doesn’t work very well and doesn’t always “lead to the best community engagement anyway.” And while she acknowledged the importance of councilmembers being able to leverage the current system to win things for their communities, she added, “What I would say is that’s not a very good way to plan the city.”
She continued by saying that Ballot Proposal 3 — which proposes to “create a simplified review process, known as the Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP), for certain land use changes” — could be a useful tool in building more affordable housing, especially when it comes to the city directly acquiring property. Specifically, Weaver was thinking about “our distressed rent-stabilized stock,” she said on the podcast. (The city could, for example, purchase foreclosed rent-stabilized buildings and maintain them as affordable housing.) “I think the ballot measure would make something like that easier,” allowing the city to “move more nimbly to solve crises in the market,” she said.