New York City’s much-disparaged office of borough president, which has been repeatedly targeted for abolition, is barely understood by most residents.
Yet it is immensely important on precisely the issue that tends to most galvanize the electorate — land use. BPs not only recommend which projects be approved and which rejected, they appoint representatives to the City Planning Commission as well as most community board members, who advise on zoning and permits. They also have tens of millions of dollars to distribute.
As communications consultant George Arzt says, land-use oversight is the “only real power remaining with the borough president, but it’s what makes New York City tick. Real estate is king in this city.”
Paul Travis, managing partner of Washington Square Partners, who has developed projects in every borough except Staten Island, adds, “Borough presidents are advocates — the only ones looking out for their boroughs as a whole. If New York had a mayor and no borough presidents do you think there would have been any money spent in downtown Brooklyn?”
It’s easy to dismiss the borough presidency because its powers were so diminished by the knock-out combination of a 1988 US Supreme Court decision that effectively abolished the Board of Estimate and the 1989 Charter Reform that strengthened the powers of the mayor and the council but made the borough president office mainly advisory.
But that advisory role in ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) — the city’s official process for citizens and elected officials to comment on development — has proved to be crucial in the right hands. In his two terms as Manhattan BP, Scott Stringer has played an influential role in every important proposed development, including Columbia University’s new campus in West Harlem, Hudson Yards on the West Side, and New York University’s expansion in Lower Manhattan.
Similarly, Brooklyn BP Marty Markowitz has to be given substantial credit for Brooklyn’s new prosperity, says Arzt. “Brooklyn has been looking for its place in the sun since the Dodgers left in 1957, which ripped its heart out. Now it’s back. Marty did a remarkable job in marketing Brooklyn.”
It’s probably no accident that the two most economically successful boroughs — Manhattan and Brooklyn — were served by the two borough presidents most effective in managing development.
But now what?
Manhattan has the most hotly contested BP race, with four experienced candidates — three elected officials, and one former community board chair. The front-runners are Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer and Julie Menin, former chair of Community Board 1 in lower Manhattan. Brewer received two blue-chip endorsements — the New York Times and the nonpartisan Citizens Union — in part because of her long career in government and her renowned constituent services.
After 9/11 destroyed her business, Menin founded Wall Street Rising, a community group representing residents and businesses with insurance companies. She promises to implement a master plan to deliver sustainable and equitable development for the entire borough.
The only other seriously contested BP race is in Queens, once the most powerful BP office in the city but recently more ceremonial than activist. Either leading candidate — Councilmember Peter Vallone or former Councilmember Melinda Katz — would most likely change that. Katz, who chaired the City Council’s Land Use Committee for eight years and who knows development well, would implement the often moribund Section 197-a of the City Charter to give citizens a greater voice in development. Vallone says he would be an advocate like Markowitz, produce policy papers and studies as Stringer has, and be involved in legislation like Bronx BP Rubén Díaz.
Díaz, who is running for reelection against appealing but virtually unknown small-business owner Mark Escoffery-Bey, may offer the most telling story for the future. He came to citywide attention in 2009 when he successfully campaigned to halt the Bloomberg administration’s redevelopment of Kingsbridge Armory as a shopping mall.
“The notion that any job is better than no job no longer applies,” he said at the time, maintaining that the mall’s developer should sign a living wage agreement.
The project was crushed, and the Armory stayed empty for years (it’s now slated to become an ice rink). The unemployment rate in The Bronx is 11.5%, the highest in the state.
Since then Díaz has taken conciliatory positions, calling himself pro-development and urging businesses to consider the Bronx. Travis, for one, believes Díaz has grown in the job, and has learned to an effective advocate for what his constituents want. We’ll see. His challenge is to help the Bronx share in the economic prosperity of the other boroughs — which is what this year’s elections are all about: who gets to share in New York’s prosperity and who gets left out.