In this year’s election, New York City voters are being asked to weigh in on one of the hottest-button issues in municipal politics: land use. Ballot questions 2, 3 and 4, proposed by outgoing mayor Eric Adams’s Charter Revision Commission, would make it modestly easier for certain types of housing to get one-off exemptions from the city’s restrictive zoning rules. These proposals have generated heated debate – and strange bedfellows.

Opponents of the proposal include City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and the conservative wing of the city council, which includes many members from outer-borough homeowner neighborhoods but also many labor unions and tenant groups like the Met Council on Housing and the Crown Heights Tenant Union. Supporters include business groups like the Partnership for New York City but also a number of tenant and socialist organizers, including Housing Justice for All leader Cea Weaver and the leaders of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA)’s social housing campaign. Andrew Cuomo supports the ballot measures, while Curtis Sliwa is opposed; Zohran Mamdani has yet to take a public position.

The controversy stems from two sources: a debate over how much housing New York City should build, and a confusion over what “affordable housing” actually means.