Metropolis Council Minority Chief Joann Ariola is without doubt one of the plaintiffs on a lawsuit searching for to overturn Mayor Eric Adams’ Metropolis of Sure for Housing Affordability plan. Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
A conservative metropolis lawmaker-led group filed a lawsuit on Tuesday evening searching for to dam Mayor Eric Adams’ Metropolis of Sure plan — a seismic overhaul of metropolis zoning laws geared toward constructing extra housing throughout the 5 boroughs.
Within the swimsuit, filed on Staten Island in Richmond County Supreme Courtroom, the plaintiffs allege that the Adams administration and the Metropolis Council violated metropolis and state environmental overview legal guidelines by passing the Metropolis of Sure late final 12 months. If profitable, they are saying the lawsuit would additionally overturn two different Metropolis of Sure zoning plans handed by the administration over the previous 12 months—one geared toward chopping carbon emissions and one other designed to spice up enterprise progress.
A coalition of principally Republican metropolis and state lawmakers, civic teams, housing associations, and people introduced the motion. Town, mayor, Metropolis Council, Division of Metropolis Planning, and Metropolis Planning Fee are all named as defendants within the swimsuit.
“What you are seeing here today is a citywide grassroots organization that is fighting back,” she mentioned. “A movement of local residents here in our city fighting back and who refuse to have their neighborhoods destroyed. They will not have their rights trampled.”
Ariola, together with the opposite lawmakers within the group, has railed in opposition to the plan because it was launched. They argue it might essentially alter the outer borough neighborhoods they symbolize by opening them as much as builders searching for to construct extra housing.
Jack Lester is the lawyer for a gaggle who’s suing Mayor Eric Adams over his Metropolis of Sure for Housing plan. Wednesday, March 26, 2025.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
In response to the swimsuit, mayoral spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk mentioned, “When it comes to housing, there will always be those who say, ‘Not in my backyard,’ but we stand by the city’s thorough and transparent review process and will address any lawsuit when it is received.”
The mayor signed Metropolis of Sure into legislation in December after the 51-member Metropolis Council handed it by a 31-to-20 vote. The plan is estimated to yield 82,000 new models of housing distributed throughout the 5 boroughs over the subsequent 15 years.
Nevertheless, the plaintiffs argue that each the administration and the council didn’t take a “hard look” on the destructive impacts of the zoning overhaul, thus operating afoul of each the State Environmental High quality Overview Act and metropolis Environmental Laws.
In addition they cost that the town was not forthright about how a lot the adjustments would pressure neighborhoods’ infrastructure and assets by allegedly not factoring within the environmental impacts of the opposite two Metropolis of Sure plans into the housing overhaul.
“The fact that they looked at it independently, intentionally to minimize the environmental impacts, I don’t believe will be sustained in court,” mentioned Jack Lester, the group’s lawyer. “It’s a classic case of what they call unlawful segmentation.”
Conservative Democratic Council Member Robert Holden claimed that the Division of Metropolis Planning ignored infrastructure points in his low-slung southwestern Queens district in passing the plan. These points embrace continual flooding and an overtaxed electrical grid, he mentioned.
Holden added that constructing extra housing within the neighborhoods he represents would alter the character that introduced individuals there within the first place.
“We’re going to fight like hell to protect our neighborhoods,” Holden mentioned. “We have the right to feel the sun in our backyards because we chose that when we bought our home. We said we want to have sun; we don’t want to have skyscrapers.”
