Two Surprises in Brad Lander’s Housing Plan for NYC

Two things in mayoral candidate Brad Lander’s “state of emergency” housing plan surprised me:

A panel of “randomly selected” New Yorkers would decide which projects get fast-tracked
New neighborhoods would replace four of the city’s 12 public golf courses, but there’s a catch.

The first idea seems like a crude attempt at providing political cover for the laudable goal of expediting projects.

Lander touts his housing chops. Indeed, he has a lot of experience in the area. I have known him since he ran a Brooklyn housing nonprofit in the early 1990s.

Why, then, would he pick people off the street to “develop a land-use framework for New York City that reflects a bold commitment to housing growth”?

Mayor Eric Adams, for all his faults, at least named a star-studded panel chaired by Richard Buery to make development faster, cheaper and better by reforming the City Charter.

Lander’s “Citizen Assembly” wouldn’t have the same power as Buery’s panel. It’s not clear it would have any power at all — or any purpose, really, other than to provide a veneer of public participation and blunt criticism of the results. (“Don’t blame me, blame the committee!”)

Elected officials sometimes form committees to push back a controversial decision. But buying time to solve a “housing emergency” doesn’t make sense. We need action, not political theater and committee meetings.

Lander’s campaign spokesperson said the citizens panel would cause no delay because fast-tracking would initially be done using temporary criteria. After about nine months, the assembly would submit a “land use framework” to the City Planning Commission.

But the city has an entire agency for that: the Department of City Planning. No doubt its professional planners rolled their eyes at Lander’s idea to use amateurs instead.

As for the golf course proposal, it was at once bold and a cop-out. Bold, because replacing golf courses with housing would be controversial, and a cop-out, because Lander didn’t specify which courses he would sacrifice.

New Yorkers would have to elect him to find out. Once in office, Lander would conduct a feasibility study to see which golf courses “present the best opportunities for new development.”

To be sure, naming names before the June primary would be political suicide: Golfers and NIMBYs would go crazy. Weepy stories about disadvantaged kids playing the courses would surface in local media.

The city has four public courses in the Bronx, four in Queens, two in Brooklyn and two on Staten Island. They total 2,500 acres and host about 500,000 rounds of golf per year. They’re mostly empty. Prospect Park, which is one-fifth as large and lacks golf, has 20 times as many visitors as all the courses combined.

“Given the decline in the popularity of the sport and the scale of the city’s housing crisis, it is time to rethink whether the city continues to need a dozen golf courses and if there’s a better use of some of this public land,” Lander’s plan states.

Usage did fall at four public courses from 2008 to 2018, the Queens Tribune reported six years ago, but the only significant drop was at Staten Island’s LaTourette, which lacks mass transit and is bordered by narrow, crowded roads. There’s not a chance in hell of putting development there.

It’s smart to explore better uses for all property, whether city-owned or private. Lander notes that Electchester, a 38-building complex in Queens, was built on the former Pomonok Country Club golf course.

But if Lander believes four golf courses could become sustainable neighborhoods, he should just evaluate those, not the ones in transit deserts.

Courses without trains nearby would be better off returned to nature than peppered with homes. They have no place in a housing plan.