Legislative Action Center
We work with officials in City Hall, Albany, and Washington to shape the rules that decide whether Manhattan businesses survive and grow. We bring the data, the case studies, and the owners who live with the consequences. But nothing moves policymakers like hearing from you directly.
Making Manhattan work for business, and for New Yorkers
A city that works for business is a city that works for people. When businesses open, hire, and grow, neighborhoods feel safer, jobs are stronger, and opportunity spreads. Six things we are working toward:
Safe, clean streets
Day and night, every block should feel welcoming to customers, workers, and residents.
Small businesses that grow, not just hang on
From barbershops to biotech, every enterprise should have a real path to expand.
Clear, fair rules
Enforcement should fix problems, not create them. Rules must be simple, transparent, and applied the same way everywhere.
Hiring that makes sense
Costs and red tape shouldn’t make adding a job impossible. Benefits should follow the worker, not burden the smallest employers.
Tourism that reaches every neighborhood
Visitor spending should lift storefronts uptown and downtown, not only the biggest landmarks.
City services that work like a modern organization
Clear permits, fast approvals, and a real-time answer on where an application stands.
What guides every position we take
We lobby, but we lobby on evidence. Every position on this page traces back to these five ideas.
When rent, insurance, fines, delays, and red tape spike, prices go up and hiring goes down.
Wages, benefits, and stability all depend on businesses that are growing, not just surviving. We judge every proposal by whether it makes it easier or harder to hire the next person.
If customers don’t feel comfortable walking down the block, businesses fail and everyone loses.
Owners already manage rent, staff, suppliers, and customers. Confusing permits, slow approvals, and inconsistent enforcement shouldn’t be added to that list.
If a bill strengthens New York City's commercial life, we're for it, whoever sponsors it. If it costs more than it delivers, we say so, whoever sponsors it.
Where we stand
Legislation, rules, and proposals the Chamber is actively engaged on. Open any item for our reasoning and the documents behind it.
We support
Measures that lower the cost of doing business, make City government more predictable, and bring customers back to the storefront.
Our flagship 2026 campaign and the policy agenda of the Storefront Business Coalition, led by the Chamber and co-chaired by Deborah Koenigsberger and Patrick Hall. One platform for NYC’s brick-and-mortar businesses: safe storefronts, fair leases, fair enforcement, affordable taxes and fees, and economic accountability. Launched in February; three of its asks are now law.
- WONGrille gate mandate repealed. The Council voted 51–0 on June 30 to scrap the July 1 deadline that would have forced thousands of storefronts to replace their roll-down gates. Existing gates are grandfathered.
- WONSecurity assistance for small retailers. Int. 553-A creates a city program to offset the cost of cameras, plexiglass, and panic buttons. We testified for it in February and are now pushing for funding and a fast launch.
- WONRed Tape Relief Act (Local Law 132 of 2026). Revives a single city point of contact to coordinate inspections across agencies so new businesses open faster.
Six more coalition-backed bills are in the Council now, including Int. 875 on permit timelines, an OATH portal to submit proof of cured violations, and Intro 879 on short-term rentals.
Since 2024, the Council must publish a fiscal impact statement before it votes. It should also know what a bill will do to jobs, prices, and small businesses. We have drafted a local law that lets the Council request a published economic analysis of pending legislation, prepared by the Finance Division with the Independent Budget Office, with a public comment window before a final vote.
A business waiting on a permit should be able to see where it stands and when it will get an answer. Int. 875 sets approval timelines for City agencies, requires real-time tracking of applications, and holds agencies accountable when they miss. The Chamber is leading the coalition behind this bill.
Local Law 18 was meant to stop illegal hotels. It also shut down homeowners renting a spare room. Intro 879 amends the law for owner-occupied one- and two-family homes: up to four guests, a lockable bedroom, and the ability to host while traveling. That brings visitor spending to neighborhoods the big hotels never reach. We are working with the other four borough chambers on this.
Legalizing shared housing, with private rooms and shared kitchens, would let older Class B and C office buildings convert to homes faster and more affordably. More residents on those blocks means more customers for the ground-floor retail that is struggling most. We support the bill and its coalition.
A double benefit: restaurants earn revenue on unused kitchen capacity, and neighbors in need get nutritious, restaurant-quality meals.
The terminal drives tourism spending for West Side businesses but needs an upgrade to stay competitive. We are urging Congress to authorize improvements through WRDA, a window that opens only every two years.
Would bring standard comparative-negligence liability rules to federally funded projects in New York, overriding the state’s Scaffold Law on those projects and lowering the insurance costs that make housing and infrastructure so expensive to build here.
The 2026 policy agenda of the Five Borough Jobs Campaign, led by the Chamber with more than 30 partner organizations: a blueprint for City and State leaders to reverse negative trends, create good-paying jobs, and build vibrant communities.
We support with changes
The goal is right. The mechanism needs work. We are at the table with specific fixes.
We support the parts of Int. 90 that give tenants clearer information and fairer dealings with landlords. We strongly oppose its mandatory lease-extension, or “right to renew,” provision. Our research shows the real constraint on Manhattan storefronts is persistence, not price: spaces sit empty for years because of what it takes to open, not for lack of tenants who can pay. A right to renew would freeze that problem in place.
Consumers should be able to cancel a subscription as easily as they signed up. Our concern is that the rule lands on small business owners who have never heard of it, many of whom run their subscriptions on platforms like Shopify that may or may not be compliant. With Tech:NYC and all five borough chambers, we asked the City for a cure period before penalties, clear guidance for businesses, and direct outreach to the major platforms. In return, the chambers will carry that guidance through our networks and host compliance sessions in every borough.
Where it stands: DCWP has responded in writing. The agency did not commit to a formal cure period, but says complaints will be mediated first, with the goal of achieving compliance before enforcement, and that it is planning outreach to the major platforms. We are continuing to press for written guidance businesses can rely on.
Sidewalk sheds hide storefronts, and some stay up for years. We support the Buildings Department’s move to allow containment netting instead, with recommendations to make sure the alternative actually gets used and storefronts stay visible.
We oppose
Proposals that would cost jobs, raise prices, or push business out of the city, whatever their stated intent.
Int. 757 would authorize New York City to set its own minimum wage, separate from the State’s, and raise it to $30 an hour by 2030 for large employers and shortly after for small ones, with automatic increases every year after that. Nearly doubling the wage floor on top of the existing State standard, with no independent analysis of what it does to hours, hiring, and prices, and no offset for the smallest employers, would accelerate closures on exactly the blocks we are trying to keep open. State law also almost certainly preempts a local wage, which means years of litigation before anyone sees a raise.
What we would support instead: benefits that follow the worker rather than burden the smallest employer, and a Local Economic Impact Analysis before the Council votes on any wage mandate.
We share every goal this bill names: safer streets, safer warehouses, better treatment of drivers. We oppose the mechanism. Banning delivery subcontracting would wipe out dozens of locally owned delivery firms, many minority-owned and most paying above $20 an hour with benefits, while the largest operators simply move facilities across the Hudson and take the jobs and the oversight with them.
What we would support instead: fully staffing DCWP to enforce the protections already on the books, regulating routes and quotas directly, proven vehicle safety technology, fixing curbs and loading zones around facilities, and public, facility-level reporting of crashes and injuries.
Rent control for storefronts and a tax on vacant ones both start from the same mistaken diagnosis: that landlords are holding out for a higher price. Our data says the opposite. Manhattan storefronts stay empty for years because opening one takes too long and costs too much. Regulating rents would make owners more cautious about who they lease to, and a vacancy tax would punish the very owners trying to fill space. Fix the time to open, and the storefronts fill.
Eliminating the tip credit would impose an unsustainable cost on independent restaurants, forcing owners to cut jobs, raise prices, or close at a time when the industry is still recovering.
The bill’s private right of action and high-cost audit requirements would push tech talent out of New York and penalize small businesses trying to modernize. We have asked the Legislature to fix the bill before it passes.
A federal rule now bars any business with an ownership stake held by certain noncitizen residents from the SBA’s core 7(a) and 504 loan programs. In a city where immigrants own a large share of small businesses, and whose economy is roughly a tenth of the nation’s, that shuts off capital to exactly the businesses the programs exist to serve. We are calling on Washington to reverse it.
Manhattan Chamber PAC
The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce PAC supports candidates for City and State office who understand and prioritize the needs of Manhattan businesses. Chaired by President & CEO Jessica Walker.
Contribute by check
Make checks payable to “Manhattan Chamber of Commerce PAC” and mail to:
New York, NY 10017
Running for office?
Candidates for City or State office who wish to request a contribution can reach us directly.
Contact usContributions to the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce PAC are not tax deductible and are subject to City and State contribution limits.
Have a question, or legislation you think we should weigh in on? We answer.
info@manhattancc.org