“If the city is actually contemplating a ban on hotels, it would be a devastating blow to our remarkably resilient tourist economy, to the many service industries that are linked to hotels and to multiple neighborhoods,” said Mitchell Korbey, a land use attorney at Herrick Feinstein. “There is no land use rationale and absolutely no zoning or public policy justification for this.”

The new rule, if adopted, would make hotel development one of the most restricted use groups in the city—beyond even potentially hazardous operations such as petrochemical storage and other businesses that many city residents might find distasteful, including pornography stores, both of which are permitted as-of-right in specified areas.

The orders from City Hall to explore the policy change come just months after the Hotel Trades Council came out as the sole union backer of de Blasio’s presidential campaign—giving his sputtering bid a lift. A report in The New York Post revealed that about 70% of de Blasio’s presidential campaign contributions have come from the union’s members.

At a press conference with de Blasio in early June to announce the HTC’s support of de Blasio, Peter Ward, the HTC’s president, stated that he would like to see the city pursue a citywide special permit for hotels, the Post reported.

The city sought to dispel the notion that the HTC endorsement and its financial support for de Blasio’s presidential campaign spurred the decision to move ahead with the special permit.

"Since the start of this administration, we have examined ways to better regulate construction of hotels across the city, including the use of a special permit process citywide," a City Hall spokeswoman told Crain's in a statement. "This pre-dates the June event.”

Observers say that a special permit would, in many cases, assure that new hotels use the HTC’s labor pool, because of the influence the union holds with City Council members through political giving and endorsements. The special permit process grants the City Council veto power over any project that passes through it, giving the political body the power to leverage concessions from developers on behalf of constituents or financial backers.

“This is pure politics under the guise of planning,” said Kenneth Fisher, a real estate attorney at Cozen O’Connor who served a decade as a City Councilman. “If you have a Councilmember that is supportive of the union, it’s unlikely a hotel project would get their signoff unless that project signed a neutrality agreement with the HTC at a minimum. There might be a district where that particular local Councilmember is immune to pressure from the union, but that would be the exception rather than the rule.”