The former chair of the Boston Zoning Commission said he was unceremoniously fired from a position he’s held for roughly two decades after casting the deciding vote that killed the mayor’s plan to speed up climate-friendly building restrictions.

Jay Hurley, a retired ironworker labor union leader, said he wasn’t aware he was given the boot until he contacted the Boston Planning and Development Agency to inquire as to why he hadn’t received last week’s meeting agenda and materials, and got a call hours later from a longtime city official who told him bluntly, “You’ve been replaced.”

“I was shocked,” Hurley, a longtime Southie resident, told the Herald Monday.

He said he wasn’t contacted by the mayor’s office, and sees his firing as a direct reaction to the deciding vote he cast last month against Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to accelerate the timeline for when new buildings would be required to adhere to net-zero emission standards, by a decade, from 2035 to 2025.

“There’s an action and there’s a reaction,” Hurley said. “And the reaction was, you don’t vote our way, we’ll replace you, and that’s exactly what happened.”

“My only question to that is, ‘if that’s the case, why do you even have the board?’” Hurley added. “The board is just a joke. It’s non-existent. If people aren’t allowed to listen to the whole story and then vote what they think is the right way to vote on something, then why even go through the motions? Why have the board?”

His removal from the commission was first reported by Contrarian Boston.

Hurley, 70, has been on the Zoning Commission for about 20 years, having been appointed by former Mayor Thomas Menino. His tenure continued under the Walsh administration, and for a brief period, under Acting Mayor Kim Janey, who served in that capacity until Michelle Wu was elected mayor and sworn into office.

In the past, Hurley said he’s taken votes or acted against the will of the city administration, but he didn’t see other mayors taking it personally, as he is interpreting Wu as having done, given her decision to replace him on the board.

“Nobody was tougher than Menino, and I used to get him upset once a week with something I’d be doing from the ironworking vantage point,” he said. “He had plenty of times he could have knocked me off the board. When we disagreed on stuff, he never took it personally. He was a great mayor, as was Marty.

“You don’t see this,” he added. “This is way below their pay grade.”

The vote at issue took place Aug. 14, when Hurley joined three other commissioners in voting against the mayor’s net-zero carbon zoning initiative, meaning that the 13-member board, while voting 6-4 to approve the proposal, fell a vote shy of the seven-vote majority that was needed to pass it.

As chair, Hurley automatically votes last, and therefore, was tasked with, in this case, casting the deciding vote.

He voted ‘no,’ saying that he felt accelerating a previously-agreed upon deadline by 10 years, which he said would lead to higher costs for developers to adhere to climate-friendly standards for new construction and exacerbate the city’s housing crunch, was “too much, too soon.”

“I guess that was a sticking point,” Hurley said. “I was the seventh vote. So be it. If you can’t vote with your conscience, what are you going to do?”

The mayor’s office said last month that the administration plans to seek an additional vote on the initiative from the Zoning Commission at a future meeting.

A spokesperson for Mayor Wu denied Hurley’s assertions of his removal being retaliatory in nature, saying in a statement on Monday, “We have been steadily filling seats on the many city boards and commissions, and are still catching up on some expirations, but our team is working to keep the business of the city moving forward.”

The mayor’s office added, “With regards to the Zoning Commission, Mr. Hurley’s term had expired, so he had graciously been serving in holdover status for some time.”

The Wu administration worked to identify a new representative for the AFL-CIO seat occupied by Hurley, and filed to officially fill the seat on Aug. 2. The City Council confirmation hearing took place on Aug. 12, and the full Council confirmation vote was on Aug. 28, the mayor’s office said.

“We have apologized to Mr. Hurley for any miscommunication about this timeline, and did reach out to him several times prior to the most recent meeting on Sept. 10,” the mayor’s office said.

Hurley’s removal, while downplayed by the mayor’s office on Monday, prompted a city councilor, Erin Murphy, to file a hearing order Monday calling for a discussion to “review the procedures and protocols for the termination of city appointees.”

Murphy’s order references the termination of a “long-standing member of the Zoning Commission” who wasn’t formally notified of such action, which she said raises “concerns about the adequacy of the current procedure for terminating city appointees.”

“There is a need to review and potentially revise the procedures for notifying and handling the termination of city appointees to ensure that such actions are carried out in a manner that respects the rights and responsibilities of both the appointees and the city administration,” Murphy’s order states.

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The hearing order appears to have the support of City Councilor Ed Flynn, an ally of Murphy and fellow antagonist of the mayor who is considering challenging Wu in a 2025 mayoral bid.

“Jay Hurley is one of the most knowledgeable and respected community leaders in Boston,” Flynn said in a statement. “During challenging economic times in Boston’s development community, the experience, advice and recommendations from leaders like Jay Hurley is invaluable to building a city that not only supports our tax base, but also provides a clear path to the middle class for working families.”

Hurley, for his part, says that he’ll be fine, noting that as a grandfather of five, he has plenty to do. He also joked that given the commission’s stipend of a couple thousand dollars, he’s “been fired from better jobs than this,” but admitted his removal still stings.

“It’s still kind of weird that when Wednesdays come, I don’t have to get everything prepped and ready and go listen to the next great thing that’s going to be built in our city,” Hurley said. “I’m really going to miss it. It’s sad. There were a couple of days I was down in the dumps because I just felt like I was embarrassed.

“But it is what it is,” he said. “I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”