Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City unveiled a sweeping housing plan on Tuesday, pledging to build 200,000 affordable homes and stabilize the nation\u2019s largest public housing system.<\/p>\n
Mr. Mamdani proposed spending $22 billion on housing over the next five years, including $5.6 billion to improve public housing specifically. His lengthy plan<\/a> calls for zoning changes in some neighborhoods that are not building enough housing, working with private developers to shore up public housing and building more homes near transit hubs.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani centered his mayoral campaign on addressing the city\u2019s affordability crisis, including high housing costs. At a rally in Brooklyn on Tuesday where he laid out his housing plan, he described his ambitions using his typical lofty rhetoric, though some of his goals will be difficult to implement.<\/p>\n \u201cLet the largest city in the nation deliver the largest municipal housing transformation this country has ever seen,\u201d Mr. Mamdani said.<\/p>\n Housing advocates praised the plan, while some real estate and business leaders expressed concerns about the mayor\u2019s calls for higher wages for construction workers, even as Mr. Mamdani appeared to backtrack from a campaign promise to use union labor on affordable housing projects.<\/p>\n Annemarie Gray, the executive director of Open New York, a nonprofit group that supports more development, called the plan an \u201call-of-the-above approach that centers on building more homes, especially in the neighborhoods that have not done enough to be part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n But Steven Fulop, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, said that while the plan had the right goals, he worried that Mr. Mamdani\u2019s calls for construction workers to earn $40 an hour in wages and benefits, even if they are not union workers, would add to building costs.<\/p>\n \u201cNew York needs 200,000 new affordable homes, and it is a moral imperative, but regulations won\u2019t build housing \u2014 private investment does,\u201d Mr. Fulop said. \u201cRight now, parts of this plan make that investment harder, not easier.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of committing to using union workers to build affordable housing, Mr. Mamdani told reporters that he would support the implementation of the local Construction Justice Act<\/a>, which sets a minimum wage for workers. He also said that the city would consider new labor agreements through an \u201cinteragency working group.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani said his goal was to provide \u201csafe and good paying jobs with strong labor standards.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, ran for mayor on a platform of freezing the rent for the city\u2019s nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments and building 200,000 units of affordable housing. His plan provides details about how he wants to build those units and preserve or stabilize an additional 200,000 homes.<\/p>\n It also includes several measures aimed at stabilizing the city\u2019s crumbling public housing system, which is overseen by the New York City Housing Authority and is home to roughly 300,000 New Yorkers.<\/p>\n NYCHA residents regularly struggle with heat outages, broken elevators and mold, and the cost of backlogged repairs has soared to nearly $80 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani\u2019s plan calls for using two existing financing tools to raise money for repairs, restoring thousands of vacant apartments and building new housing on land owned by the authority.<\/p>\n During his campaign, Mr. Mamdani pledged to double the city\u2019s capital funding<\/a> for NYCHA. Mr. Mamdani is now proposing to fund the housing authority with $5.6 billion in capital spending over five years, a proposal that falls short of his campaign promise.<\/p>\n The city dedicated $1.3 billion in capital dollars to the authority in 2025<\/a>, under the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams, and it planned to spend $700 million in 2026 and $300 million in 2027.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani\u2019s office said he was proposing the largest capital investment in recent history. Leila Bozorg, the city\u2019s deputy mayor for housing and planning, said that Mr. Mamdani still aimed to double NYCHA\u2019s capital funding \u201cover the course of the administration\u201d and that the housing plan offered a path \u201cto help us get there.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani had until now focused more on advocating for a rent freeze and targeting bad landlords, and he had given comparatively less attention to the dire conditions faced by tenants in public housing<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think this is a holistic approach to really try to chip away at the issues facing NYCHA, including the backlog that residents deal with each day,\u201d Ms. Bozorg said.<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s housing plan makes use of two existing programs to make upgrades to public housing. The Permanent Affordability Commitment Together<\/a>, or PACT, partners with private developers; another, called the Public Housing Preservation Trust, leases NYCHA buildings<\/a> to a public benefit corporation.<\/p>\n With the preservation trust, the Mamdani administration hopes to renovate 25,000 apartments, starting with the Nostrand Houses in Brooklyn<\/a> and the Bronx River Addition<\/a>, which will receive gut renovations and upgrades to elevators and heating and cooling systems.<\/p>\n Residents must vote to join the PACT and preservation trust programs<\/a>, and some have been worried about losing their rights under a new structure.<\/p>\n When Mr. Mamdani was asked on Tuesday about his opposition to the preservation trust as a state lawmaker, he said that he had been concerned that residents did not have enough of a voice in the program.<\/p>\n His plan calls for a series of meetings at PACT developments after conversions to elevate residents\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that I stand here as the mayor, I\u2019m incredibly excited about putting forward a plan where those residents \u2014 their input is a critical part of how we move forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The plan calls for renovating at least 4,500 vacant apartments and aims to \u201creboot NYCHA\u2019s role as a public developer\u201d to build housing on the land the authority owns. It also commits to expanding career training for residents.<\/p>\n Rachel Fee, the executive director of the New York Housing Conference, a nonprofit group that represents the affordable housing industry, said that the Mamdani administration appeared to be \u201con the right track by putting residents at the center of the process while expanding proven financing strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNYCHA has been underinvested in, undervalued and too often overlooked \u2014 but there is enormous potential to improve residents\u2019 quality of life through meaningful investment and thoughtful redevelopment of its campuses,\u201d Ms. Fee said.<\/p>\n But Ramona Ferreyra, the founder of Save Section 9<\/a>, a group dedicated to preserving traditional public housing, said that the mayor\u2019s plan was not enough and that some ideas, such as adding an ombudsman for critical repairs, seemed like another layer of bureaucracy.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t need another hotline to call,\u201d Ms. Ferreyra said. \u201cI need taxpayer money to be used to invest in, rehabilitate and expand public housing.\u201d<\/p>\n The mayor oversees NYCHA, which relies on a mix of federal, state and city funding. It has more than 170,000 apartments across 330 developments. Many were built more than a half century ago, and conditions inside them have become dire.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani is holding a series of \u201cNYCHA in Your Neighborhood\u201d events<\/a> in May and June to hear from public housing residents. The mayor received some criticism because NYCHA facilities were not initially included in the city\u2019s \u201crental rip-off\u201d hearings<\/a>, which were geared toward renters in private buildings.<\/p>\n Daniel Barber, a lifelong resident of the Jackson Houses in the Bronx and the president of the Citywide Council of Presidents, a group of NYCHA leaders, said that plans to repair elevators and heating and to get residents more involved represented the bare minimum. He argued the plan did not do enough to address NYCHA\u2019s significant financial shortfalls.<\/p>\n Ms. Ferreyra and Mr. Barber also raised concerns over the administration\u2019s embrace of the private sector. The plan relies too heavily on \u201cleveraged financing, public-private arrangements and land development strategies,\u201d Mr. Barber said, adding that he would prefer a focus on \u201cfully repairing and preserving the existing public housing stock.\u201d<\/p>\n