Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg, Housing and Planning: Good morning, Brooklyn! It is so exciting to be here with you today. My name is Leila Bozorg. I am the deputy mayor for Housing and Planning. Today is an incredibly exciting day, as we release our housing plan, "Block by Block." So let me hear it if you think the rent is too darn high. And let me hear it if you're ready to build a better New York together. Thank you for being here today as we roll out our plan to create a more affordable city. On our administration's first day in office, many of us who are here today joined the mayor in the lobby of a long-neglected building in Flatbush.
There he signed three executive orders related to housing. Our work to stand up for tenants and build more affordable a city has continued from that moment on, informed by the approach set out in those three executive borders. So now, 145 days later, it is my immense privilege to introduce someone who has truly put the fight for affordability at the center of our politics, Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, my fellow New Yorkers! Let's go, Knicks! What you may have heard as I walked on was Ricky Martin's “Livin' La Vida Loca,” which was the number one song in the country the last time the Knicks were in the finals. So, I began today with a walk through Gowanus, past towers that will soon offer hundreds of affordable homes, past buildings with tenants whose organizing has transformed their standard of living, past Wyckoff Gardens where NYCHA residents are starting to see the change that real investment can bring. It is a privilege to finish that walk here at Powerhouse Arts. You know, I want to acknowledge a number of leaders we have here with us.
We have members of my administration, as you can see on stage and across the crowd. We also have our Council Member Shahana Hanif, whose district we are in. We have the former Council member, Brad Lander, who is here with us as well. We have Michelle de la Uz, the executive director of Fifth Avenue Committee. I want to give a special shout-out to the incredible coalition that's gathered here today from Housing Justice for All to labor unions, including Local 79 and 32BJ. To Open New York, to tenants' unions, to every single New Yorker that is coming here together today. Nearly a century ago, beneath the metro train tracks in East Harlem, 12 miles from where we stand today, James Baldwin was born. His family lived modestly. His father made a living as a factory worker and a Baptist preacher. His mother raised nine children. But still, they had enough to build a life in New York City. A city they sought out during the Great Migration, a city where opportunity was within reach. Life was not easy, but a better future felt possible, and in no small part because they had a home.
That home allowed their eldest son to grow up on the same streets as the artists of the Harlem Renaissance, to learn and read in the 135th Street Library [and] to become one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Echoes of this story have been heard countless times. In homes and apartments owned and rented across the five boroughs. When New Yorkers can afford a home, they can afford to dream. Yet the opportunities of the past have drifted out of the present's reach. It is nearly impossible today to find affordable housing in New York City. We face one of the most severe housing crises in American history. It is the single largest driver of the affordability crisis.
All over Harlem now, there is felt the same bitter expectancy, Baldwin wrote in 1948. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Today, too many New Yorkers feel that same bitter expectancy, the sense that nothing will ever get better, as they watch the rent climb, as they stay up late trying to find a way to afford to stay in the city that they love. This crisis did not arrive all of a sudden. For centuries, New York City built enough housing to keep pace with our population growth until the 1960s. Over the past 60 years, however, government helped create the housing crisis we now face through a series of choices. Beginning in 1961, zoning reform reduced our housing capacity by 80 percent. Further, bureaucratic changes only exacerbated how difficult it became to build. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration implemented drastic cuts to our public housing system, leading to decades of NYCHA's decline.
In the 1990s, new rent stabilization loopholes incentivized landlords to increase rents and push New Yorkers out of their apartments. These choices restricted growth and caused costs to balloon. They allowed bad landlords to neglect their tenants with impunity, and they turned a blind eye to crumbling public housing. These choices brought us to this moment. Today, we choose differently. If the absence of good government created the conditions we now face, the presence of good government can build the solutions we now need.
I am proud to announce that New York City will propose, pursue and deliver solutions to this crisis through our historic housing plan, Block by Block, a plan that matches not only our city's size, but [also] the scale of our city’s ambition. Before I share the details, I want to speak directly to every New Yorker who may be skeptical, because I know there are many. Some may be skeptical that the city can build, or that building is even the right solution. Others have watched the housing crisis worsen year after year but have been left out of the conversation on how to fix it. And I know that there are many who doubt that change can ever come. I wanna speak to the skeptical New Yorkers because I was once the skeptical New Yorker. Before I was mayor, before I was an Assembly member, I worked as a housing counselor for New Yorkers facing foreclosure. Every day, at our offices in Jackson Heights and Richmond Hill, I spoke to homeowners reckoning with the pain and complexity of this crisis. Rising costs, a daily fear of displacement [and] living under a cloud of anxiety that one-off emergencies could lead to mortgage delinquency. And every day after work, I came home to buildings going up in my neighborhood and neighbors asking who they were for. The conversation around housing was framed as a simple binary, a question reduced only to yes or no, a side you had to take between structures and people: “Do you believe in building, or do you believe [in] fighting for tenants? Should we build our way out of this, or should we organize to preserve what we have?”
For a long time, the two were framed as mutually exclusive. I wanted to make a difference in the lives of New Yorkers who were facing this crisis. So, I began to work for candidates who championed the tenant movement, a movement that won stronger rent stabilization laws and a right to counsel for tenants in housing court. I eventually ran for office myself and joined that fight in Albany, fighting for better protections and helping to win good cause eviction, a policy that prevents sudden displacement and price gouging in our city.
As we made it easier for New Yorkers to stay in their homes, one thing became increasingly clear. There was no way to drive down housing costs without also building more housing. I knew the lessons of Vienna were for nearly a century, [the] municipal government has built and financed housing directly. And data from other American cities told a clear story of what that building could lead to. Between 2015 and 2024, 120,000 homes were built in Austin. In December of 2021, Austin's median rent was $1,546. By this past January, it had fallen to $1,296, even as the city's population continued to grow. I saw these same patterns in Minneapolis and Seattle. It was clear, when it comes to housing, the binary we face is not between structures and people. It is not between building and organizing, nor is it between the tenants of today and the tenants of tomorrow.
It is a far more basic one. It is between a government that debates and a government that delivers. We can keep people in their homes, and we can build the homes that they need to live in. We have spoken about this crisis long enough. It is now time to do something about it. Our housing plan meets this crisis with the scale and urgency it demands. It invests billions of dollars in new affordable housing production. And it continues the vital work of protecting tenants from bad landlords and displacement. So, let's get into it. The first plank of our plan is all about building. We have set two of the most ambitious housing targets in modern New York City history. First, we are delivering on a promise we made during the campaign. Over the next decade, [the] City government will build 200,000 new, affordable rent-stabilized homes. This historic production push will increase the number of homes for homeless New Yorkers by nearly 45 percent, helping us connect thousands of those in need with permanent housing. Second, I am proud to announce, for the first time in our administration, that we will preserve and stabilize an additional 200,000 homes. Together, these 400,000 homes will be affordable for working people, and they will be made possible by [a] historic $22 billion capital investment over five years.
When it comes to affordable housing, no plan of this scale has ever been imagined by a past mayor, let alone proposed. We are the largest city in the nation. We have the resources, the talent and the will to achieve this. Expanding our housing supply will also kickstart our economy. As we build 200,000 new affordable homes, we will support an average of 30,000 good-paying jobs each year and generate 12,700 permanent jobs once these homes are completed. There is no path to meeting our 200,000 goals of building new homes without meaningful changes to our city's zoning code.
Last year, New Yorkers overwhelmingly approved ballot measures making it easier to build across our city. Our housing plan embraces these changes and commits to pursuing further reforms that not only make it easier to build but [also] help New Yorkers move into these homes faster. Our plan will pursue a multi-pronged strategy to make it easy for New Yorkers to buy a home, including creating hundreds of new affordable co-ops and community land trusts. And we will also make it easier for homeowners to stay in their homes as we combat deed theft and relaunch the mortgage assistance program.
Combined, these efforts will lead to growth beyond anything New Yorkers have seen in generations. For some, the dream of home ownership will finally be within reach. Others will be able to sleep easily in homes they no longer fear losing. The second plank of our housing plan includes some of the strongest and most expansive tenant protections anywhere in the United States of America. There is a reason why I put tenants front and center on my first day in office, when I visited a long-neglected rent-stabilized building and declared that we will not wait to deliver action.
Nearly 70 percent of New Yorkers do not own their homes. And yet tenants helped to carry this movement to City Hall because they believed in a city that could actually fight for them, that could protect them. From bad landlords that could actually ensure that their struggles would shape the policies that impact their lives. This plan that we present today was guided by New Yorkers’ testimony during our Rental Ripoff Hearings, and it reflects their concerns and their needs.
And as we empower tenants, we will place a special emphasis on those in the Bronx, who have so long been excluded from investments, who have been subjected to acute neglect and who have faced destructive fires at the highest rate in this city. I am proud to announce a legislative task force to overhaul our city's outdated housing maintenance code. When I say “housing,” you say, “maintenance code.” We will catch problems proactively and prevent them from becoming full-blown hazards, from day-to-day negligence to major breaches of fire code. We will also improve how 311 logs and investigates complaints. Starting on October 1 of this year, inspectors will investigate every single heat complaint the city receives. And we will support New Yorkers as they organize with their neighbors. If you form a tenant union, the city will stand with you. We will deliver the accountability you deserve from your landlord by doing a roof-to-basement inspection of your building.
Finally, through our new citywide campaign, “Fix the City,” we will focus on the worst landlords in New York City. When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers. And for buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we will work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards. Stewards that include community land trusts, nonprofits or even the tenants themselves.
The third core plank of our plan is years overdue. We will deliver the transformative investments that public housing has long needed but not received. Our public housing system, the largest of its kind in the country, was born from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's conviction that government owed its people decent, dignified homes. NYCHA began as a testament to something great: that government can not only imagine a better life for those it serves, but that it can fulfill that vision. And yet that conviction has become a relic of the past. After decades of disinvestment, NYCHA tenants have come to expect that no matter who is in office, they will be overlooked. Their concerns will be ignored. That ends today.
City Hall will rewrite a legacy of neglect with the largest city capital commitment to NYCHA in decades. $5.6 billion over five years. And we will do all of this while ensuring that NYCHA remains publicly owned and publicly operated. This is about putting city government in the driver's seat. This is about delivering the changes that New Yorkers have been demanding with little avail for decades. These funds will go towards comprehensive renovations guided by resident input. We will build on the success of the existing leak and mold call center and expand the model to other repairs. No longer will it take more than 400 days to fix an elevator in this city. When NYCHA residents call for help, they will be able to expect immediate improvements.
Longevity is the goal. This plan will reboot NYCHA as a public developer for the first time in generations. In doing so, it will equip our public housing system with a stream of revenue to sustain it well into the future. Each plank of this plan builds on the work that we have already advanced over the past six months. Since taking office, we have launched the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants and the Office of Deed Theft Prevention. We have cut red tape blocking affordable housing development. We have held bad landlords accountable to the tune of $65 million. And we have broken ground on thousands of affordable homes. Today, we make it official. We will finish the work we have started. We will prove that government can deliver on the solutions to the toughest problems, not just debate them.
I will close with this. So often when confronted with intractable challenges, the world has looked to New York City to show the way. We have built great things before. Skyscrapers that rise into the clouds; grand bridges, libraries and museums; the most ambitious public housing developments in the nation; a team that can come back from 22 points with a little more than six minutes left in the first game. Block by block, we will build once again. And we will prove that the belief we hold, that every person deserves a dignified home, is more than an ideal. It is a responsibility that government can and that government will fulfill. Beginning today, we will no longer speak in the language of promise. We will speak in the language of present. We will build more homes. We will protect tenants. We will deliver record funding to NYCHA. Let the largest city in the nation deliver the largest municipal housing transformation this country has ever seen.
With a history like the one that we have in this city, it is tempting to believe that New York City's best days are behind us. But we know that that is not the case. They are waiting to be built. So let us build them together, block by block.
[Crowd chants “block by block.”]
In the words of Milwaukee mayor, Emil Seidel, a sewer socialist himself, let's go after it and get it. Thank you everyone.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Thank you, Mayor. You have truly put affordability and particularly housing affordability at the center of our government's work. And it's an honor to be part of the team at City Hall and across the administration — so many folks here today — to drive this agenda forward.
We know that New York City would not be the greatest city in the world without affordable housing. Our amazing diversity and creativity is only possible because so many different kinds of people are able to live here. But as much as we pride ourselves on our diversity, for decades, we have not backed that diversity up with the housing options that New Yorkers need to truly thrive. For too many New Yorker, especially those who earn the least, the first day of the month is truly scary. The housing crisis is pushing people out of their neighborhoods, and it is making our city off limits to newcomers when we should be welcoming them instead. That's why I'm so thrilled to be here with everyone today and our mayor to roll out Block by Block. This truly is the housing plan for a new era.
This plan shows what it looks like to treat the housing crisis with the scale and urgency that it deserves. The building we are in today has itself a deep history. Originally infrastructure to support our rapidly expanding transit system, today it's a nonprofit manufacturing and art facility that honors the past, present and future of Gowanus. Block by Block does the same. It recognizes New York's legacy as home to some of the first public housing and the strongest tenant protections in the country, and it welcomes us into the future as well, ensuring that we have the tools we need to truly grow in an equitable and affordable way.
Underlying this plan, as you just heard from the mayor, are three key values. First, that strong tenant rights are the foundation of an affordable, creative and livable New York. We will go after the worst landlords because landlords who were notorious to tenant organizers more than a decade ago should not still be neglecting conditions today. Second, we will be supercharging the public sector with investments in building new housing, preserving housing, creative and innovative new financing tools to make government more effective. This includes the historic $22 billion commitment to affordable and public housing in our five-year capital plan. But it goes beyond that to actually hiring staff at our housing agencies so that we can be sure that the money is being put to good use. It also means shaping the housing market, whether through innovating new financing tools like a revolving loan fund or a city-backed insurance provider, to take on the fastest growing costs facing affordable housing. And third, our housing plan makes clear: New York City has to grow. We simply do not have enough housing to meet the needs of everyone who lives here. And we will be adding housing of all types, apartments, co-ops, home ownership, shared housing, market rate affordable and more. I really hope you all take the time to dig into the new housing plan. It truly lays out how we will bring city government into New Yorkers' lives, helping them get organized, helping stay in their homes and creating new housing.
Our housing plan is also clear that homelessness is a housing problem. In Block by Block, we will make a $1.1 billion commitment to supportive housing. And every day, we are working together with Deputy Mayor Helen Arteaga and her team to ensure that we have an all-of-government approach to reducing evictions, preventing homelessness and getting New Yorkers into permanent housing faster. And importantly, we are making clear that the workers building all of this housing will be well-paid and in safe jobs.
Underpinning all of these efforts is a commitment to public excellence. Today feels like a truly historic day for the city. It's when we set our city's housing into a new era with the most ambitious housing plan in recent history. I hope this plan shows that we don't have to choose between new housing and tenant protections, between incentivizing private market housing and preserving public housing. We can and must do all of it.
Lastly, I want to say how grateful I am to the team of public servants who helped put this plan together and all of the advocates and partners who shared their ideas. Your work will truly be felt by every New Yorker in the years to come. And with that, it is my pleasure to introduce a steadfast advocate for tenants, not just in New York City but all across the state, Sumathy Kumar.
Sumathy Kumar, Managing Director, NYS Tenant Bloc and Housing Justice for All: Good morning. You're hearing it more and more: tenants run New York City. We are the teachers, restaurant workers, artists, cleaners, students, train operators who make the city run. And this new era of New York is about making it finally run for us.
For decades, our city has centered its policies around landlords and developers who, in a quest to squeeze profit out of our homes, have made our city completely unaffordable to us. We've watched our rents skyrocket while our living conditions got worse. We've watched as more and more tenants hand over more and more of our paychecks every month just to keep a roof over our heads. And we've watched our landlords use our rent not to repair our homes, but to make themselves and their investors rich, buy up more housing and pay off their speculative debts. But the tenants of New York City decided that we were no longer going to accept a city we couldn't afford in order to enrich the already wealthy.
Last year, tens of thousands of tenants recognized our political power, came together and organized to forge a new political consensus. One that rightfully centers us, the tenants of New York, as the supermajority of this city. And we know it worked because of who I'm standing alongside today and the fact that I'm standing here at all. We know that tenants were one of the key blocks that elected this mayor. And this mayor's housing plan is now a reflection of his commitment and accountability to New York City's tenants. Yes, we need to build more affordable housing, and that housing needs to be publicly stewarded, permanently and deeply affordable and rent stabilized. And we must be clear that rent stabilization is the thing that has kept working people in this city through waves of gentrification and speculation. It must be protected and expanded at all costs and any attempts to weaken it will be met with the full ferocity of the tenant movement.
But what is so impactful about this plan is that tenants won't just have to wait the years that it takes to bring new housing online to see relief. To meet the urgency of this moment, the city is finally going to step up in its code enforcement to hold landlords accountable for the conditions in our homes and make it easier for tenants to use its tools. From allowing us to reschedule code inspections to expanding the kinds of violations that justify rent strikes, to making sure every heat complaint gets the attention it deserves. These ideas came from the tenants who've been organizing in their buildings for years and is proof that this administration is listening to the real housing experts: the tenants of New York.
Most importantly, this housing plan addresses the root cause of neglect and disrepair in our homes: the relentless drive for profit. This administration has set aside a historic $2 billion to take housing out of the hands of exploitative landlords and put it into tenant and community control. If your business model relies on making housing more expensive and tenants more miserable, you should not be in business in New York City. No more will our city stand by landlords who are betting on harassment and displacement. Going forward, tenants and City Hall will work together to build a city where our policies finally reflect the tenant majority of New York.
Together, we will put the worst landlords out of business. And we will win affordable and dignified homes for working people. This new era is about New Yorkers finally having a say in what happens to our city. And as tenants, we deserve a say in what happened in our homes. We can win that in our buildings through collective bargaining and citywide by uniting as a powerful tenant movement. And we have to. The ambitious plan that was laid out today will only work if City Hall is moving in partnership with a powerful and vibrant tenant movement.
If you are a tenant in New York, I urge you to join us to organize a tenant association in every building and to create a tenant union in every landlord's portfolio and in every neighborhood. From our homes to the halls of power, we need strength in numbers to win. And as tenants in New York City, the numbers are actually on our side. Tenants are 70 percent of the city. And with City Hall, we will organize to usher in a new era that puts us, tenants, at the center of the city we run. We start today. Let's go!
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Thank you, Sumathy. So next up, I'm happy to welcome to the podium someone who has been fighting to address the housing crisis for years. First as a City Council member and now at the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, Carlina Rivera.
Carlina Rivera, President & CEO, New York State Association for Affordable Housing: Good morning, everyone. I'm Carlina Rivera. I'm the CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, NYSAFAH, and it is my pleasure to be here. We represent for-profit and not-for-profit developers, owners, operators, managers and social services providers. They build and preserve 100 percent affordable housing across all five boroughs and beyond. Our members are the ones on the ground every day, building projects, managing buildings and keeping the lights on.
We create the homes that teachers, nurses, transit workers, and seniors count on. Last week at our annual conference, Commissioner Levy recalled a remark that I made as one of the best compliments she has received. During her tenure, I said we felt heard. Because for too long, the affordable housing industry has felt like we were shouting into the void and seeing no change. I meant those words and the plan released today shows that this administration is listening.
For almost 20 years, I've been in affordable housing advocacy. I've been organizing; I was in the City Council. I have to say, Mr. Mayor, deputy mayor, this is a turning point. And it's never been more urgent and important than right now. There is a lot in this plan. And for our members, a few elements stand out. First, SPEED. Maybe you caught us on the track. It's not just a report anymore. SPEED is now a set of actions. The administration has committed to a true one-stop shop for affordable housing approvals, a central project management team that will clear the logjams that have been created by 15 different agencies. That has delayed our projects for years. SPEED promises to shave off anywhere from 8 to 24 months from project timelines. That is real money saved and real homes built faster. And for too long, finished apartments have sat empty because of the current cumbersome lottery process. This plan seeks to improve Housing Connect, cut the time to lease units and house New Yorkers faster.
While the plan also commits billions in city capital to deeply affordable housing and unlocks new sites through land use reforms and actions, we cannot overlook the meaningful commitment to preservation that the mayor and his team are laying out. By finding ways to rein in skyrocketing building expenses, doubling down on preservation programs — including those for our friends and families in NYCHA — and providing new tools for at-risk buildings to stave off deep distress. We can work toward maintaining the quality of our building stock and the health and safety of tenants; we can do both. That includes, yes, enforcement and also ways to have housing providers and agencies work together more efficiently so that violations are cured. Don't sit on the books longer than they have to.
We look forward to working with the administration to streamline these processes. We all know this: the housing crisis is complex, and it's layered. And this plan presents thoughtful elements that acknowledge that complexity. The conversations ahead, they matter to New Yorkers because they have real consequences. Affordable housing providers appreciate having a seat at the table. So, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for bringing us together and for allowing your team to think boldly about solutions. So now let's work to make sure these wins become real for families who need and deserve a safe, affordable place to call home. Let's build homes, block by block. Thank you.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Thank you, Carlina. Now we know that housing policy is not just about the people who are living in it. It's also about the people who build that housing. And Block by Block will ensure that our construction workers have good-paying, safe jobs. So now I am proud to introduce Pathways to Apprenticeship graduate and Local 79 member, Eli Perry.
Eli Perry: Good morning, my name is Eli Perry, and I would like to start off by thanking the mayor for having that ambition to tackle our current housing crisis in New York. Thank you mayor. I am a proud Local 79 member, apprentice [and] graduate. And now shop steward and brigade captain for my union. Construction workers have seen every part of this housing crisis. We do not just build housing; we are tenants too. We are raising families while struggling with rent increase. We know what it means to work full time and still worry about whether our kids will be able to afford to stay in the communities they grew up in. This is changing with this plan. This is why I'm proud to join you today to roll out “Block by Block.”
With the Construction Justice Act and the support of this administration, we will finally have the guarantee of a livable wage. This will mean the difference between poverty and security for so many construction workers. And it will mean many more workers across New York are able to join the union. The housing of tomorrow will not be built on poverty, wages, exploitation and unsafe work sites. When public dollars support development, the public will get back something: safe construction, skilled labor and [a] pathway to the middle class. Before the union, I wasn't so great. I spent three years living in a shelter after being impacted by the justice system. I know what it feels like to need and want a second chance. I know what it feels like to wonder if there's a path moving forward. My life changed when I came through pathways to apprenticeship. And I got a career in union construction. That opportunity changed everything.
As laborers, we support building more housing and more workers getting the second chance that I got. This plan is showing us there's a better path, policy, that helps workers and helps tenants. At the end of the day, this is about dignity. The dignity of construction workers who deserve a fair paycheck and a safe work site, and the dignity of tenants, who deserve stability. People need more affordable housing and real career opportunities so they can stay in New York and raise their families and not have to struggle forever. Let's make sure New York's housing boom, block by block. Thank you.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: So that is the end of our program. Thank you for joining us today. It's been such a privilege to share this moment with you. Members of the press, we're now going to answer some questions.
Question: This morning the Wall Street Journal reported that they would be considering vacancy decontrol for a select number of housing units. You've been an advocate for the rent freeze. I was wondering if you could speak to why these units deserved us kind of a special consideration.
Mayor Mamdani: So, I'm glad you brought this up. That headline is inaccurate. This does not exempt any landlord from the decision of the Rent Guidelines Board. What is being described is a long-standing HPD tool that applies to a select number of units every year. Under this tool, no tenant would see their rent increase beyond that which the RGB determines. And over the course of the campaign, as I was running to become the mayor, I was asked often about city programs, distressed properties [and] what the response would be. And I would say time and again that the city has a number of programs to deal with exactly those kinds of incidents. This is one of those programs.
Question: Just to follow up on Patrick's question, so this is my understanding; a program HPD already has to allow landlords in apartments with regulatory agreements to raise the rents. Wonder if you could talk about specific instances when that would happen and what circumstances would a landlord of a building with a regulatory agreement be able to raise the rent?
Mayor Mamdani: So, you are correct, this is a long-standing HPD program, one that would have no impact on any tenant's rent beyond that which the rent guidelines board would determine. I'll pass it to my deputy mayor for Housing and Planning to add any additional details.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: So, this is a tool that HPD has authority to use through its regulatory agreements. Circumstance, as you can imagine, is a non-profit owner. The city and HTC have significant investments in these buildings. It's dealing with financial distress, maybe from long-standing rent arrears. So, it's a case-by-case basis. There are times where we have to do loan modifications to create a healthier debt service coverage ratio. So, it really is where HPD is working with the owner most often; these are nonprofit owners. There's not speculative investment in these buildings really looking to solve specific problems in the building that come from you know financial distress that it's facing.
Question: Would the tenants have to pay more, or would that come through the voucher program, increasing the city share?
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: In many cases — so first of all, tenants don't end up paying more in any of these situations. But often, HPD is able to use Section 8 vouchers. Let's say there is a situation where on a vacant unit, they allow the owner to, when they lease it up next, go to the regulatory agreement rent. Again, remember these are protected by regulatory agreements. HPD is often able to also introduce Section 8 if there is a tenant who needs Section 8. So again, this is where it's helpful that it's a very targeted approach that HPD is able to take.
Question: Flipping through the book, I saw that it mentions the Sunnyside Yards project. I wanted to ask, has there been any update from the federal government or President Trump in regard to securing a funding commitment for that project? And more specifically, have you had any recent conversations since your initial one with the president about that project?
Mayor Mamdani: So, that continues to be something that we are incredibly excited about and that we know that the president expressed interest in. It's the subject of an active conversation, not just between the president and myself but also between our teams. And the reason that it is of importance to our city is that it would create the largest number of homes in a single housing project since the early 1970s. I think actually — I think it would be 1973, which is also when the Knicks last won the championship. So, it would be a great time to marry both of those two things together. But it continues to be of incredible importance to us because this has the opportunity to build more — you know, 12,000 homes, 30,000 jobs — and in a city where land is such a limited resource, to have an area that we could create more of it, to then create more housing. It is an opportunity that we are looking to unlock.
Question: I have a question about the 200,000 affordable apartments. That was consistent with your campaign promise, but back then you also had said that would all be built with union labor. How does union labor fit into the plan now?
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you for that question. You know, we've said this today and you've heard it from a number of speakers that working people in this city deserve affordable homes and they deserve safe and good-paying jobs with strong labor standards. We are proud to be an administration that is moving us closer to both of those goals when it comes to labor standards by implementing the Construction Justice Act, which as you heard, this raises the minimum wage and benefit package to $40 an hour. On city-funded affordable housing, it raises the floor for workers across the city. And I think we just heard from Eli about what that actually means in a New Yorker's life. Because so often we bifurcate this conversation as if tenants are not also workers or workers are not also tenants. We want to ensure that all of them can afford to live in the city. Beyond that, we have also made clear that we will have inter-agency working groups to explore project labor agreements for affordable housing projects.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: First is a follow up to Sam's question. Just to clarify, you no longer do plan to mandate union labor for affordable housing construction, correct? And my second question is, your increased capital funding for NYCHA is obviously just a drop in the bucket as far as NYCHA's $80 billion capital needs. So, what is your plan for the units that will remain untouched by the city's increased funding and untouched by RAD/PACT and untouched by the Housing Trust?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, I think for too long, City government has looked at the scale of NYCHA's capital needs and used it as a justification to do nothing. The argument being, they need more than $80 billion, anything we do is inconsequential. We cannot afford to wait any longer. This $5.6 billion capital commitment is a significant investment that will both unlock the kinds of conditions that too many NYCHA residents have been denied and also serves as an invitation to every other party to start to come to the table to deliver on these kinds of investments for NYCHA. And I want to be very clear. The Reagan administration's decision that precipitated these cuts for public housing — that is a decision that has been maintained across both Republican and Democratic administrations. NYCHA residents have come to this feeling of being overlooked because of government at every single level. And we are excited now to start to walk on a path where we will tell every single level of government that the city is here and ready to finally be a partner in this kind of investment. We look forward to seeing additional investments at every additional level. And now, we can say we're putting our money where our mouth is, we want the federal government to do the same.
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Mamdani: And on the union question, just to be very clear, that we are implementing the Construction Justice Act. And in that, it is going to unlock, frankly, the opportunities that we've heard from today. But beyond that, this interagency working group — looking at PLAs, that is also something that we're incredibly excited about.
Question: During the campaign, you talked about increasing the use of municipal bond financing to pay for the plan to build 200,000 new units. You mentioned the $22 billion in capital funding. You've added the 200,000-preservation funding. How are you planning to pay for this plan? And is the increase in bond financing still your go-to? What are you planning?
Mayor Mamdani: A lot of this has come from this budget process that we have been a part of. When we came into office, one of the first directives I gave to my team was to actually find the costs of longstanding capital projects that had ballooned over time. If you look, for example, at the cost of meeting the class size mandate, when we come into office, I think that was at about — it was almost close to $20 billion — we have shaved off five, $6billion from what that cost is. And that's just by drilling down on the exact specifics. We've also increased our capital capacity over the last few months, and a lot of that increase has then been allocated to these kinds of investments. I'll pass it to our deputy mayor to add additional.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: I'll note a couple other things. First, there are some elements of the plan that are really about trying to bring the cost of building down, too, so that all of our capital dollars can be stretched further. That's absolutely gonna have to be part of how we get to 200,000 new over 10 years. We're also introducing new innovative financing tools that also help us stretch dollars, things like the Smart Loan that you'll read about in the plan. This is a revolving loan fund that we can, on the public side, invest into mixed income projects or other high-value projects, so the city can start making a marginal return that it can then invest back into other affordable or public housing projects. So, it's not just about relying on capital dollars, it's also about being innovative with those capital dollars. There's also stuff in the plan about being really innovative about how we use our public sites and trying to find opportunities for cross subsidies, where we can actually get affordability done with market rate that gets us more affordable housing through cross subsidies without putting a single dollar of city capital in. So, absolutely we're gonna have to keep evaluating and evaluating against our debt capacity. But we also have to be very creative about the dollars we have and leveraging the partnerships that allow us to be creative.
Question: Sumathy Kumar, the head of Housing Justice for All, who spoke earlier, argued city policy in the past has centered landlord and developer profits over affordability for tenants. So, I’m curious, if you're able to massively expand private sector construction — including market rate housing, some of your proposals aim to do — that will inherently involve developers and landlords making money and profiting off at least some of that housing. So, I'm curious how you square those two things.
Mayor Mamdani: I think you heard it from Sumathy herself, which is that there are a number of landlords for whom their entire business model has been predicated on harassment and displacement. That is something that this city stands firmly against. We are looking forward to working with every actor across the city to build more housing and also to make it clear that when we do so, we not only expect, but we will ensure that every developer and every property manager will follow housing law in this city. For far too long, these laws have been treated as if they are suggestions as opposed to requirements. And so, in addition to building more housing at a rate that we have not seen when it comes to affordable housing in the city for a long time — frankly, if ever — we are also letting tenants know that we are investing in the very kind of code enforcement that they have long been denied. It is critical that we do both of these things at the same time, so it's not simply a, you know — build more housing, rents will come down, that's all we have to offer. It's an entire, all of the above comprehensive plan.
Question: When you were in the Assembly in 2022, you voted against the NYCHA Preservation Trust. Just wondering why you voted against it then and what's changed now. And some of these proposals seem to be somewhat similar to what former Mayor Eric Adams proposed. Just wondering, you know, is there some credit there, I guess, for some of the stuff that he launched as well? Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: You know, and when I was in the Assembly, one of the concerns that I had was around the place of NYCHA residents and being able to inform and steward the decisions that we would take. And now that I stand here as the mayor, I'm incredibly excited about putting forward a plan where those residents — their input — is a critical part of how we move forward. Just earlier, I was taking a tour with Council Member Hanif [and] former Council Member Lander, and we were there with the Fifth Avenue Committee, meeting with NYCHA residents and learning that the specifics of the investments that the city was making was being guided by the details of tenant preference. Whether you had a shower head that was actually manually moveable or one that was fixed — that is something that was informed by the tenant's preference. Whether you have an actual hookup in the apartment for a washing machine — that is that something that NYCHA tenants would have to maneuver themselves. Now, the city is making it easier to do so.
This to me is an example of what it looks like to deliver on funding for NYCHA and to do so in a manner that also listens to those same residents. And what makes this plan distinct is not the language of this plan, the words that are used, because New Yorkers have seen politicians come and go promising everything that they can find in the city. What makes it different, frankly, is the level of commitment behind those words. When we are talking about $22 billion for housing and a five-year capital plan [and] $5.6 billion for NYCHA. When we're talking about more than $2 billion for preservation — this is what actually unlocks these words and makes them into actions that we will deliver. That's what New Yorkers are waiting for, because for far too long, they've seen one-off commitments, one-year commitments [and] language come and go. It is time that New Yorkers see a sustained investment in the very kind of housing that they have often asked themselves if they'll only get to read about in history books.
Question: I want to ask how did the Rental Ripoff Hearings play a role in establishing this housing plan?
Mayor Mamdani: The Rental Ripoff Hearings were critical in both underscoring the urgency of this work — we all understand this, and yet, in New York City, the longer you deal with a problem that remains unsolved, the more intellectual it starts to feel. It is as if it is a part of life. But when you sit across the table from a tenant who shows you a video of a mother with a young child who's disabled and how that mother has to carry that child in her bare hands every day from the school bus up the steps of the apartment building because that elevator is broken, you leave that room with an understanding of just how quickly this city needs to move — to ensure that we're following up on code violations. And when you look at the specificity of our commitment, whether it's actually investigating every heat complaint [or] whether it is ensuring, as you heard from Sumathy earlier about the ability to reschedule inspections. For too long, the way this city has approached these things is you just hope, you just pray that somebody will come at a time when you're home. And now we're starting to take the steps to ensure the city is delivering a level of service that it hasn't in the past.
Question: Mr. Mayor, I know you're watching the games. You've attended the games. There are a lot of Knicks fans here. What are your plans for future public watch parties and having safe watch parties?
Mayor Mamdani: You know first, if we could just play Livin' la Vida Loca one more time, if that's available, just so we can skip back to that moment in time. 1999. 1999. It has been a long time, and I know that Knicks fans are incredibly excited, as we all should be. This is an incredible moment for this city. And so, I first want to begin with a congratulations to the team. Because what they have done for this city, you really can't put into words the excitement that you see on people's faces. You know, people whisper to me in every kind of event you can imagine, “Knicks in four.” And I have to just keep a straight face as we're going through that event.
But when it comes to your question, we're gonna have watch parties across the city. We're incredibly excited about those watch parties. We saw, just last night, I think, we saw watch parties at Radio City, where we even had the t-shirt cannon out there. And we also saw a watch party at Brooklyn Bowl. And then we saw New Yorkers celebrate everywhere that they could find. And I think Henry Rosoff, I'm not sure if he's here. But we also saw videos from everybody everywhere that they could find. So, we're very excited about that. We're excited about making it easier for New Yorkers to celebrate.
Question: Yeah, will it be back by Madison Square Garden? Because people gathered there anyway last night. And the issue was safety for people participating or showing up. So how will that be regulated?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, we're looking forward to making sure that it is a time for New Yorkers to celebrate. It's a time where they're all so safe. And we're going to have a number of different kinds of watch parties. And we'll get back to you as we keep going through those plans.
Question: The residents of 705 and 701 West 170th Street, they're the tenants of the infamous Daniel Ohebshalom. They've been organizing and working through the process for third-party acquisition.
Mayor Mamdani: Isn't this the landlord who had a beehive in his building?
Question: He's the landlord who was imprisoned for neglect, the first landlord ever to be imprisoned. The question then is, they've been working towards third-party acquisition of their building. And now it seems that a nonprofit locally is going to be taking over their building? I just wanted to understand, what's the process going forward? What's happening with this situation? Because it garnered a huge amount of print. And interest, and I just want to make sure that we understand what the process is going forward for these.
Mayor Mamdani: I really appreciate the question, because I think it gets to the heart of what Block by Block is about. It's about delivering a new kind of future for working-class New Yorkers. And the landlord that you're referring to is also a landlord who had an active beehive found in his building. [He] is also, a landlord, as you said, who was imprisoned due to the housing code violations. I'm going to pass it over to my deputy mayor for Housing and Planning on the specifics — actually, I’ll pass it to Cea Weaver.
Cea Weaver, Executive Director, Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants: So first I want to just mention Fix the City initiative that you'll read about in the housing plan and that's exactly what this initiative is designed to do, to take buildings that are persistently distressed and persistently owned by some of the landlords who we all know and put them on a path to both stronger emergency enforcement right now. I want to highlight an investment in emergency repairs included in Fix the City so that the city can actually more swiftly make repairs. But additionally, its explicit goal is to get the buildings into a third-party acquisition with a not-for-profit community partner faster. So, some of the things that are included in that initiative are designed to specifically help tenants like those that you're describing not take so long for a not-for-profit partner. In this case, it is CLOTH to come in and stabilize the building as truly affordable housing. So, what's gonna happen next? The building has been in litigation with the agency where the agency is supporting on the part of tenants and on part of the city for some time. That litigation is helping us facilitate a sale to the not-for-profit owner, in this case it is CLOTH. We're working very closely with the tenant association in this building to ensure that they have, know their rights and their resources at every step of the pathway. Next step, it's gonna close on financing, there's gonna be rehab, and hopefully then, tenants will move back in. And then, not hopefully, tenants we'll move back in. So, we're very proud of this solution, and we hope to be able to do it more, and the plan lays out a path for exactly that.
Mayor Mamdani: And just before we close, I do just want to acknowledge our Council Member, Pierina Sanchez, who has been a partner in this work. And earlier, I was speaking about a focus on the Bronx, and we're really looking forward to working together on that. Thank you all so much.
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