Gotham Gazette

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Housing

Housing

  • Getting to a Deal on the Housing Compact New York Needs

    Gov. Hochul addresses the state (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


    Policymakers in Albany sent a clear message to their constituents last week: we are not serious about solving the housing shortage that is driving rents up, causing extreme housing insecurity, and keeping our communities segregated. The housing growth strategy outlined in both the Senate and Assembly one-house budget resolutions is a weak, incentive-driven approach that replicates housing policies that have been tried and failed. Localities that want to remain exclusionary and not add housing can still

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  • Keep The Compact: The Legislature's Lackluster Housing Plans Won't Work


    Housing in the works (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    Housing has taken center stage in the current budget negotiations in Albany and for good reason: Our statewide housing crisis has become dire, and for the first time in decades, there are many concrete proposals to tackle it.

    Discussions about the issue often focus on rents in the five boroughs and how they have reached historic levels, but the crisis does not stop at the city’s borders, nor is the crisis limited to renters. In communities across the state, renters and homeowners are struggling with housing costs, as younger generations are

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  • Direct Subsidy: A Realistic Strategy to Ensure Housing Affordability For All

    Housing in the offing (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    We all benefit from an inclusive city that allows all types of people, not only privileged residents, to live with dignity and security. Yet, New York City continues to become an even more impossibly expensive place to live, disproportionately displacing communities of color, “essential workers,” artists, cooks, security guards, drivers, retail workers, and their families.

    If we truly want to overcome this disparity, a plan to provide housing for all must deliberately aim to fund the true cost of building enough low-rent units to meet

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  • Bonds, Vouchers, Tax Credits, & More: Mayor Adams' Federal Housing Agenda

    Mayor Adams and Chief Housing Officer Katz unveil housing plans (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Facing an affordable housing and homelessness crisis, Mayor Eric Adams has set an ambitious goal to build 500,000 new homes, rehabilitate a collapsing public housing system, and transform social service delivery.

    While most attention is paid to policies at the city and state levels, Adams is relying in part on action from Washington, D.C. that could bring in billions of dollars in subsidies and make it easier for New Yorkers to access

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  • Make Hochul’s Housing Compact Tougher, Not Weaker

    Gov. Hochul pitches her housing plan (photo: Governor's Office)


    You can’t talk seriously about Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed New York Housing Compact without acknowledging with respect that she is the first Governor in decades to try to get localities in the state to take on at least some of their fair share of housing need.

    It is also clear from examining one set of her proposed “preferred actions” that she understands the exclusionary effect of lot-size minimums, height limits, lot coverage restrictions, and parking

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  • NYCHA Officials Sound Alarm at City Council Budget Hearing

    City Council Member Alexa Avilés leads the NYCHA budget hearing (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)


    The New York City Housing Authority is facing a fiscal crisis as rent revenue has plummeted in the wake of the pandemic, affecting its operational budget, constraining its ability to hire personnel, and forcing it to suspend dozens of infrastructure improvement projects. Amid the city's larger affordable housing and homelessness crisis, the public housing authority is also struggling with a worsening ability to get vacant units repaired and filled with new tenants, a problem apparently

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  • NYCHA Rent Arrears Crisis Shifts Budget Focus from Capital Needs to Operating Assistance

    Governor Hochul makes a NYCHA announcement (photo: Governor's Office)


    After decades of neglect and underinvestment at every level of government, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) continues to struggle to fund its annual operating expenses and massive infrastructure repair needs.

    While the city and state have made some recent investments in the public housing authority’s capital infrastructure needs, the pandemic blew a hole in its operating budget as rent revenue plummeted and its roughly 500,000 residents were

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  • Mayor Adams’ Plan For Housing and Good Jobs Is The Right One

    Mayor Adams talks housing (photo: Mayor's Office)


    Mayor Eric Adams has set the right tone and vision for rebuilding New York City’s middle class, and the Working People’s Agenda he outlined in his State of the City address should be welcomed by all New Yorkers. 

    A recent Moody’s Analytics study rated New York City #1 among the most rent-burdened cities in the nation. It’s an honor none of us want. That report also said that a New Yorker needs to earn at least

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  • Preservation Trust and Beyond: Report Assesses NYCHA's Progress and Challenges in Executing 'Blueprint for Change'

    A NYCHA building in Queens (photo: Governor's Office)


    In July 2020, the New York City Housing Authority published “A Blueprint for Change” to address decades of organizational mismanagement, financial instability, and repeated crises that were affecting the health and wellbeing of the city’s roughly 500,000 public housing residents. Last year, NYCHA achieved one of the crucial steps from that plan as the state

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  • The City Council Should Reject Misguided Housing Bill

    Affordable housing in the Bronx (photo: @NYCHousing)


    A new consensus is taking shape in New York City: politicians, advocates, and policymakers are prioritizing ways for the city to produce more housing. Of course, there are still plenty of housing disagreements, but most now agree that New York’s severe affordability crisis is caused by the fact that there is not enough housing to go around.

    While this is progress, New York City still has plenty of work to do if Thursday’s City Council Housing and Buildings Committee hearing is any indication.

    City Council Members will hear feedback on a

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  • Officials, Advocates Analyze Implications of Hochul's 'Housing Compact' on New York City

    Governor Hochul, Mayor Adams & others at ground-breaking (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    Last month, in herState of the State address, Governor Kathy Hochul proposed a “Housing Compact” to build 800,000 units of housing across the state over the next ten years. It is an ambitious plan that aims to tackle the state’s dire housing shortage by leveraging private

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Mark Levine's Vision for Manhattan

    Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)


    February 2, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Mark Levine's Vision for Manhattan

    Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine joined the show to discuss his new State of the Borough speech and agenda, particularly his new housing plan, as well as other key issues facing Manhattan and the city.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or

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  • Queens City Council Member and Community Board Pursue Northern Boulevard Neighborhood Rezoning

    City Council Members Julie Won, left, & Rafael Salamanca (photo: Emil Cohen/NYC Council)


    Last week, the City Council rejected a proposed lot rezoning on Northern Boulevard in Woodside, Queens that would have replaced a dilapidated one-story restaurant with a shiny new two-storey auto dealership. Opponents of the rezoning, which included the local City Council Member, first-term Democrat Julie Won, made it clear that the last thing their community needs is another auto industry business that will add more cars, particularly large dangerous SUVs, to their

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  • Offering a 'Working People's Agenda,' Mayor Adams Delivers 2023 State of the City

    Mayor Adams at his 2023 State of the City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Mayor Eric Adams, a first-term Democrat, delivered his second State of the City speech on Thursday, outlining a “Working People’s Agenda” focused on jobs, housing, public safety, and healthcare for those who need them most.

    “These are the things that our administration is working for every day,” Adams said in his speech at the Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, which was attended by fellow Democratic elected officials including Governor Kathy Hochul, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, City

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  • ‘We Need to Build Everywhere’: Brooklyn Borough President Reynoso on Housing, Maternal Health, & Other Priorities

    Brooklyn BP Antonio Reynoso (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    One year into his term as Brooklyn Borough President, Antonio Reynoso is taking an expansive view of his office and pushing an ambitious set of policy proposals.

    Reynoso, then a City Council member, emerged through a tough, crowded Democratic primary in 2021, while running as a reform-minded candidate endorsed by progressives like Rep. Nydia Velazquez and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Earlier this month, Reynoso delivered his first State of the Borough address, a

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  • Max Politics Podcast: A Pro-Housing Agenda for New York, with Annemarie Gray

    A housing ground-breaking (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    January 17, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: A Pro-Housing Agenda for New York, with Annemarie Gray

    Annemarie Gray, a planner and housing expert who is now Executive Director of pro-housing group Open New York, joined the show to discuss the group's 2023 housing agenda, the Governor's sweeping Housing Compact proposals, what Mayor Adams should do next on housing, and more.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Antonio Reynoso's Vision for Brooklyn

    Brooklyn BP Antonio Reynoso (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


    January 11, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Antonio Reynoso's Vision for Brooklyn

    Borough President Antonio Reynoso joined the show to discuss his new State of the Borough agenda and vision for the city's most populous borough.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.

  • Hochul Presents State of the State Agenda Focused on Public Safety, Housing Development, Mental Health Care, Climate Action, & More

    Gov. Hochul (photo: Governor's Office)


    Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday delivered her second State of the State speech, and the first since she was elected to a full term, pledging to tackle crime, boost housing production, advance climate action, and invest heavily in the state’s mental health system to “make New York more affordable, more livable, and safer.”

    Speaking in the Assembly chamber at the Capitol building in Albany, Hochul outlined a broad legislative and policy agenda for the year ahead. It was Hochul’s first fully in-person State of the State address, following last year’s speech

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  • 2023 Could Be Year of Rent-Stabilized Housing Collapse; Here’s How We Avoid That

    Housing across the city (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    I can’t say I am optimistic about 2023. Increasingly I am hearing from owners of rent-stabilized apartment buildings that they will not be able to make their mortgage payments this month or soon thereafter. A confluence of "once in a lifetime" events is pushing this much needed housing toward the brink of insolvency...

  • California and the Federalist Papers Offer a Path Forward on Housing, New York Should Take It

     

    Housing in view (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The United States, and New York particularly, faces a housing crisis of its own making. Today, housing costs arethe main driver of inflation, which is leading to painful interest rate hikes across the whole economy. And they’re the...

  • Max Politics Podcast: Dan Doctoroff on the Plan for a 'New' New York

    Dan Doctoroff, far right, with the Mayor, Governor, and others (photo: Governor's Office)


    December 15, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Dan Doctoroff on the Plan for a 'New' New York

    Dan Doctoroff, former deputy mayor and now co-chair of the 'New' New York panel assembled by Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams, joined the show to discuss the extensive action plan put forward by the task force, governor, and mayor.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Donovan Richards on What's Next in Queens

    Queens BP Donovan Richards (photo: Queens Borough President's Office)


    December 8, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Borough President Donovan Richards on the Latest in Queens and Looking Ahead to 2023

    Queens Borough President Donovan Richards joined the show to discuss recent developments in Queens, his top priorities, and what's ahead in 2023.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode

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  • Manhattan Borough President Adds Affordable Housing Focus to Community Board Appointment Process

    Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)


    Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine is opening up the annual application process for community boards on Thursday with a new question on the application, asking would-be members about their priorities around housing development in the borough as part of an effort to encourage pro-housing voices in local matters.

    New York City’s 59 community boards, 12 of which are in Manhattan, are its most local form of government, playing an

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  • New York City Needs Housing for Everyone, Not More Shelter Beds

    Housing (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    Faced with an influx of migrants, the main shelter system bursting at the seams, and skyrocketing rents, New York City Mayor Eric Adams

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  • Series of Major Housing Approvals, Announcements Mark Progress in Adams’ ‘City of Yes’

    Mayor Adams releases his housing plan (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    New York City is soon to be awash in new housing construction with the City Council approval in recent months of over 12,000 new units and a mayoral administration promising to bring thousands more through major development projects and changes to city zoning rules.

    The development is essential to meet the city's demand for housing, particularly affordable housing, where the vacancy rate for the lowest income apartments is less than 1% while tens of

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