Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a new program Tuesday to address New York City’s housing crisis.
Called “Block by Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era,” the program covers a wide swath of housing policy, from new construction to tenant protections to public housing, homeownership, and worker protections. It lays out a comprehensive strategy to make New York City more affordable for working people, Mamdani said at an event in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
“At a moment when working people are being pushed out of the city they built, New York cannot afford half-measures or delays,” said Mayor Mamdani. “This plan meets the housing crisis with the urgency it demands. We are setting the most ambitious housing production and preservation targets in the city’s modern history – and backing them up with investments to match – while also protecting tenants and homeowners, investing in public housing, and ensuring the workers building that housing have good-paying, safe jobs. We must fight for both the tenants of today and the tenants of tomorrow. Block by Block shows how New York City can do exactly that.”
The program includes building new homes, tenant protections, and overhauling the New York City Housing Authority.
Lowest Rental Vacancy Rate in 50 Years
Politico noted that New York City is contending with the lowest rental vacancy rate in more than 50 years — 1.4% — and options affordable to lower-income residents are scarce.
“Block by Block meets the housing crisis with the ambition and urgency that New Yorkers deserve. This plan will deliver a fairer, more affordable city for everyone – whether you are a renter seeking repairs, a growing family seeking a new apartment, or a would-be homeowner,” said Leila Bozorg, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning. “From building 200,000 new affordable homes and preserving 200,000 more, overhauling how we enforce housing codes, investing in public housing, and making sure the workers building our city’s future earn a fair wage, this administration is using every tool at its disposal to meet the moment.”
The program details how the City will build 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve another 200,000 affordable homes over the next decade, backed by $22 billion in capital investment in housing over the next five years.
Mamdani said that investment is paired with a land use agenda to boost housing production across the five boroughs and innovative new financing tools to build and preserve affordable housing more quickly and efficiently.
The administration also will double the size of the Open Door program to expand affordable homeownership opportunities and launch a new program, “Our Home,” to create permanently affordable co-ops for working class residents of the city.
The city’s plan includes a major overhaul of how it responds to code and heat complaints, including allowing tenants to schedule some HPD inspections and coordinating “roof-to-cellar” inspection days at buildings with organized tenants. The city said it also will launch an interagency planning effort in the Bronx to proactively address ongoing issues around housing quality, public health, and economic inequality in the borough.
Vision for Housing Authority
The administration said the “Block by Block” also lays out the administration’s vision for the New York City Housing Authority, including the largest city capital investment in NYCHA in recent history. The city said the plan expands resident participation in decision-making through stronger participation in resident associations, “NYCHA in Your Neighborhood” events, and more tenant involvement following conversion to the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program.
The city said it also will pursue a renewed role for NYCHA as a public developer, using new financing and development tools to bring in revenue, improve campuses, and build new housing across the city.
The administration also said that it will implement the Construction Justice Act to establish a $40 per hour minimum wage and benefit standard for construction workers on city-financed projects and explore project labor agreements for targeted affordable housing developments. The administration said it also will create the city’s first Mayor’s Committee on Construction Safety.
The new initiative also includes policies to help move city residents out of shelter and into permanent housing, improve government efficiency and public excellence, support for operating affordable housing, advance innovation in construction, and expand opportunities for homeowners to add accessory dwelling units and legalize basement apartments safely.
“New York doesn’t work without housing that’s affordable,” Housing Commissioner Dina Levy said. “Block by Block is an ambitious vision for a more affordable city — balancing multiple priorities including production, preservation, and targeted enforcement — so New Yorkers can access the housing they deserve.”
NYC voters approved a series of charter revisions last fall that came out of a commission convened by former Mayor Eric Adams to overhaul the lengthy and unpredictable land use process and curb the power of the City Council to block housing developments.
Shortened Review Process
Under those changes, affordable housing proposals in 12 yet-to-be-determined neighborhoods with the lowest rates of production will be able to go through a shortened review process that ends with a vote of the City Planning Commission — the majority of which is appointed by the mayor — instead of the council.
The city said it will identify those 12 districts by October by calculating the rate of affordable housing permitting in each community district over five years.
Recent analysis from the NYU Furman Center shows where some of these low-producing neighborhoods might be. Based on rates of completed affordable housing units, the center found that the lowest-producing districts included outer borough neighborhoods such as Bay Ridge in Brooklyn and Bayside in Queens, alongside the Upper East and Upper West sides of Manhattan.
