Soon after becoming mayor of New York City, Eric Adams said he would be rolling out a “comprehensive housing plan” within weeks to address rising housing costs and homelessness that has plagued New York City. The city became a symbol of a growing national crisis.
But four months later, Mr. Adams has yet to make good on promises he made during his campaign and has called back at least one promise, leading to criticism over the priority he has made. comes first to many New Yorkers.
The details of the plan are still being worked out, ahead of the expected release next month. It will come as rising rents and the end of the pandemic-era safety net are putting pressure on the new administration to aggressively tackle a series of seemingly intractable problems that Mr. Adams has inherited. and has a tremendous impact on the economy and social structure of the city.
“I really think what we’re seeing with rising rents, it’s really unbelievable,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, a nonprofit group. was just a few years ago. a housing committee in Mr. Adams’ transition group. “That should be the top issue for the mayor. I think City Hall has to deal with this more urgently. “
Members of the City Council, which is negotiating the budget with the mayor, have also called for more spending on building and maintaining affordable housing, after Mr. Adams proposed only a modest increase. compared to the previous administration’s spending over the next few years on its capital. budget plan.
At a rally on the steps of City Hall last week, Pierina Sanchez, chair of the City Council’s housing committee, said, “New York City needs to address the affordable housing crisis. cheap, housing crisis, like problem number one.”
Adrienne Adams, City Council speaker, reiterated the call for greater investment during her “State of the City” speech last weekend.
The mayor has defended his pace, even as staffing shortages in the Department of Housing Preservation and Development have hampered the city’s ability to move forward with affordable housing projects.
“I know it feels like I’ve been mayor for five years, but I’ve been here for five months,” Adams said at a news conference last Friday. “I inherited a broken city, with broken systems. We can either put Band-Aid on top of these broken systems or go to the core and fix them. “
But he added, “There is no rush to do this. We have to do it right. “
In New York City, about one-third of renters are “severely burdened with rent,” meaning they spend more than 50% of their income on rent, according to one survey the city’s housing supply released last week.
More than 48,000 people slept in New York City shelters each night in March, according to the Coalition of the Homelesswith the number of single adults in shelters steadily increasing over the past few years.
The pandemic has highlighted many of those problems, as tens of thousands of people struggle to pay their rent or mortgage and seek government help.
Many parts of the country are struggling with housing affordability, and it is increasingly recognized that the root cause is a lack of available housing.
This week, President Biden announced a new plan to address the housing crisis would encourage zoning law reform to allow for higher densities, among other provisions.
The city’s affordability crisis has been highlighted more than once in recent weeks. One Report released this month brokerage firm Douglas Elliman shows that rents in some areas of the city keep increasing: In Manhattan, for example, the median rent in effect in April 2022 was $3,870, 38% higher than a year earlier and the highest ever recorded.
The city’s housing supply survey pointed to a long-term downward trend in affordability: From 2017 to 2021, New York City lost nearly 100,000 apartments with rents under $1,500. per month, while there are an additional 107,000 units with rents of at least $2,300 per month.
A council effectively controlled by the mayor recently voted to come back some of the biggest rent increases in nearly a decade for rental stables – home to more than two million people, many on lower incomes. Evacuate is gradually increasingafter the state’s pandemic ban expired in January.
The upcoming housing plan will likely include provisions to cut homelessness, improve conditions in public housing, and increase home ownership opportunities for middle-income New Yorkers. and lower income, according to testimony from housing officials.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Adams has made addressing the housing crisis and housing shortage his top issues.
He said he would double the city’s investment in housing, which includes public housing and the conservation and development of affordable housing, to $4 billion a year, nearly double the amount the government spends. previously spent.
Mr. Adams has called for average spending instead 500 million dollars more per year in the next 10 years.
Mr. Adams also promised to reform zoning rules to prevent many neighborhoods from building larger buildings, especially in more affluent neighborhoods – which he calls “sacred cows” – that was against new development.
He specifically pointed to blocks in one area of Manhattan – from 14th to 42nd Streets, and between Park Avenue and 9th Avenue – as zoning targets.
Mr. Adams did not respond to questions last week about whether it was still part of the housing plan. And even if a plan turns out to be final, it’s unclear whether his housing agency will have enough staff to execute it.
In May, Adolfo Carrión, the city’s housing commissioner, said staffing remains “one of the biggest challenges we face”.
“We are short of project managers,” Mr. Carrión said during his testimony before the City Council. “We lack attorneys to complete these transactions.”
According to two real estate officials, the division’s legal team that handles real estate transactions already has a stable number of transaction attorneys and is currently short of at least three out of five supervising attorneys – a deputy general manager. advisor and two deputy general counsels, according to two real estate officials – disqualifying the necessary department of legal expertise.
The city has moved to fund 77 new positions at the department, but it’s unclear how quickly the city can fill them or how much impact they’ll have. Mr. Carrión noted that while the agency’s housing inspection team has a budget for nearly 470 inspectors, that number falls short by more than 140.
The personnel situation is so bad that the ministry posted an announcement on its website, warns some applicants for city benefits that due to “limited staff capacity and significant project backlogs,” it will take “up to a year” to assign them a manager. project manager.
The mayor did not respond to questions about the impact of the shortage.
Previous administrations also took several months or longer to develop housing plans. Issued by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg his housing plan for December during his first year in power, and while he was credited with helping to re-develop the city and ensure affordable housing, critics also blamed him. plan to allow displacement and inequality.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who made housing a focus of his campaign, issued a housing plan about five months after he took office, which eventually evolved into a goal. build or preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026.
While that’s a significant increase in investment compared to previous administrations, the plan has been criticized for focusing too much on quantity goals and too little on affordability for families with limited resources. lower income.
Charles Lutvak, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said the housing plan would “replace counterproductive measures with real outcomes”.
The plan, which the city says is being developed with input from people experiencing homelessness and public housing residents, will focus on measuring how quickly people have access to affordable housing as well as the total number of apartments that were filled in a specific time period, the mayor’s office said.
“It’s not going to show up on the 1st,” said Moses Gates, vice president of housing and neighborhood planning for the Regional Planning Association, a nonprofit group for housing planning. “It takes collaboration and it takes some kind of real nose-to-stone work, and I think the management of this is still premature.”
Some New Yorkers say Mr. Adams needs to act faster.
Beverly Rivers, 66, has lived in a stable rent apartment in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood for 25 years, and her $1,009 rent has exceeded what she gets from payments disability, her only income.
Any rent increase would add more than $8,000 that she says she owes to her landlord, who sued her to evict last month.
Ms Rivers said she voted for Mr Adams, believing he would fight for the poor, but she was disappointed he did not support a freeze or rent refund.
“He didn’t do anything for us,” she said. “He’s not for us.”
Matthew Haag contribution report.
