Zohran Mamdani wants more union-built housing and to expand rent-stabilization in NYC

Queens Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has ambitious plans for building 200,000 new housing units in New York City. For current NYC tenants, he wants to make the city more effective at responding to housing complaints.

Mamdani is one of the many candidates running for NYC mayor. As the race heats up, Brick Underground is interviewing the candidates who—if victorious—will go on to shape housing development in New York City. 

The mayor will oversee city agencies that regulate landlords, the implementation of NYC’s landmark climate law, Local Law 97, and new construction enabled by the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan. 

In short, it’s a big job, and there’s a lot of candidates who want to do it. Brick Underground caught up with Mamdani at the end of February to talk about how he’d tackle housing issues if he were to become NYC’s next mayor. 

Mamdani wants to build 200,000 new rent-stabilized apartments over the next 10 years, grow the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, and expand rent-stabilization to all new housing production in NYC—if he can secure Albany’s support. Read on to learn more about Mamdani’s housing plan.

All candidates answered a quick series of questions about major NYC housing issues before going into detail about their own proposals. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve promised to create 200,000 new, rent-stabilized, union-built units over the next 10 years. Is that in addition to the units that will be created through City of Yes? 

Yes, that's in addition. City of Yes [includes] units that will be created through the liberalizing of zoning laws. The 200,000 homes that I'm speaking about are homes that the city will directly be financing. It triples what the city is set to build over the next 10 years, and this will be in tandem with zoning changes that we will pursue that are part of a comprehensive city-wide approach that seeks to address the scale of this crisis. 

One glimpse of just how large this crisis is: last year, when the waitlist for Section 8 applicants was opened up, more than 600,000 New Yorkers applied in seven days for the chance to have assistance in paying their rent. More than 200,000 “won,” and all that meant was that they were added to a waitlist for a program that admits about 250 people a month. That is an unacceptable response. We have to actually be directly addressing this issue at scale, and I think that both the public and the private market have a role to play in that.

What are your plans to fund the construction of those new units?

This is a plan that will be paid for in three ways. The first is the full utilization of existing municipal bonding tools that we have available, and advocating in both Albany and in [Washington,] D.C. for the expansion of those limits. 

Much of our fiscal constraints as a city are built around the 1970s financial crisis. We are in a different crisis today—a crisis where we are losing our tax base to Pennsylvania, to New Jersey, to Connecticut—where working class New Yorkers are leaving the city they call home in the hopes of finding a place where their dollar can go a little further. If we don't address this crisis at scale, we are going to continue to see that exodus. 

Oftentimes in constructing new housing in New York City, the most prohibitive cost is the acquisition of land. The city owns a significant amount of both vacant land and land that is currently not being used for its most productive use. I'm thinking, for example, of parking lots. These are places where the city can have a head start in building out this kind of housing, because it already has that land and can put that land to better use.

The third is by pooling rental assistance. Right now, the city allocates funding for vouchers that are oftentimes never used because New Yorkers who received those vouchers can't find a landlord to accept it. While typically those landlords would then face accountability through the city's source of income investigation [unit, Eric] Adams’s administration has cut funding for those very investigations. 

We would use those vouchers as a financial mechanism to construct some of this housing, thereby both putting dollars that are already allocated to work, saving the city money—given how expensive it is for New Yorkers to stay in a shelter—and actually giving those same New Yorkers a home to call their own.

You announced a plan to bolster the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. How would you expand some of its existing powers: such as making repairs to landlord’s buildings and scheduling appointments with HPD inspectors. How would you grow this office and what’s your vision for it?

I think there is a clear distinction between what the city can do and what the city is willing to do. Our vision is equal parts finally using the tools at our disposal and also expanding those very tools. 

What we’ve seen under the Adams administration is an unwillingness to even collect the fines that are already levied. There are reports of more than $8 million in uncollected fines from landlords across New York City. When it comes to programs like neighborhood pillars—a program that has been in existence for decades—it has simply not been put to use by this administration. What that has left New Yorkers with is a situation where they’re being hung out to dry.

We want to take that which works and expand it to full scale. We also want to specifically expand the special enforcement units that we have and ensure that we’re actually using every mechanism by which to hold landlords accountable.

What would the practical outcome be for those investments? If you’re a tenant who’s having an issue in their apartment and wants to call 311, what would your experience be?

Your experience first would be a basic level of confidence that the government can do its job. I’ve had so many constituents call me and my office informing us that they don’t even call 311 anymore, because they’ve called so many times, they have no idea when the inspector will come, and they don’t see any utility in doing so. And I understand that, given that fewer than half of all violations are ever resolved.

The practical implication of this plan is that New Yorkers will understand that they have a right to safe housing and will know exactly how to enforce that right. The steps we will take as a city is not just turning the page on Eric Adams’ administration; he cut $25 million for the anti-harassment tenant protection program—we will restore that money. But we will go beyond that, and build a website and a portal that is usable. In the same manner that New Yorkers can track the food they order, tenants should be able to track their complaints and the resulting investigation with the click of a button. 

We need to provide that transparency and we need to create that trust, and we will do so by expanding the staff we have on hand to do that work and by using every single one of the tools that existing housing code enforcement provide us, all along coordinating with multiple agencies whose responsibilities are spread out into one coherent plan to actually deliver to New York City tenants.  

One of your policies is to expand rent-stabilization to all new development. Would this truly be all new development, or just buildings that are receiving city subsidies?

Our vision is for this to extend to all production. The reason behind that is we think that the stability that rent stabilization has provided to more than two million New Yorkers is one that every New Yorker deserves. 

This would require changing the law in Albany. This would require legislation at the state level, and that is something that I would use my platform to advocate for.

You mentioned earlier that you would work with D.C. and Albany to help fund your housing plan. How would you work with a new federal administration, and how would you deal with a possible federal funding shortfall to programs New Yorkers rely on?

I think you have to be willing to fight for these things, and we have not seen that in this current administration. We’ve seen the Adams administration take almost every opportunity to excuse the horrific policies, executive orders, and actions of the Trump administration—even when they’ve come at the direct cost of New Yorkers’ lives. 

What I would do is use the platform that the mayor has—which has been described as the second-largest bully pulpit in america—to advocate each and every day and fight the Trump administration on any attempts to reduce this kind of funding, and to know that ultimately what Donald Trump cares about is how he is viewed and what his ratings are. 

Part and parcel with that fight is you have to be willing to contest those ideas in the public sphere. Too often within the Democratic party, we treat many of the Trump pronouncements as if they are already law, when in fact they are just trials of consent of the public and of the political class. 

When it comes to attempts to cut funding, that is an opportunity to tell the story in public as to which New Yorkers would actually be hurt by these kinds of decisions and force the Trump administration to reckon with that cost. Because so often what they get away with is being able to misdirect what people actually think is being addressed through their policies when in fact it’s working class New Yorkers who would be the ones to suffer the most.

Editor’s Note: Brick Underground is interviewing candidates for the 2025 New York City mayoral election. If you’re a candidate and you’d like to talk to us, please get in touch.