With scandal currently engulfing City Hall, voters are already placing bets on next year’s packed mayoral race. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams has maxed out in contributions compared to other candidates, but considering his indictment has to do with campaign fraud, his fundraising future is up in the air.
According to the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB), more than 10 people are already listed as candidates for the mayoral race, but only five have raised enough money to be competitive: Adams, $4,140,709; City Comptroller Brad Lander, $967,381; former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, $591,116; State Senator Zellnor Myrie, $464,211; and State Senator Jessica Ramos, $52,513.
Adams has had one donation to his current campaign since the news broke of his five-count felony indictment, involving allegedly receiving illegal campaign contributions in 2021 and accepting bribes. Adams allegedly received $10 million from the city’s public matching funds program. At an in-person press conference on Oct. 15, Adams said that he had essentially hit the maximum of the $8 million spending cap that he can raise for the upcoming election — and presumably is banking on getting matching funds from the city.
“I think that when you look at the consistent support I have in this city, as we continue to regain the trust that we know we have to regain, we’re going to constantly get the support that we need, but my focus is now,” Adams said. “My focus is delivering for New Yorkers right now. I’m the mayor right now, and I’ve got to deliver for everyday New Yorkers, and that’s what I’m doing with this team.”
Adams adamantly referred all other questions about his campaign fundraising to his campaign attorney, Vito Pitta. Adams has hired a new campaign fundraiser, Michael Giaccio, who is also in charge of raising money for Adams’s criminal defense trust, and no longer employs former fundraiser Brianna Suggs.
It’s entirely possible that Adams won’t qualify for matching funds due to his federal indictment or will be denied matching funds by the NYCCFB.
Lander’s campaign expects to max out on the city’s 8-to-1 public matching funds program by next year’s primary. He’s received contributions from 4,122 small donors, 94% of whom are city residents, and is determined not to accept money from corporate PACs, corporate lobbyists, fossil fuel executives, real estate development principals, or private equity and investment fund managers.
“I’m deeply grateful for the broad, grassroots support for our vision of a safer, more affordable, more livable, and better run city,” Lander said in a statement. “This support means we will have all the resources needed to communicate our plan to deliver the strong, honest, steady leadership New Yorkers deserve.”
Despite losing to Adams in 2021, Stringer seems to be making strides toward a comeback. He has raised $3.2 million for his mayoral exploratory committee since January, said his campaign. “Our campaign has continued to bring in the resources we need to run a top-tier race with a robust operation that gets our message out to all corners of the city, no matter what shape the race takes,” said Stringer in a statement. “New Yorkers know our city is at a crossroads and are tired of not getting what they need from the city government. They’re ready for disciplined management of the city’s bureaucracy and practical, pragmatic solutions to help make life here more affordable, stay safe, and get the peace of mind that comes with knowing their municipal government is running smoothly and is responsive to them.”
Myrie and Ramos are pulling up the rear in fundraising with solid, scrappy underdog vibes.
Myrie is running a grassroots campaign and is expected to get up to $2 million with matching fund payouts.
“New Yorkers from every corner of the city are rallying behind Zellnor because they’re eager for fresh, new leadership in City Hall,” said spokesperson Monica Klein in a statement. “In the face of a housing shortage and rising cost of living, Zellnor is running to make our city livable and affordable — and grassroots donors are stepping up to support this vision.”
Ramos, who only just announced her campaign about three weeks ago, has raised the least amount so far. “I am grateful to every donor and supporter, and look forward to building on this strong start,” she said in a statement. “We’re powered by working New Yorkers who want what’s best for this city.”
According to NYCCFB Executive Director Paul Seamus Ryan, “116 campaigns reported their financial activity on time. Staff are working right now on audit and compliance reviews of these disclosure reports, evaluating each participating candidate’s public funds threshold status, payment eligibility, and overall compliance. Candidates should expect to receive their statement reviews by November 12 with a response deadline of January 15.” He noted that “2025 candidates may respond as early as November 22 to have the newly submitted information be considered for the first public funds payment on December 16.”
As of now, all campaigns are in compliance, said NYCCFB.
New York’s Working Families Party (WFP) is urging voters to choose the Harris-Walz ticket on their ballot line in the November 5 election.
Created in New York in 1998, the WFP has advocated for progressive politics for several years now. “[We’re] a political party that gives voters the option on the ballot line to vote their values,” said NY WFP Co-Director Jasmine Gripper. “So, yes, we run and win elections, but beyond that, we also fight for policy changes that really improve the lives of working families.
“From fighting for minimum wage increases, to fighting for investments in quality childcare, we are the political party that is rooted and grounded in centering families and centering workers, expanding rights and protections, and making sure that our government works for all of us and not just the 1%.”
The predominance of the two-party system in the United States means only a few other political parties can substantially impact the operations of government. New York state currently recognizes only four political parties: the Democratic, Republican, Conservative Party, and Working Families Party.
New York’s WFP has a history of backing successful candidates, with Attorney General Letitia James having been the WFP’s first citywide office holder in 2003. That year, James was elected to the New York City Council solely on the Working Families Party line. This year, the party is supporting Democratic Socialist Claire Valdez’s campaign to represent Western Queens in the New York State Assembly. A union organizer, Valdez advocates for green, union-based job opportunities, a $25 minimum wage, and the idea that everyone has a right to “a safe and affordable place to call home.”
Recent rule changes have increased the requirements political parties must meet to maintain their ballot status in the state. The WFP used to only need 50,000 votes every four years in gubernatorial races, but now it needs 130,000 votes or 2% of the total vote every two years, whichever is higher to keep its name on the ballot. “Because the presidential year has a higher turnout, we are striving to get 250,000 people to vote for Harris and Walz on the Working Families ballot line this year,” Gripper told the AmNews.
Harris and Walz will appear on both the Democratic Party and WFP lines, so a vote for their ticket can be cast and counted equally under either party. For this election, the WFP is aligning with the Democratic Party. But voting for the Harris-Walz ticket under the WFP ballot line means endorsing the policy platforms this political party promotes.
The WFP has endorsed Harris-Walz, but that doesn’t mean they support every part of their candidacy. “This is about strategy. This is about the conditions we want to organize in,” Gripper said. “We know that it is more beneficial for working families for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to be in the presidency than for Trump. And we are making a strategic decision to say this is important in this moment.
“When she gets into office, we will hold her accountable, we will make sure she continues to fight for families. I’ve heard her make commitments around childcare and we’re really excited about that. That’s an important fight for New Yorkers. Whether you’re low income or middle class, the rising costs of childcare is now more expensive than CUNY and SUNY tuition.”
Gripper says the WFP is out campaigning during these final weeks before the Nov. 5 election. They have phone banks going every Wednesday and Sunday and are out doing door-knocking across the state. “When I talk to voters, I explain to them that fusion. That, like, Donald Trump is running on two lines in New York, the Republican and Conservative. And Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are running on two lines, the Democratic and Working Families. And I say, at Working Families, we fight for workers, we fight for families, we fight for jobs here, and we fight for higher wages. And people are like, yeah, that’s me: I’m a working family, that’s important to me –– I’m glad someone’s fighting for us. And they’re like, I’ll be happy to vote on the Working Families ballot line.
“The more people who vote Working Families, the more people who get behind and support the party, the more power we have and the greater leverage we have to hold elected officials accountable at every level of government.”
A new report examines how the United States’ legacy of anti-Black racism affects Afro Latinx in the workplace and reveals that anti-Black racism continues to affect the lives of varied people of African descent.
“The Labor Market Experiences of Working-Age Afro Latinxs,” published by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (UCLA LPPI), found that Afro Latino men experience higher rates of unemployment than non-Black Latino men. Although occasionally hired more than African-American men, they are not employed as often as other Latino men. Similarly to African-American men, Afro Latino men endure below-average labor force participation rates.
Afro-Latina women can face the same range of high unemployment rates as other Black women, and their jobs are often vulnerable to economic downturns. In general, Afro Latinx workers face the same racial and ethnic discrimination as other Black people in the U.S., which means they face the same prospect of having to work harder than others to succeed financially in the U.S. labor market.
“You see the way that anti-Blackness impacts the entire African diaspora,” University of New Mexico sociology professor Dr. Nancy López, who co-authored the UCLA report with a team of researchers, told the AmNews in reference to the report. “It’s almost like we’re mirroring each other,” she said.
The report examines data covering the 12 years from 2010 to 2022. It includes information about the employment of 25- to 54-year-old Afro Latinx after the Great Recession (2007 to 2009) and both during and after COVID-19.
“Afro Latinxs are more likely to reside in the Northeast, more likely to be born in the U.S., less likely to be married, and younger,” authors of the report note. “Regardless of gender, Afro Latinxs are less likely to be immigrants when compared to non-Black Latinos. About 46% of Afro Latino men were born outside the U.S., compared to about 55% of non-Black Latino men. Similarly, just 42% of Afro Latinas were immigrants compared to 52% of non-Black Latinas.”
Afro Latinxs also tend to have higher educational levels than non-Black Latinos, yet they still don’t receive the same number of job offers, according to the report.
“The pandemic … significantly affected Black women and Latinas’ labor force participation,” the UCLA report states: “From 2019 to 2020, Black women and non-Black Latinas experienced the greatest one-year decreases in labor force participation rates of the groups of women we examined (about 2 percentage points each). For Black women and non-Black Latinas, this was accompanied by 2.6% and 2% reduction in the number of workers, respectively. Labor force participation for prime-age Afro Latinas — who experienced the highest unemployment levels among women in 2020 — also decreased 0.7 percentage points from 2019 to 2020. Together, these findings suggest that downturns affect Black, non-Black Latina, and Afro Latina workers similarly.”
Afro Latino men had higher job rates than African American men, but the numbers were lower in comparison to non-Black Latinos. “While no group experienced unemployment parity with white men, Black and Afro Latino workers were much more likely to be jobless in comparison,” the study found. “On average, Black men were 2.2 times more likely to be unemployed when compared to white men from 2010 to 2022, while Afro Latino men were 1.6 times more likely to be unemployed than white men.”
The UCLA report findings show that Afro Latinx and African American employees experience similar levels of job discrimination. It underscores the need to examine the intersectional challenges that different Black groups face in the U.S., López said.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructed the Census Bureau to no longer allow Latinos to specify their racial background. That could mean that data about the lives of white Latinx and Black Latinx won’t be seen.
“We definitely need to make visible the anti-Blackness we’re experiencing,” said López. “Whether we’re African American, Afro Latina, et cetera, because there are white Panamanians — we know this, right? There are white Dominican women, right? There are people … from all over the globe — [you] could be from wherever [but] that does not have anything to do with how you’re racialized.”
López has written extensively about how Latinos understand themselves is one thing, but how they are perceived by others — their “street race,” or the race a stranger might think they are –– often affects how they are treated.
“The most important thing is to remember that we have an ethical obligation, and that we should be clear about [the data] we’re collecting, because if we don’t know what we’re collecting, any question is going to be fine,” López said. “That’s a quote that I include in a lot of my PowerPoints from one of my colleagues, Howard Hogan, who just retired from the Census Bureau after 40 years or so. He’s not Latino, he’s not African American, he’s not a person of color: He’s a white man who’s worked [on] the census and has done the analysis to show that poverty rates for Black Latinos versus non-Black Latinos are totally different.”
López added that “you can do the right thing and collect this data in a way that’s meaningful and can illuminate inequities, or you can pretend that all Latinos are the same race and contribute to the reproduction of racial inequality. I hope that we would choose to do the ethical thing, to do no harm, and that we’ll have flexible solidarity in the Latino community that recognizes that if we are pretending that all of our folks are a Brown monolith, then we’re erasing a whole experience in history.”
The Biden-Harris administration has announced additional student loan cancellations, offering debt relief to over 60,000 nonprofit and government employees burdened by college debt while serving in often low-paying public service roles.
Initially, these workers were told they could pursue socially rewarding careers and get their federal student loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. PSLF was created in 2007 and designed to benefit teachers, nurses, first responders, and other public servants, provided they completed 10 years of consistent monthly payments on their debt.
But PSLF had numerous administrative problems, which led to many applicants being rejected for reasons like being on incorrect repayment plans or having not received credit for previous payments they made to loan servicers.
“That was the promise of Public Service Loan Forgiveness: spend ten years serving the greater good and you could be debt free,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said. “It was a simple idea. But a decade later, when many borrowers began applying for the forgiveness they earned –– that promise was broken. Public servants saw their applications fall victim to fine print technicalities, red tape, accounting errors, and a wall of indifference from the last administration.
“These Americans acted in good faith. They paid their student loans while working in the public interest. But instead of fixing PSLF, my predecessor was more focused on handouts for predatory for-profit colleges. When I got to the Department of Education in 2021, just 7,000 public servants had ever qualified. By then, people had lost faith… They called PSLF a cruel joke, a broken promise, a nightmare. This is how folks described the program to me when I became secretary.”
The Department of Education says it has now taken over the administration of PSLF and can ensure that borrowers get credit for past payments.
“From day one of my administration,” President Joe Biden said, “I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity. I will never stop working to make higher education affordable –– no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
All along the way, Republicans have fought the Biden administration’s attempts to update the PSLF. Republican-led states and groups filed lawsuits to try to stop changes to the program by arguing that the Department of Education had no legal authority to do so.
Vice President Kamala Harris said: “Higher education should be a pathway to economic opportunity – not a lifetime of debt. That is why I have fought to make education more affordable and reduce the burden of student debt throughout my career.
“When President Biden and I took office, only 7,000 people had ever been approved for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Today, I am proud to say that a record one million teachers, nurses, first responders, social workers, and other public service workers have received student debt cancellation. As I travel our nation, I meet many of these public servants who say they now have more money in their pocket to put towards buying a home, renting an apartment, getting a car, starting a family, and saving up for the future.”
Public sector unions like the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will be reaching out to their members to help them understand the new changes to PSLF and to encourage them to apply for debt relief.
Community members were treated to a tour of the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot in Harlem on Oct. 18 to see the future of sustainable design.
The bus depot is one of the first public transit facilities to incorporate sustainable design practices and the first to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The tour, which came as part of the nonprofit organization Open House New York’s annual weekend initiative, displayed the depot’s sustainable features, including the solar heating wall, green roof, and rainwater collection tank.
Open House New York was founded in 2001 to allow New Yorkers to experience the architecture of sites usually barred to the public. This year, around 200 sites across the city, including the Highbridge Water Tower and the Mount Morris Fire Tower, were available for viewing.
The bus depot was chosen as an Open House New York site to educate the public about sustainability.
“In addition to being a good example for the industry to follow, we try to give good examples of environmentally sensitive, sustainable practices,” said tour leader Thomas Abdallah, the deputy vice president and chief engineer for the New York City Transit Authority.
The bus depot is one of 28 in the city. According to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, it can hold more than 150diesel hybrid buses. The city first started testing hybrid buses in the late 1990s before introducing a larger fleet in 2004.
The depot’s solar heating wall is primarily used in the winter. Warm air travels through holes in the wall and into the building, warming the space and saving two to three percent in energy, according to Abdallah.
The warm air is taken outside the building in the summer through what Abdallah calls a summer bypass. As warm air is sucked into the building, it rises, insulating the roof and leading to savings in terms of cooling.
The design was inspired by the Renewable Energy Lab’s solar heating wall in Colorado, said Abdallah.
“I wanted to do something special from a renewable energy point of view,” he said.
The building also features a65,000-square-foot vegetation roof. Also known as a green roof, this style of roofing also insulates the building and absorbs water, carbon dioxide and other air pollutants like particulate matter.
Particulate matter, or PM 2.5, is a pollutant imperceptible to the naked eye that can cause health issues like asthma and heart disease when inhaled.
Central Harlem, where the bus depot is located, has the third-highest asthma emergency department visits in the city, according to the NYC Environment and Health Data portal. (It ties with Highbridge and Morrisania just across the Harlem River.)
PM 2.5 is flushed into the engineered soil of the green roof when it rains, removing it from the air.
“Anytime you can reduce the amount of particles that are in the atmosphere, it’s a health benefit to the community,” said Abdallah.
Sedums were planted on the green roof due to their hardiness. They thrive in mountainous regions with little soil and water.
“What is the roof if not a kind of an artificial hill?” said Yekaterina Aglitsky, environmental management system director at New York City Transit.
The roof is also used to collect rain, which is recycled to wash the buses in the depot. The rainwater is stored in a 50,000-gallon tank, reducing the amount of water used by the facility and that ends up in the city’s sewer system. The buses are washed using nontoxic, environmentally safe soap.
Martha Lineberger, 39, came from Brooklyn to take part in the tour. She has been participating in Open House New York for about eight years.
“It’s a great way to see the city and how it functions,” Lineberger said. “I feel like I appreciate things more when I understand how much work and thought and whatever has gone into it.”
The Jamaica Bus Depot, currently under construction in Queens, will follow the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot’s sustainable design model.
The city aims for its bus fleet to be zero-emissions by 2040. This plan requires electric buses, 60 of which have already been introduced in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. The switch will be painless for the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot: it is already a good fit for electric buses, which require overhead charging, thanks to its high ceilings.
“When we move forward with the electric buses, this building will be one of the first that gets them,” Abdallah said.
Most can agree that New York City has a stark housing crisis, but people are fundamentally split on how to solve it. Mayor Eric Adams’s City of Yes for Housing Opportunity (CHO) proposal is a massive, citywide overhaul of all zoning districts in an effort to produce more housing.
Every three years the city’s 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS), which has been conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau since 1965, collects housing data to determine if the city needs rent control and rent stabilization. The survey reported that rents and housing costs have skyrocketed for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers of all kinds. If someone needed an apartment for under $1,100, the vacancy rate is 0.39 %, and for less than $2,400, it’s below 1%, said the survey. Additionally, most households making less than $50,000 without rental assistance are 86% rent burdened.
The New York City council held a two-day hearing this week on Oct. 21 and 22 with electeds and the public to thoroughly review the CHO proposal ahead of their final vote, which is supposed to be before the end of the year. Many passionately testified about their fears and concerns about the zoning changes, and doubled-down on the city’s real need for more affordability.
In her opening remarks at the hearings, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said that working- and middle-class families throughout the city are already on the brink of being “squeezed out” because of high rents and a lack of homeownership opportunities. She added that homelessness has soared to record levels in recent years, with an estimated 350,000 people without homes, and eviction rates as well as housing insecurity has also increased.
“All of these factors are contributing to New York’s housing crisis, and they will only worsen unless we advance holistic housing solutions,” said Speaker Adams, recognizing the importance of updating the city’s zoning. “At the same time, this Council knows that zoning reform alone cannot fully address the wide-ranging housing needs of New Yorkers. Zoning reform is one important component, but New Yorkers also need deeper affordability, expanded pathways to affordable homeownership, strengthened tenant protections, the removal of barriers to housing vouchers, investments in their neighborhoods, and more.” While the hearings were happening just upstairs in City Hall, Adams at his Tuesday presser commented that: “We know people are fearful, particularly in low-rise areas, of seeing a complete transformation of their communities. We got that.”
Breaking down the zoning and housing proposal
The city’s planning commission voted to approve the CHO proposal in September 2024. Department of City Planning (DCP) Commissioner and City Planning Commission (CPC) Chair Dan Garodnick, joined by Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrion Jr., detailed the proposal in a lengthy presentation on the first day of the hearings.
“By building a little more in every neighborhood that means we can have an impact in the aggregate on our housing shortage without dramatic changes on any one neighborhood,” said Garodnick.
The proposal would allow for the creation of up to 108,850 new homes over the next 15 years by changing the city’s zoning, which regulates the density and use of what can be built in a particular area. It splits the city’s 59 community districts into R1 through R10 zones: lower-density or “missing middle” housing is within R1 to R5 zones and medium and high density neighborhoods are within R6 to R10 zones. Much of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and parts of the Bronx are considered low density. Manhattan, and chunks of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and a sliver of Staten Island, are considered high density.
Other key takeaways from CHO:
Legalize town center zoning, which is housing above businesses on commercial streets, about two to four stories in low density areas
Legalize small and shared apartments with dorm-style common facilities. This type of shared housing was banned in the 1950s and apartment buildings full of studio apartments were banned in the 1960s. CHO proposes that more studios and one-bedrooms would be great for recent college graduates, older households that are downsizing, or those without families that prefer to live alone as opposed to with several roommates
Legalize transit oriented development, which allows for three to five story apartment buildings in low density neighborhoods on large lots on wide streets or corners within a half-mile of public transit.
Legalize small accessory dwelling units (ADUs) for one- to two- family homeowners, like backyard cottages, converted garages, attics, or basement apartments. Basement ADUs would not be allowed in areas at risk of coastal flooding.
Create more “modest, contextual” development, meaning shorter buildings that were legal before 1961
Create the Universal Affordability Preference (UAP), a bonus allowing roughly 20% more housing in developments as long it is “permanently affordable.” It would be permanently affordable to households earning 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI).
Allow development on large lots known as campuses including faith-based organizations.
Update Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) options to have a standalone Option 3 with 40% AMI for affordable housing projects. Was last updated in 2016.
Clear hurdles for 100% affordable “homeownership” programs like MIH.
Promote more building design from pre-1961 with more windows and better ventilation, meant for “family-sized units.”
Eliminate parking mandates for new residential construction, while still allowing for off-street parking as needed.
Replace the Sliver Law, which restricts the height of narrow buildings, with height-limited contextual law especially in Manhattan.
Streamlining zoning rules around yards and heights and technical rules for small, multi-level “non-conforming” homes that are out of compliance.
Create new zoning to build housing in high density areas now that the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) cap, instituted in the 1960s, was repealed. This would be R11 – 12 with MIH included.
Garodnick agreed that zoning alone won’t solve the housing crisis, and needs subsidies and tax incentives to include “affordable housing.”
Fixing racial disparities in past zoning
During former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s time in office in the early 2000s, and just before his term in the 1990s, New York City had a huge downzoning and rezoning.
Politico reported that one of the main goals of these zoning changes was to maintain “neighborhood character” by limiting new construction in places like Staten Island or Brooklyn. The NYU Furman Center’s State of New York City’s Housing & Neighborhoods 2010 Report found that areas that were upzoned tended to be “less white and less wealthy with fewer homeowners” while areas that were downzoned were “more white and had both higher incomes and higher rates of homeownership.” In short, wealthy neighborhoods were preserved while Black and Brown neighborhoods were developed — an ongoing trend noted Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in his testimony.
“By functionally building walls around entire parts of the city we increased segregation and we increased displacement in some areas and gentrification in others,” said Garodnick. He said these issues were an intentional policy choice about 20 years ago that must be overturned.
Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse represents Canarsie, Flatlands, and parts of south Brooklyn. She said in the hearing that Black and Brown communities like hers are “enraged” over decades of rampant gentrification, high disclosure rates, and displacement of low-income homeowners and renters as a result of these policies. She feels like people without access and means will absolutely lose their homes to market rate and luxury housing development.
Concerns over infrastructure and parking Councilmembers and the public primarily had concerns about how more housing would impact a neighborhood’s infrastructure, such as the electrical grid, fire houses, schools, hospitals, sewer and water systems, air quality, green spaces, flood and climate resiliency plans, and racial diversity in historically Black and Brown neighborhoods. Garodnick acknowledged that schools, open spaces, and transportation will likely experience “incremental” impacts, which the council pushed back on.
“When it rains people just cross their fingers and pray. I have people talk to me during Sandy, during any little storm,” said Narcisse, whose constituents are concerned that more housing will burden the already inadequate storm infrastructure and mean more flooding.
A wholly divisive component of the proposal was the push to eliminate parking mandates. Council members representing more residential neighborhoods, in boroughs like Queens or Staten Island with transit deserts, were explicitly worried about the parking situation for constituents who drive.
“Southeast Queens is unique. Our infrastructure is often stretched, especially in the face of climate change with frequent flooding and high water tables. Additionally, we rely heavily on cars due to insufficient public transportation options. Parking remains a significant issue for our residents,” said Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, who represents Southeast Queens.
Brooks-Powers advocated for more homeownership opportunities and infrastructure investments to support low to high density neighborhoods. “I think we have to be nuanced in this space,” she said.
Who wants the City of Yes?
At one of the rallies held outside City Hall during the hearings, several unions and housing advocates as well as electeds and developers pledged their support for the proposal.
“Due to the long ULURP process, financing challenges, and these racist zoning laws, the shelter industrial complex, that I speak of often, thrives making millions while housing development is held back. So the choice is yours. Housing or shelters,” said homeless advocate Shams DaBaron at the rally. “Some argue that the City of Yes is a giveaway to real estate developers. But let’s be real, the developer is a part of the process either way, whether they build housing or shelters. The question becomes, what do you prefer to be built in your backyard? A permanent home or a shelter that looks like a jail with 200 cots.”
Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference (NYHC), along with nearly 150 organizations, is a huge supporter of zoning reforms. She said that while infrastructure investments are important, that’s not what this proposal was about. “This is changing our zoning for the next decade. We have to take this action today. I think that we heard some concerns around flooding and climate change,” said Fee. “We know that this is an issue as well but we can do both of these things. We can invest in infrastructure and change our zoning.”
Councilmember Pierina Sanchez said it would be problematic to say the least to pass the proposal without considering all the impacts, but is hopeful that it will pass. “I’m here standing with this coalition and organizing my colleagues and talking to everyone that I can talk to because I hope that we can get to a yes, as a city council,” said Sanchez.
What does the opposition say?
Adams is adamantly pushing for more housing to be built “equitably” throughout the city, in every neighborhood. But outside of unions and some housing advocates, there’s little support for the full scope of the proposal or him — especially since his indictment has raised red flags around his connections to real estate. Former Brooklyn Senator Jesse Hamilton, who is the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS)’s deputy commissioner for real estate services, had his phones seized by the FBI after a trip to Japan with the Mayor’s Chief Advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin.
Co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater NY Chivona Newsome and her brother, Hawk Newsome, called for the Mayor’s resignation and slammed the housing proposal at a separate rally against the City of Yes also held at City Hall.
“They don’t care anything about us as we’ve seen community gardens get ripped away and given to developers. Developers own Eric Adams,” said Newsome, speaking to her thoughts regarding the intentions behind the proposal. “New York needs a new way. The first, needs Eric Adams to resign, and the second, the city needs to heal. We can no longer live on the streets of Gotham where everything is a scam. Today, we say no more. We say this is a City of Mess.”
“Hopefully the council will take the public seriously and try to address these and other concerns raised by members of the public who are not lobbyists and not representatives of businesses and organizations with direct financial and political stakes in the outcome of the council’s deliberation,” said Cheryl Pahaham, who co-chairs Inwood Legal Action. She’s in favor of legislation like the state’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), universal rent control, and free legal counsel for tenants.
Queens Councilmember Robert Holden also pushed back hard over infrastructure concerns. He worked extensively to downzone the city during the Bloomberg administration, he said in the hearings.
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