What Mamdani's 'ambitious' housing plan means for New Yorkers

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]I think to me, what I want to see is stability. And I think for many of those New Yorkers, stability comes through home ownership. For others, it comes through their long-term tenancy. And what we want to ensure is that the city is doing everything it can to deliver that stability.

[00:00:13]Mayor Eric Adams yesterday in an interview with Errol Louis, very consistent in this announcement he made about housing yesterday with all of the other things he's talked about, the the freezing the rent initiative, the city-owned grocery stores initiative.

[00:00:28]And now he is saying that the city will find the money, invest the money with a target of 200,000 new affordable apartments. Yeah, we got details on his big plan that he says [clears throat] is very ambitious to deliver on this campaign promise. Let's be clear on on this cuz this mayor in particular is really good at coming out in a big press conference with a bunch of housing advocates behind him. And and we are going to change the way things are done.

[00:01:01]Every mayor has tried to tackle housing in some way. When you look at the changes on the the Williamsburg and Greenpoint and Long Island City waterfront, that was essentially a Bloomberg initiative on zoning. De Blasio had 8 years of initiatives on housing. The the City of Yes program that came under the Adams administration has been regarded as one of the things that that worked well in a fairly troubled time Yeah.

[00:01:31]>> York City politics. But here we are, the Adams administration has some other ideas. And they've got a lot up against them. The the big money likes to go to luxury housing projects. There can be more money made there sometimes. You still have the problems of the expensive union labor. And Eric Adams very much wants to support high-paying union jobs, but you can't get around the fact that it costs an outrageous amount to build here.

[00:01:59]And every time somebody wants to tear down a subtle old building and put up a housing tower. Someone says not in my backyard. But Mom Daddy came out yesterday and says we are going to give it a try.

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[00:02:34]Morning people. It's Wednesday already.

[00:02:37]I know I love a short week.

[00:02:39]>> [laughter] >> It It really felt yesterday afternoon like the the heat that we deserved on the holiday weekend. Finally arrived in the city. Let's talk about housing.

[00:02:50]Yeah, the the the mayor is calling this the block by block initiative. He says it's the housing plan for a new era. And it wasn't just about the construction.

[00:03:02]There was also a package of tenant protections that he was proposing. And then a lot of money to fix a big backlog of repairs in NYCHA buildings, which again to the point of something that all of his predecessors have tried to do. This feels like a bad cumulative effect of years of disrepair.

[00:03:24]>> As I said, the the mayor you know, set this up as here's an announcement. Here's our plan. Here's what's going to happen over the next decade. And he did so with some friends and supporters in Gowanus.

[00:03:40]Our housing plan meets this crisis with the scale and urgency it demands. It invests billions of dollars in new affordable housing production. This historic production push will increase the number of homes for homeless New Yorkers by nearly 45% helping us connect >> [cheering and applause] >> helping us connect thousands of those in need with permanent housing.

[00:04:04]Second, I'm proud to announce for the first time in our administration that we will preserve and stabilize an additional 200,000 homes.

[00:04:13]It's all a supply and demand equation, right? If if you can increase the housing supply, it means there's not as much pressure on rents. The one city that's been put forward as being quite successful on this in recent years is Austin, Texas.

[00:04:28]What And you wouldn't describe the apartments as cheap, but they're certainly cheap compared to to New York because they were relatively uh streamlined in terms of what developers saw for red tape, >> Mhm. and it resulted in in production of a significant amount of new housing.

[00:04:46]Does anything from this plan stick out to you as being something that might help this stick?

[00:04:53]Oh, the the And this is what the mayor said repeatedly in you know, in the the interview I listed with him is if you can bring more speed to the development process. If you can take away some of the obstacles, I think they're actually calling it the speed I'm I'm doing air quotes.

[00:05:10]>> Yeah. speed initiative. If you can take away some of the obstacles that somebody could get an apartment construction project from start to finish in in half the time, then it's not as daunting for developers. No, except you still have all the costs. He was also telling Errol that they were sort of like amazed at how much insurance costs have rise in terms of building and labor costs. And so, it's one of these next things.

[00:05:42]Everything we talk about each week, there's a new a new a new project, and it's some billions of dollars and decades in the making.

[00:05:51]>> Right, and and always a trade-off, right?

[00:05:53]>> Yeah. If if you put in a tenant protection there is, in all likelihood, a landlord cost on the flip side of that.

[00:06:02]>> Mhm.

[00:06:03]If you insist that the construction of the jobs be done by $40 an hour union labor there there are great jobs because of that. The mayor estimates 30,000 jobs, but it's that much more expensive to build.

[00:06:21]So, it's there everything's a trade-off and and this is as much about which trade-offs Mayor Eric Adams and his team are choosing, right?

[00:06:31]>> Yes.

[00:06:33]But, it's all part of why he was elected. People saw him as someone who understood them and their plight, that it has gotten too expensive. Not just to live here, but to try to build a future here.

[00:06:50]>> Well, he's he is obligated to put forward a tenant-friendly version of these things cuz that's that's what was implied in the people voting for him in the number of numbers they did.

[00:07:02]>> Yeah. Yeah, I Again, you you never know until years after this stuff is implemented. Did it Did it actually work? Yes. It's the housing construction process is years in the making.

[00:07:18]>> Mhm. And you know, I mean, his 200,000 home goal. I mean, that that that's Yeah, it's it's a long it's a long-term horizon.

[00:07:27]One other Eric Adams note. Oh, yeah.

[00:07:29]Then we can we both got a kick out of this.

[00:07:31]As he kicked off the press conference yesterday.

[00:07:34]He comes out to Ricky Martin's Livin' la Vida Loca because it was the number one song in 1999, the last time the Knicks were in the playoffs.

[00:07:47]I said this yesterday. It was the year I graduated high school, so I am loving all the 1999 [laughter] nostalgia. Have you seen all the things like there was no social meet like this is what the world looked like >> Oh. then. Yeah.

[00:08:01]>> Honestly, it was a really nice world in 1999.

[00:08:04]>> [laughter] >> You should >> Maybe I was just young and didn't have any of the cares that I do now. Uh while we're on the topic of the Knicks, the front page of Newsday today says we are in Knicksmania in New York City right now. The going rate for tickets for games three and four, whoever the opponent is, uh is somewhere around $3,000 at the entry level at the Garden for those games. I actually played around on Ticketmaster just to see yesterday. I wasn't going to buy one. But that's the thing is that it's just one ticket.

[00:08:38]What?

[00:08:38]>> like Oh, the I don't think like you want to go by yourself. Like >> ticket Well, for $3,000, that might be your only option. It's a right. Right, but I'm saying like >> Brian, I wanted to take you to the game.

[00:08:48][laughter] But like even if you want to go with one more person, you're talking about like almost 10 grand.

[00:08:52]>> Yeah. Um the So on the back page of the post, the the headline is ultimate warrior, and they've got Mark Messier on one side, Jalen Brunson on the other. The contention of the post this morning is that Brunson can be to the 2026 New York Knicks what Mark Messier was to the 1994 New York Rangers. Here we go.

[00:09:17]What was she talking about the pizza place? Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, so I Well, I've got the post here.

[00:09:20]>> Also in the post.

[00:09:21]>> The the um the story on page three is about a pizza place in Brooklyn that they've pulled up a pickup truck in front on game nights. They put a big screen TV on the back of the pickup truck, and they're just having their own neighborhood watch party. I love it. I really love these people. They sound like a lot of fun.

[00:09:42]>> Well, like like Plaza 33 NYPD Madison Square Garden be damned. We're just going to have a neighborhood pizza party old school. Uh where where is this Prince Street Pizza in Carroll Gardens?

[00:09:54]Brilliant.

[00:09:57]Yeah.

[00:09:58]>> Same place. What more could you want?

[00:10:00]>> Do do your own thing. Yeah. Uh well I have the newspapers here. Can I just do one more one more thing here? The both the Wall Street Journal and um the Washington Post have the Trump ultimate fighting dome that they're they're building it in front of the White House right now for the >> Yeah, they're going to have um a match.

[00:10:21]Is that what you call it? A match on his birthday in June? Yeah. So they're they've taken over the White House to build the UFC cage.

[00:10:33]Which is Oh, speaking of Trump. Yeah. The the next thing the next thing on my list is that Gothamist got a hold of what Amtrak says is a draft of the the winning proposal for Penn Station.

[00:10:51]But my guess is that the draft is pretty close to what they formally release as the first batch of rendering.

[00:10:58]>> If you close your eyes and you imagine what a Penn Station revamping looks like in the vein of Trump.

[00:11:08]I see gold paint, Jamie.

[00:11:13]When you That that daydream, that vision is exactly what the renderings look like. There's gold everywhere.

[00:11:24]It's really quite vast and What's the word I'm looking for?

[00:11:32]gold >> Bold.

[00:11:34]>> [laughter] >> I I actually I think it is more restrained in terms of the gold than it could have been. Like when you look at the remake of the Oval Office with the extent of the gold trim. Yes. It's not that much, but it it is unmistakable from these renderings that either they were directed to add some gold or that somebody thought the boss uh will like this if we add some gold.

[00:12:08]>> it it is beautiful when you think about the beautiful giant European train stations and what those look like and how they move people around.

[00:12:20]Penn Station is in desperate need of a revamping. Yeah, last week when when we were here I misspoke and said that they were going to somehow uh save the Hulu theater, which is underneath Madison Square Garden. Uh in in fact, the the plan is to rip out the Hulu theater and that's what's going to give them the ability to have some of the soaring ceilings and the and the the underground areas of Penn Station. Okay.

[00:12:48]I You know, I love the Super Speeder's bill. They're still working on the state budget and there's all these other legislations that really don't have anything to do with the budget, but will be passed along with the budget.

[00:12:59]>> Yeah, and they yesterday they they the legislature put the green light on the Super Speeder's bill pretty much as drafted, which is that if somebody gets 16 speed camera tickets if a vehicle gets 16 speed camera tickets uh over the space of a year then they mandate that that vehicle be equipped with the the GPS speed limiting device.

[00:13:23]>> Yes. If you can't afford one there is a program that they will install one for you.

[00:13:30]>> Yeah, that was interesting. Like there's >> getting one regardless.

[00:13:33]>> There's no excuses, even if you're you're low income, even if you need the vehicle to go to work, we will put the device in for you.

[00:13:39]>> Yeah. Uh first offense, the device has to be in place for a year. Second offense, it's two more years.

[00:13:48]>> Mhm.

[00:13:49]That's good for them. Yes. It It's the story about the cop on Staten Island that >> Oh, with hundreds of speed camera tickets still gets me.

[00:13:59]>> That was crazy.

[00:14:01]We have a story about a store closing, but like so many store closings, it's about so much more and the change in how we live.

[00:14:11]>> Yeah, the headline on this is that the REI store in Soho is shutting down. And this place always stood out because it And REI is in many cities, but you're walking among the boutiques in Soho and all of a sudden there's a place that is selling kayaks >> kayaks and mountain climbing ropes. I want to say kayaks.

[00:14:33]>> [laughter] >> And and and tents and Arctic-level sleeping bags. It's And they've been successful there for years and they had another location in the city on the Upper West Side at one point. But this has always been in my view a store that was for New Yorkers who spend their recreation time elsewhere.

[00:14:54]>> Outside. Yeah. But what's crazy is that a store like that, what they're selling is stuff that you really want to lay eyes on in person, touch and feel.

[00:15:05]And it's not something you're going to ship and return the way that we ship and return a pair of jeans, for example. One of the problems that these stores have though is that what they call the showrooming problem, which is you go to REI, you look at it, they go to the expense of having a store in Manhattan to display it.

[00:15:23]>> Then you order it >> But But you end up ordering it from from somewhere else. There There was a We're seeing less of it, but it used to be that New York had a little store that sold every niche thing. They sure did.

[00:15:37]>> Uh and you know, a lot of that's just moved to online now. I mean, the typewriter store, we still have a button store.

[00:15:45]We still have a hot sauce store.

[00:15:49]We still have a a pencil store.

[00:15:52]But It's still sad.

[00:15:55]Yeah, it was It was one of the quirky things that you Cleveland didn't have a >> [laughter] >> a pencil store, but New York was big enough that we could support a a odd place like that.

[00:16:07]>> Yeah. Let us know what your favorite niche >> random niche >> Yes.

[00:16:12]>> shop in the city is.

[00:16:13]>> Let us know. Let us know what you think of the mayor's housing plan. Let us know what you think about all the 1999 nostalgia. If you were alive then, Morning People NY1 on social media.

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