These conversations are not hypothetical.
Mamdani was sworn in as the new mayor of New York City by Attorney General Letitia James during a midnight ceremony on Thursday. A separate public swearing-in ceremony will take place on the steps of City Hall on Thursday afternoon. Senator Bernie Sanders will take the oath of office at that event.
Owners of rent-stabilized properties are particularly keen on Mamdani’s campaign promise to freeze rents for regulated tenants for four years. The city’s Rent Guidelines Council decides how much landlords can increase rents for one- and two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments, although mayors have influenced the council’s decisions.
Mamdani’s promise was complicated by Mayor Eric Adams’ last-minute appointments, although one appointee decided not to serve on the board.
However, he has also acknowledged that a rent freeze alone cannot solve the city’s housing crisis. He also wants to change the city’s property tax system and work with the state to find alternative insurance options to help owners reduce costs.
Mamdani has expressed support for a lawsuit challenging the city’s property tax regime, and his administration could implement changes pushed by Tax Equity Now New York, the industry-backed group that filed the lawsuit. Still, broader changes, including designating apartments and cooperatives to determine how they are assessed, would require state intervention.
He also wants the state to raise corporate and income taxes to help pay for his policy priorities, both of which have faced opposition from the business community.
Mamdani has also vowed to crack down on bad landlords and revamp the city’s Tenant Protection Agency, which was created under Mayor Bill de Blasio but has languished in recent years. Mamdani wants the agency to identify distressed multifamily buildings with unpaid fines or unaddressed hazardous conditions find ways for the city to take control of these buildings, either by seizing the properties or entering into agreements with the owners.
While many in the industry supported former Gov. Andrew Cuomo ahead of the June primary, some were encouraged by Mamdani’s recognition of the private sector’s role in addressing the housing crisis.
Following Mamdani’s victory in November, Hudson Companies President David Kramer said this The real deal that when he and other affordable housing developers met with Mamdani, the mayoral hopeful assured them he was not running to punish landlords.
“In our conversations with him, he struck me as someone who would be practical,” Kramer said at the time.
The new mayor has said he wants to build 200,000 new affordable homes over the next ten years. Some worried that a last-minute move by the City Council would hurt its ability to implement that plan. In particular, housing associations were concerned that a package of bills that would impose new requirements on the type of housing the city finances would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the budget needs of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
But in his final hours as mayor, Eric Adams vetoed these measures, as well as the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA). It is unclear whether the next council president will try to override the vetoes on these measures. Mamdani has supported COPA, so he could also encourage the City Council to adopt a new version of the policy instead.
The new government is also charged with implementing the housing measures adopted in November that create new avenues for the approval of housing projects. The changes could allow certain projects to avoid City Council approval and allow an appeals committee to overturn the Council’s rejection of other projects. Adams has left behind other initiatives that Mamdani may take up, including the so-called Manhattan Plan, which recommends several ways to ramp up construction in the neighborhood.
Mamdani is still completing his administration, but has appointed Adams Administration alum Leila Bozorg as his deputy mayor of housing and planning. He also appointed Ahmed Tigani, who served as acting HPD commissioner under Adams, as his Department of Buildings commissioner. He has not yet announced who will lead HPD or the Department of City Planning.
In the coming months, the new mayor’s policy priorities will become clearer, as will his ability to deliver on campaign promises while working with the City Council and the state Legislature.
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