Mamdani Won on Housing. Will Democrats Follow His Lead?

0:00Not again. Another AI project has ended without any ROI. Close to cracking? Time to meet the Salonis Context Model, which provides AI the operational clarity it needs. Go to CELONIS.com slash WSJ to start getting AI ROI. The first thing Willem Holzer checks out when he's visiting a home for sale is the boiler room. The water heater is new, but the boiler looks from like the 60s. It just looks rusty. I could be totally off. It looks like an older boiler. So, I mean, that's just something to just keep an eye on. Holzer and his spouse, Roxanne Alberts, own a condo a few blocks from here, in New York City's Bed-Stuy neighborhood.

0:41But they'd like more space. We're trying to have kids, so that's why we're looking to expand. Otherwise, our current apartment is actually absolutely perfect. The home they're visiting is a four-story townhouse listed at$2.35 million. And they say they wouldn't be able to afford it without some help from their family. To make it work for their budget, they'd also have to rent part of it out. I mean, I just think the prices are just, like, insane. I mean, just my gut reaction is, like, even, like, four years ago when we bought, it was already crazy. But you think you're, like, making some sort of investment for the future.

1:15But it's kind of limiting at the same time. If you drew up a list of words often associated with New York City, expensive would probably be near the top. As a voter, Holzer calls affordability his number one issue. He says it's a concern for him if they end up putting part of their next property, whether it's this home or another, up for rent. You have to make sure that people can afford to even pay for what you're asking for, or else you're just like sitting on dead property. I mean, if no one can afford to pay for it, then what's the point of owning it? I'm Sabrina Siddiqui, and this is What's News Sunday.

1:51Over the last few weeks, I've been reporting on what the rising cost of living could mean for who will control Congress next year. In this episode, we talk to some of the New Yorkers navigating higher housing costs, and to Zoran Mamdani, the progressive mayor who swept into office with a campaign focused on costs. Ahead of primary elections coming up this Tuesday, Mamdani has endorsed like-minded candidates running to represent corners of the city in both the state capitol and in Washington. But those candidates have similarly progressive ideas for how to address the cost of housing. That has sometimes put them and Mamdani at odds with Democratic Party leaders on an issue they all hope will resonate with voters in November.

2:33This is The Cost of Living Election, Part 4.

2:41At a housing resource fair in Brooklyn earlier this month, LaVaugh and Mason attended a seminar called Landlords and Tenants, Rights and Responsibilities. She's in the former camp. Mason owns a home in Bushwick that she divided into six units, which she rents out for between$1 ,300 and$2 ,400 a month. The building provides her only income, and she says that because of inflation, It's not enough to comfortably pay her bills and address all the needs for repairs that pop up in the rental home. Repairs are what used to be$150 per day. Now they want$300 per day, for example. Anything to do with boilers, electrical, plumbing, it's through the roof.

3:23For me, it means balancing what I can and cannot fix, what is urgent, what is not urgent, what I could postpone to fix. Because I live from the income, so I have to take care of my bills too. Her situation is often invoked by critics of rent freezes and other price controls. They say that if property owners, big and small, can't raise rents, they can't fund the repairs that would keep the homes attractive. Mason says that if the city is going to freeze rent, they should also work with her to meet her costs. I have a tenant that's been with the buildings for 20 years. She pays$1 ,300 and change.

3:57That is nothing. So if they freeze their rent, they need to come up with a way of supporting landlords when it's time to fix major problems. It shouldn't just come out and give me a violation for boiler if you're not going to help me fix that boiler when I can't afford it to do it. Renters attended the seminar too. Eva Sanchez is 49. She's been unemployed for a few years, and she says she gets government assistance to pay for her apartment in Queens. There is a crisis. I can attest to that personally. Unfortunately, the rent in New York City is just not affordable to the main common layperson.

4:33It's just out of people's hands right now. Later this month, the city's Rent Guidelines Board will vote to set the new limit on price hikes. Sanchez says getting her housing situation in a more stable place would be a relief. We can't survive unless we have a decent place to call home. The basic need is housing. And after that, when housing is established, as New Yorkers, as citizens of New York City, we're going to thrive. Sanchez voted to elect Mayor Mamdani in part because of his promises to address the city's housing shortage. Now, she says, she wants to see him follow through on those. Last month, the mayor announced block by block his long-awaited housing plan.

5:16Along with his goal of building 200 ,000 new residences, Mamdani pledged to preserve 200 ,000 existing ones. Together, these 400 ,000 homes will be affordable for working people. And they will be made possible by historic$22 billion capital investment over five years. We are the largest city in the nation. We have the resources, the talent and the will to achieve this. His signature policy was a promise to freeze rents on rent-regulated apartments for all four years of his term. That pledge unnerved rent-stabilized landlords like Levon Mason. Some of them own buildings with piles of expensive debt that have been pushed further underwater by the rising cost of insurance, utilities, and other expenses.

6:06Faced with that, the Mamdani administration has moved to find new ways to offer landlords relief, including a$5 million loan program for landlords, all while delivering for tenants. Most New Yorkers, after all, rent their homes instead of owning them. That includes Mayor Mamdani himself, or at least it did before he moved into Gracie Mansion, the mayor of New York City's official residence. Coming up, I make the trip to City Hall to sit down with the mayor and ask him about how he's balancing his promises to bring relief to renters with some of the economic challenges of doing so. That's after the break.

6:51At CLA, we're in your corner and on it. We coach tax strategies and Little League First Base. We help you adopt AI data tools, and we adopt rescues named Buddy. We walk your factory floor and jog the local 5K, though sometimes we walk that too. Wherever you're coming from, we're right there with you. Wherever you're going, we'll get you there. CLA, CPAs, consultants, and advisors. Learn more at claconnect.com slash with you.

7:26We're back with my interview with New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for taking the time. I want to talk about housing policy, and you just released your broader housing platform. You campaigned on freezing the rent, but a lot of landlords have talked about how their expenses have shot up, such as utilities, costs of material and labor. And what they're essentially saying is that operating an apartment building is a lot more expensive than it used to be. And some of these properties could struggle without raising the rent. So how are you balancing your promise to freeze the rent with the realities of the industry?

8:02I think there's a few things. The first is that over the course of the campaign, I spoke about the fact that this cost of living crisis was affecting each and every person across the city, and that includes landlords. And so what we've heard from a number of landlords is that one of the costs that they are seeing skyrocket over the last few years is that of insurance, especially for affordable housing providers. And so one of the decisions that we've made over these past six months is to create for the first time in city history a city-backed insurance fund,$100 million over the next few years, that would not only save the city hundreds of millions of dollars, but also make it easier for landlords of affordable housing to maintain those units.

8:40And then secondly, the decision on the rent for rent-stabilized tenants is one that's made by the Rent Guidelines Board, an independent board that assesses the landscape of rent-stabilized housing in the city, that collects testimony. And what they've also found is that there have been increases in revenue for landlords of rent-stabilized units, while the median household income of these units is still largely the same. And so that crisis still remains between the revenue that is being raised from these units and the struggle of many tenants from being able to afford to live in those units. That's a decision the Iran Guidelines Board will come to over the course of this month.

9:18There are obviously differences between running a campaign and the realities of governance. So what are, now that you've been on the job for half a year almost, what are some of the constraints that you're encountering to your housing policy ambitions? You know, I think it's often framed that way. However, I must say that I find governing to be an incredible opportunity because you can finally shift from a debate to delivery. For a long time, that's all housing has been. It's been a debate on the question of whether we need to build more housing or whether we need to increase our tenant protections.

9:52we're showing that in fact you can do both of these things. And block by block, our housing plan that we just released, it is both the most ambitious, affordable housing vision that the city has had for decades, as well as a vision to create the strongest tenant protections in America. Where are you finding it appropriate to make compromises? And how would you rationalize those to your supporters who may have a little bit more of an us versus them mentality? I didn't think I'd be building housing for Yankees fans, but I'm building housing for every New Yorker. I've spoken about the fact that I myself was at one point skeptical of the private market's development of housing and the impact that it has in the city.

10:35And there are many New Yorkers who look at construction in their own neighborhood and they're skeptical as to who is it for. What we are trying to show is that we will build housing that will be immediately affordable to New Yorkers at a scale we haven't seen before, 200 ,000 homes, while also working with the private market to make it easier for them to build. When it comes to possible collaboration with the private sector, how do you differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys? I think you give everyone an opportunity to follow the law. And, you know, when I speak about bad landlords, it's not an individual assessment of whether someone is good or bad.

11:09It's an assessment of, are they following the housing code of the city? For too long, housing code has been treated as if it is a suggestion. This is the law. And yet we've seen impunity in face of the violation of that law. I was recently at the announcement of Block by Block. I was asked by a reporter about a landlord that had been sent to jail. And this was one of the few landlords that had faced that kind of consequence. I knew that landlord's name because I had visited another building that he owned where they had an active beehive that was found in the walls. That's the level that we're seeing across the city.

11:39That, to me, is the separation between good and bad. Let me ask you about the upcoming elections, including the primaries in New York, because you've endorsed certain candidates for Congress. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said that the two of you have agreed to strongly disagree on at least one of those endorsements. Are you consulting with Democratic leaders, such as Leader Jeffries and Senator Schumer, before making your endorsements? I'm in conversation with a number of partners, and that includes Leader Jeffries as well as others, because they are partners in the fight for our city.

12:12And I think it is a healthy thing in our democracy to be able to have healthy and respectful disagreement while being aligned on what the larger fight is. And that's a fight to ensure that every New Yorker can afford to live in the city. And I have to also say that I'm incredibly excited to support the slate of candidates that I am supporting for the congressional seats, whether they be Daria Liza, Villa Chevalier, or Claire Valdez, or Brad Lander. And over the next few weeks, I'm excited that New Yorkers will have the opportunity to vote for them. Part of why I wanted to ask about how you're choosing to exercise that endorsement is because I'm curious what you see as your role in the Democratic Party when there's a lot of debate, pretty intense debate about its future and its direction.

12:54I see my role as being honest about the city that we're living in, the state that we're living in, the country that we're living in. I think for far too long, it feels as if politics doesn't reflect the struggles of day to day people. We are here in the most expensive city in the United States of America, the wealthiest city in the United States of America. One in four of our residents are living in poverty. And so as much as I speak about the strength of our economy, I always try and ensure that our focus is also on the working person that has been left behind that we now want to make at the heart of this politics.

13:26Are you planning on making any endorsements outside of New York? I can tell you that right now my focus is on June 23rd on the upcoming state and congressional primaries. And I'm very excited to have supported a number of candidates to that end. What kind of housing policies do you want to see from the candidates that you endorse? I mean, do you think the types of things you're pushing for here in New York City would work elsewhere? Or do other places need different approaches? I've actually been inspired by a number of other cities' approaches, whether they be cities internationally like Vienna or cities across this country like Austin or even Seattle, in terms of a commitment to both building as much housing as possible and also ensuring that the city understands its responsibility to build immediately affordable housing alongside that.

14:10And when you think about block by block, it's tempting to think about it in the context of each mayoral administration coming forward and announcing its own plan. The truth of this is that we are facing up to more than 60 years of municipal policy that began in 1961, where we have made it more and more difficult for us to build housing. That's the point at which we stopped building enough housing to deal with the population growth in this city. And now we want to finally turn the page to build in the way that we used to and do it with working people in mind. I want to turn to President Trump for a moment because your second Oval Office meeting was about federal investment in housing in New York City.

14:47Where are you on that? Where does that stand? Sunnyside Yards continues to be an active conversation with the president and the president's team. and it's of interest to myself and to the president because of the scale of what we are talking about. This would be the largest housing development in New York City since the early 1970s and it would create 30 ,000 jobs. And the president, before he's the president, he's a New Yorker and he's someone who used to be a real estate developer right here in the city. This is an idea that has lived as an idea for decades. Now it's the opportunity to take an idea and make it reality and build one of the most significant new investments in New York City's skyline.

15:26Have you spoken with the president about the project since that meeting? I'll keep the nature and the cadence of those conversations between the president and I, but I will tell you that this continues to be a focus for me and one that I appreciate the fact that the president is interested in. You've talked about how some of your plans need federal support, such as the one that you approached the president for. How important is it for your agenda that Democrats take control of the House in November and maybe even the Senate? I think it's critically important because what we've seen is there is an immense opportunity that this city has when we have partners in Washington.

16:02When I talk about my favorite mayor of all time, it's Fiorella LaGuardia. And one of the keys to his success was the relationship that he built with FDR, the investments we saw from Washington. We're not seeing those investments at this time. In fact, what we're seeing are the ramifications of cruel cuts that have been implemented that are destabilizing the lives of hundreds of thousands of working New Yorkers. If we were to have partners in Washington that were committed to delivering for this city, it would unlock to a far greater potential than what we see today what's possible for this city.

16:35Mr. Mayor, thank you so much. Very welcome. Thank you for having me. The Cost of Living Election is part of the Wall Street Journal's What's News. This episode was produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé. Michael LaValle mixed it and wrote our music. Editorial oversight from Joshua Jamerson, Chris Zinsley, and Tali Arbel. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui, and this has been The Cost of Living Election. Thanks for listening.

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