Cuomo’s Plan to Means-Test Rent Stabilized Apartments, And What Else Happened This Week In Housing

Each Friday, City Limits rounds up the latest news on housing, land use and homelessness. Catch up on what you might have missed here.

On Saturday, Andrew Cuomo pitched a controversial proposal to cap incomes for people signing new leases in rent-stabilized units.

In an apparent dig at the mayoral election frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, who reportedly pays $2,300 a month for a rent-stabilized one-bedroom in Astoria, Cuomo said “rent stabilized units when they are vacant should only be rented to people who need affordable housing.”

“Otherwise what you are doing is abusing the system,” he added.

Nearly a million apartments in New York City are rent stabilized, housing 2.4 million New Yorkers.

Cuomo’s proposal, according to spokesperson Rich Azzopardi, would require that the yearly rent for a stabilized unit make up 30 percent or more of the household income. So if the rent was $2,500 a month (or $30,000 a year) the new tenants could make no more than $100,000.

The move was roundly denounced by his political opponents, tenant groups, and even some real estate insiders, who pointed out that people living in rent stabilized units already tend to be lower income and that the proposal might actually require new residents to be rent-burdened, meaning they spend at least a third of their income on housing.

Nevermind the fact that as governor, Cuomo signed the 2019 rent laws that eliminated provisions allowing rent hikes on wealthy families in stabilized units in the first place.

Here’s what else happened this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

• New funding is expected to expand the number of supportive housing apartments for New Yorkers who cycle between shelter and jail, six years after the city pledged to create more of those units as part of its plan to close Rikers Island.
• The City Council voted unanimously to pass a rezoning plan to build more housing in Midtown South, which officials say may reflect changing attitudes on new development.
• The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) unveiled a restoration of the “Exodus and Dance” frieze by famed Harlem Renaissance sculptor Richmond Barthé, which has been on display at the Kingsborough Houses for decades.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

• State officials say they aren’t enforcing penalties against the developer of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park—which failed to meet a deadline to build the remaining affordable housing the project pledged to deliver—because the company threatened to sue, Gothamist reports.
• The Adams administration is secretly using a free internet program to give the NYPD access to camera feeds at NYCHA campuses, a New York Focus investigation revealed.
• A program that displays public art in vacant city storefronts is opening an exhibit at NYCHA’s  Alfred E. Smith Houses on the Lower East Side, according to The City.
• Politico factchecks Mayor Eric Adams’ claim of being the “most pro-housing administration” in city history.
• The first city-funded homeless shelter for transgender New Yorkers opened in Queens, according to NBC New York.

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