Dive Brief:
- In his first week in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed a number of executive orders aimed at increasing the city’s housing supply and exposing unfair rental practices.
- On Jan. 1, Mamdani created two city task forces via executive order, one to identify city-owned land for potential housing development and another to find and remove housing permitting barriers that slow down production and increase costs.
- Mamdani this week ordered the establishment of “rental ripoff” hearings, public hearings designed for residents to share “illegal, unfair, abusive, deceptive, or unconscionable landlord practices,” and also ended a pause on certain health and safety standards in city shelters that was enacted in 2024 amid an influx of asylum seekers.
Dive Insight:
New York City, like much of the U.S., is in the midst of a housing crisis. The city last year hit a vacancy rate of 1.4% — the lowest since 1968, according to Mamdani’s order.
In November, New Yorkers voted for a number of measures to streamline more affordable housing in the city, and elected Mamdani, who ran on a platform of housing reform, including promises to freeze rent for those living in rent-stabilized apartments.
“Too many New Yorkers have been forced to pay more for less — living in unsafe, unconscionable, and unaffordable housing,” Mamdani stated in establishing the city’s “rental ripoff” hearings.
Other executive orders issued during the mayor’s first week in office included the appointment of longtime tenant and housing advocates to his administration, including Cea Weaver as director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, and Dina Levy as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Mamdani also announced on his first day in office plans to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings of Pinnacle Realty, a landlord facing thousands of complaints and violations, according to the city.
“The City is owed money that Pinnacle never paid, and will fight for New Yorkers interests [in] safe and habitable homes,” the administration said in a statement.
