The City of Yes heads to a final vote. We recap how we got to this point. Plus, we tell you what you should know about the incoming HUD secretary. And, we go deep on housing and vacancy surveys and explain why they are being challenged in many places, but not in New York City. 

Let's start Housing New York. 

[THEME]

“We need 800,000 units to meet the demand today. What we have right now in the United States and what we have right now in New York City is almost a crisis of absurdity. We have thousands of people with rent vouchers and no place to use them. Housing needs to be addressed from literally every angle, and what that means is we're all going to have to compromise…”

[INTRO]

Hello, friends. I'm Kenny Burgos, the CEO of the New York Apartment Association. This is Housing New York, our weekly podcast discussing all the stories and developments that impact housing policy in this great state. We're taping this on Monday, December 2nd, which feels like it's the coldest day of the year and showing no signs of slowing up. But now it's time to get to the news.  

[01:04] [‘City of Yes’ set for a full vote]

Let's talk about the City of Yes, again. For those who don't know, it’s the biggest thing happening in housing this week. The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is a plan to upzone the city by a little bit in all neighborhoods. In a deal struck last week, it was amended to exempt several neighborhoods from this plan by failing to repeal housing minimums or keeping in place bans on accessory dwelling units. These measures don't just reduce potential supply, they essentially make it cost prohibitive to build larger density. 

The City of Yes is a few strokes in the right direction. It gets us about 15-to-20% towards where we want to go. Ideally, it allows elected officials to get more comfortable with the idea of abundant housing as a positive force for change in the city.

The vote seems likely to pass without a problem. What happens immediately afterwards is far more important. Typically, elected officials like to pause for three or four years after they do something and say things like, “Let's see how this plays out first.” If that is the approach after the passage of City of Yes, then we will be in the same exact place in three years [time], needing half a million more homes in the next 10 years.

So, let's pass this and move on to the next thing.  

[02:13] [Trump’s pick for Housing Secretary]

There have been a lot of news reports about appointments to the Trump administration's cabinet and it's been hard to keep up with it all. But we wanted to take a moment and talk about the incoming president's pick of Scott Turner as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Turner is often known as a former NFL football player, but for the last 15 years he has been an advocate for improving poor communities. 

HUD has a few main responsibilities in New York. They oversee the administration of Section 8 vouchers. They also work with the city to run NYCHA. 

The rhetoric around the administration change is heated, and many of President Trump's picks are controversial because there is a fear that the incoming officials will enact some kind of political retribution.

We aren't worried about this pick. We suspect Turner will mostly keep the current programs running as normal and there won't be major changes that impact voucher use in this state. We feel this way because, nationally, voucher support is a bipartisan issue. Many people in rural areas rely on them. 

There has been speculation that there may be a lot of turnover in agencies that could create chaos and make things difficult when it comes to voucher administration. But we're hopeful that won't happen. For now, we look forward to continuing to work with the people at HUD to make housing better in New York, and we'll be excited to work with Mr. Turner in the future. 

[03:24] [Poughkeepsie rent stabilization stopped]

Last week, a judge blocked the implementation of rent stabilization in the city of Poughkeepsie. The reason was because property owners in the city challenged the housing and vacancy survey conducted by the city, arguing that it was flawed. 

We thought it was important to take a moment on the podcast and explain why this is happening. In New York City, a housing and vacancy survey has been conducted every three years, with some exceptions, and the housing emergency is declared and rent stabilization is extended. The survey is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau on behalf of the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. 

Outside of New York City, the cost of hiring the U.S. Census to conduct the survey is prohibitive, so local communities have hired their own staff to conduct surveys. Nothing in the law says that an outside agency has to conduct this survey, so it is perfectly legal for elected officials who have pledged to implement rent control to hire their friends or political supporters to conduct a survey, declare an emergency and implement rent stabilization. 

This is basically what has happened. In some cities, they hired independent agencies to conduct the survey. The result was that there was no emergency. So they decided to bring the survey in-house and use their staff to do it and they got the desired result. 

It is important to say that if the internal agency conducts a fair survey that stands up to the scrutiny of the legal system, then this process is okay. But it has to be done professionally and it has to be fair. 

Since the law requires a fairly high bar for implementing emergency powers, many communities are finding it hard to meet that standard. This is why some advocates want to lower that bar – potentially let communities opt into rent stabilization for easier reasons than a lack of housing supply. This is going to be an agenda item for them in Albany this [coming] year. 

We would caution going down that road. New York City's housing emergency has been in effect for 60 years in large part because there is political danger in letting it expire and ending rent stabilization. This artificial constraint on supply has led to skyrocketing rents and massive homelessness. That's why we don't believe this is the solution to our statewide housing crisis.

[05:27] [NYT ‘Housing Crunch’ series revisited]

We have been telling you about the New York Times series on the housing crunch, and why it is important that news media leaders like the Times pay attention to this topic. In the last installment, there were several ideas put forth on how to increase housing supply. We wanted to take a quick moment to recap them and comment on the ideas. 

Alicia Glenn, who is a dedicated public servant and now in the private sector, spoke about the high cost of creating new housing. She said elected officials focus too much on subsidizing housing for the poorest people in the city, which yields little supply increase.

They should instead focus on mixed development projects that dramatically increase supply, even if they get less affordable housing set aside.  

Maggie Brunn from A&E spoke about the need to fix the rent stabilization laws to allow for more investment into apartments on turnover. We obviously agree with her on this and stand ready to work with anyone in government who wants to help address this problem. 

Kirk Goodrich of Monadnock makes a good point about the cost of government compliance – literally pushing paper around. This drives up the cost of building housing or operating housing. That leads to less affordable housing and higher rents. There are a host of local laws that do this, providing little to no added safety to renters, just driving up costs. 

And finally, Sam Stein of the Community Service Society calls for the government to take a bigger role in building housing. He advocates for a social housing development authority. We don't have an issue with public housing or government subsidized housing. It's a key component of a healthy housing market. [NYT: ‘5 Ways to Fix New York City’s Housing Crisis’]

But nobody ever talks about the scale of the crisis. No social housing or public housing agency can create a half a million new homes in the next ten years. The government doesn't have the money, they don't have the capacity, and no elected official wants to quadruple your taxes, which is what will be necessary to meet the scale of this crisis. 

It's good that these ideas are being presented, though. It helps us move the debate forward. 

[OUTRO]

That's the end of the podcast. You can follow us @housingy on most social media channels. On BlueSky you can find us @housing.bsky.social. 

Next week, I'm going to be taping the podcast remotely from California. We hope it goes well, but please bear with us if we have some delays in production. 

The Housing New York podcast is a proud product of the New York Apartment Association. Please keep sending us feedback on our website or in the comments below. 

You've been listening to Housing New York with Kenny Burgos, and I'll see you all next week. And remember, good housing policy starts with good conversation.