What Zohran Mamdani’s Talking About With Business Leaders on NYC Housing

If you’re watching how New York’s affordable housing debate is evolving, one recent meeting stood out to me. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani sat down with real estate professionals and business leaders (specifically the Partnership for New York City) to tackle one of the city’s longest-running problems: how to actually build more homes — especially for people who can’t afford sky-high rents. 

Mamdani didn’t just talk big — he pointed to a specific bottleneck that most New Yorkers know all too well: it takes about 252 days on average to fill an affordable housing unit in the city. That’s almost nine months, and in the most expensive rental market in the country, he said, it shouldn’t be that hard.

The goal of the meeting was pretty straightforward: find ways to cut red tape so that housing gets built faster and cheaper. He also said he wants to secure more federal support for development, because tackling homelessness and affordability in NYC will require more than just local action.

What’s interesting is that this kind of outreach — sitting down with developers and big-picture leaders — feels like a recognition that the housing crisis isn’t going to be solved by one side alone. It’s not just about tenant protections and freezing rents; it’s also about actually getting the units built in the first place.

I’m curious to see whether this translates into real changes on the ground — fewer bureaucratic hurdles, faster approvals, and maybe a better pace of affordable projects breaking ground. But at least in these early days leading up to his term, Mamdani seems to be trying to get everyone who has a stake in housing at the table — which is exactly what this city needs if it’s going to make any headway on affordability.

Read full article here: https://abc7ny.com/post/mayor-elect-zohran-mamdani-discusses-nyc-housing-crisis-business-leaders/18268895

Science or Life?

Broken Promises on Affordable Housing Stir Upset in Kips Bay

In Manhattan’s Kips Bay, a major development plan that’s meant to transform the neighborhood into a life science hub — with new research buildings and job opportunities — has also sparked growing frustration over a glaring omission: affordable housing. Local community leaders and residents say they were promised housing alongside all the new offices and labs, and now they feel that promise has been ignored.

The projects at the center of the debate — called SPARC and Innovation East — are expected to bring major investment to the area, with city officials touting billions in economic growth and thousands of jobs by 2031. But Manhattan’s Community Board 6 says that from the start, affordable housing was sidelined in the planning process, despite repeated appeals from the board. (Maybe this shows some insight into what the city prioritizes)

District Manager Jesús Pérez says the board repeatedly pushed city and state agencies to include housing options that local people could actually afford. They sent multiple letters over more than a year making the case that housing should be an essential part of the plan, especially in a neighborhood already feeling the squeeze of rising rents and limited supply. When those requests weren’t integrated into final plans, the board shifted its strategy — asking for a clear, neighborhood-specific study identifying where affordable homes could be built and when.

City officials initially agreed to study the issue but then folded Kips Bay’s housing inquiry into a broader effort called the Manhattan Plan, which aims to map out 100,000 new units across the entire borough. Community Board 6 says that dilutes focus on their district’s particular needs and risks leaving them without a targeted timeline or plan for housing that’s truly affordable to local residents.

The board’s housing committee has started its own research into the local housing stock and potential city-owned parcels, even as it hopes the next mayor — Zohran Mamdani — will make good on affordable housing priorities for Kips Bay and beyond. 

I will admit that I am a little biased, but I truly think this is a horrible idea. There is already a shortage of affordable housing in not only NYC, but the whole of America.

Read full article here: https://www.nycitynewsservice.com/2025/12/04/in-kips-bay-tensions-grow-over-broken-promises-on-affordable-housing/

Opinions and Shared Housing

As a college student from New York, I hear the same thing over and over: rent is insane. Friends are squeezing into tiny apartments, paying way too much to live far from campus, or just assuming they’ll have to leave the city after graduation. So when I saw that the city held a hearing on shared housing this December, it caught my attention.

On December 2, 2025, NYC’s housing department went before City Council to talk about bringing back shared housing as a real, legal housing option. Not Airbnb-style setups or sketchy roommate situations, but purpose-built housing where people have private bedrooms and share kitchens or common spaces, all under clear safety rules.

What surprised me most is that this isn’t some new experiment. New York used to have a lot of shared housing in the form of boarding houses and SROs. They were affordable, flexible, and especially helpful for single adults, students, and workers just starting out. Over time, zoning and building rules basically wiped them out. Now we’re left with a housing market that mostly assumes everyone can afford a studio or one-bedroom, which just isn’t true.

At the hearing, the city talked about a Shared Housing Roadmap that tries to fix this. The idea is to remove outdated rules that make shared housing illegal to build, while still keeping strong safety standards and tenant protections. There’s also a bill in City Council that would update building codes so shared housing can actually be constructed legally, instead of existing in gray areas.

From a student perspective, this makes a lot of sense. Not everyone wants or needs their own apartment. Plenty of people would gladly trade a private kitchen for lower rent, better location, or more community. Shared housing wouldn’t solve the entire housing crisis, but it could create a missing middle option between dorms, shelters, and expensive apartments.

The city was clear that this wouldn’t replace family housing or supportive housing. It’s just another tool. But honestly, that’s kind of the point. New York’s housing crisis is so bad that we need more tools, not fewer.

If NYC is serious about keeping young people, students, and early-career workers here, it has to stop pretending that the current housing types work for everyone. Shared housing isn’t radical. It’s practical. And for people like me who want to build a future in this city, it feels like a step in the right direction.