By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has yet to fill several key positions at the city’s housing agencies, amid the ensuing housing crisis.
As reported by the NY Post, the Big Apple is dealing with skyrocketing rent prices and a sheer lack of affordable housing but the city agency is not even fully staffed to deal with the dilemmas. Developers have reportedly been struggling to obtain city approvals for buildings, leading to a stall in the production of more affordable housing. Also, completed projects can’t get city permits allowing them to open their doors, due to the staffing situation in the housing agency, slowing down the availability of much needed housing in NYC. The city’s own statistics attest to the shortcomings:
City Hall missed its target of building or refinancing rent stabilized apartments by 36 percent, over the 2022 budget year. Further, jus Developers have reportedly been struggling to obtain city approvals for buildings, leading to a stall in the production of more affordable housing. 16,000 apartments were built or preserved during the 12 months between July 2021 and June 2022, compared to the planned 25,000 apartments. In the past five years, this was the first time, that the city missed these benchmarks, even having met the marks during the pandemic’s construction standstill. The production drop comes amid a jump in rental prices across the five boroughs, with the average cost for an apartment in Manhattan expanding by close to $1,000 in just this last year, reaching a high in August of $4,100 per month.
“Lower production levels in Fiscal 2022 were largely due to increasing construction costs and agency staffing challenges,” wrote Department of Housing Preservation and Development officials in a recent report. “HPD is committed to investing in staff and resources to support the creation and preservation of as many affordable housing units as possible.”
“I first discovered this because I have buildings that are built and the restaurants that are ready to be open but I can’t get the sign-off,” griped Councilwoman Gale Brewer, referring to the long wait times getting a response from the city agencies. “A lot of their vacancies are in places that are absolutely necessary to build affordable housing.”
“The mayor campaigned on he was going to turn this into a ‘City of Yes’,” one developer told the Post. “And no one is seeing that in affordable housing. It’s taking more time to get approvals.” The frustrated developer added, “And when it comes to the housing agencies, there’s general dysfunction and a staffing shortage and it’s impossible to get an answer out of the city.”
One lawmaker also noted two important residential projects which would have typically received more attention from previous administrations—the failed negotiations to build an apartment tower on 145th Street in East Harlem and the recent deal to construct three housing high-rises and a waterfront esplanade in Astoria. “We probed and put it out there. It’s a significant project, this wasn’t a surprise,” said a lawmaker referring to the three towers planned in Halletts Points, Queens. “We got no feedback, no indication from the mayor.” The politician added: “So we were left with having to negotiate and draw things from the developer with no incentives.”
As per the Post, insiders note that it has become increasingly difficult for the city to recruit talent, and Adam’s limited budget, strict stance against hybrid work, and noted preference given to minority candidates aren’t helping. “It’s a really competitive market out there and the city is so uncompetitive. The City takes so long, it’s required to go through the civil service list, the City starts with a real low-ball offer,” one insider said. “It’s just making things really, really tough.”
