Transcript: Mamdani Administration Releases “SPEED” Reforms to Deliver Affordable Housing Faster
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Good morning to the BX. It is a pleasure to be out here on the track as the only mayor who has run a six-hour marathon to be here running very slowly, joined by members of my administration as well as advocates who have dedicated themselves to transforming our city's housing landscape as we hurdle over the obstacles to building affordable housing. I want to acknowledge our co-chairs of the SPEED Task Force. We have our Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg [and] our Deputy Mayor Julia Kerson. We have with us here as well, elected officials like Council Member Justin Sanchez, whose district we are proud to be in. We also want to acknowledge Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, as well as Majority Leader Shaun Abreu. And we have within our own administration, Commissioner Dina Levy, Director Sideya Sherman, Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura [and] Carlina Rivera, who has been leading the fight for affordable housing. And the host who is having us here today — if we can have a round of applause for University Heights High School with a 100 percent graduation rate, which is an incredible statistic. Before I begin, though, I do also just want to say a huge shout-out to the entire task force team. This is work that took an immense amount of time and commitment, and we are truly appreciative of it. Now, in the iconic mid-90s action thriller “Speed,” where Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock must keep a city bus moving faster than 50 miles an hour, Sandra Bullock's character says, “What, you thought you needed another challenge or something?” Ask any New Yorker that same question about housing, and their answer will be an immediate no. Housing is the leading driver of our affordability crisis. The numbers, frankly, tell a grim tale. Our vacancy rate currently stands at just 1.4 percent, meaning only 1 in 70 rentals is available at any given time. For affordable homes, that number is even lower, and there are far too many hurdles preventing us from developing more affordable housing. Bureaucratic red tape, outdated technology [and] redundant processes that have accumulated over the decades. We feel it when families cannot afford soaring rent payments [and] when our friends and neighbors are forced to leave this city after years of failing to make ends meet. Anyone working in this industry will tell you the same thing. The process of building [the] affordable housing we need to lower costs is too onerous and too slow, even given the incredible individuals who are helping us to build that affordable housing. Now, City Hall is committed to meeting this crisis with the urgency that it demands. On my first day in office, we signed an executive order creating the SPEED Task Force, led by Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg and Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson, and tasked it with uncovering the largest obstacles in the affordable housing development process. Today, I am proud to release our city's first ever SPEED Report. It details four major issue areas and their corresponding reforms that, like the name implies, will streamline and accelerate the affordable housing development process. In some cases, these actions will cut as much as two years from the time that it takes to build. Every hurdler knows you do not stop when confronted with an obstacle, you jump over it. So, why should City Hall do any different? In case the metaphor about the affordability challenges our city faces and how we are overcoming them is not quite clear enough, let us refer to the very real hurdles that were before us today. First up, lengthy environmental review and planning. Second, lack of agency coordination. Third, slow building permits and approvals. Fourth, complicated housing lotteries and leasing processes that leave affordable apartments sitting empty. We will address the first three issues by cutting duplicative red tape, streamlining communication and reducing the pre-certification process for many projects requiring zoning changes from two years to less than six months. This is a change made possible by Governor Hochul, Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Heastie. We will also cut five months from the permitting timeline for both new construction and office-to-housing conversions. And we will undertake a comprehensive overhaul of our affordable housing lottery to deliver direct relief to New Yorkers who need access to affordable housing now. By the end of 2026, we will simplify the application process and shorten the selection period, adjustments that will deliver relief to New Yorkers immediately while allowing us to build a more functional, flexible and fair system for the long term. Once this system is remade, we will cut the time it takes from the completion of a building to the day New Yorkers can move in, in half, from 210 days to fewer than 100 days. This builds on the progress that City Hall has already made. In the last five months, we proposed New York City's first-ever Expedited Land Use Review Procedure [and] launched the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track program, both initiatives that will reduce the timelines for affordable housing projects by more than two years. We have started building affordable homes that will be not only affordable enough to rent but also affordable enough to buy. And yesterday, in my executive budget address, I announced that we are investing an additional $4 billion in HPD capital funds over the next five years, with an additional $500 million more in fiscal year 2031, to build and preserve affordable housing across the five boroughs. We want to cut the ribbon on new housing, and we will do so by cutting the red tape that's in its way. That is what SPEED is all about: helping government deliver tangible solutions at the scale this crisis demands and at the speed New Yorkers deserve. Because we know that in this city, the most expensive city in the United States of America, time is money. And it is now our job to cut that time down to make it easier for New Yorkers to not just find new housing, but to move into it as well. With all that said, thank you very much, and I will pass it over to our Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning, Leila Bozorg.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWe're exploring every avenue we can, and I think that you've put forward the context accurately, which is that we are a city that is facing the brunt of federal policies that are making it harder for working-class New Yorkers to afford to live in this city. Today's announcement is how we make it easier to build housing, to address the housing crisis at large. The point that you raise, however, is that in the face of those kinds of federal policies, New Yorkers are staring down a barrel of not being able to afford to live here. We're in conversations to explore everything that we can do in response to that.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWe're talking to our partners at the state level. It is difficult, given that the fact that the federal administration — this is a policy that they have embarked upon, and when it comes down to CityFHEPS, we continue to be in conversation with our partners at the City Council around the question of the expansion of that program. Yesterday, we spoke about how we're going to safeguard and steward the program as it exists today.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, I want to be very clear that we are fully confident in the quality of the construction that will move forward. What we are speaking about today is cutting the pre-certification timelines — the amount of time that developers have to wait for someone to come, perhaps from multiple agencies, as we heard, to perform the very same inspection. And so, what I really appreciate about both of my deputy mayors to my left is that they convened a task force that asked every conceivable actor in this sector to provide their feedback of: what has not been working when you engage with the city? What are the pain points? Because you can have disagreements with developers and construction, the many different factors that go into the price point. One thing that I will always say is — I can't find somebody in New York City who is in favor of more delays when it comes to affordable housing, especially when that's within the city's control. So, we want to make sure that we're exhausting every single possibility. I want to just go through a few examples. When we add additional staff, like we have done in this executive budget, what that allows us to do is speed up the times in responding to these applications. When we are looking at the housing lottery, just in terms of the mechanics, we can cut the time in half that it takes for someone to move into a house. And you know, the final piece here is — and I think you heard this from Deputy Mayor Bozorg — this is a long-term commitment. We are going to have this task force to continue to make recommendations, because I never want to hear from someone that City Hall could have been doing more to create more housing in this city when housing is the number one crisis facing New Yorkers.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceAbsolutely. We wanted this to be an intentional process where we create the positions needed for the efficacy of this program. I'm just going to pass it over to our Deputy Mayor to add some additional details.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI'll just add one more thing to what the deputy mayor said, is that our administration firmly believes that the public sector should be given the opportunity to deliver public excellence. And so, so many of the questions we've asked ourselves is, what kind of investment is necessary so that we can hold ourselves to that standard of excellence? Because you heard from the borough president. We see New Yorkers doing everything in their power to help us build our way out of this housing crisis. You can see a number of those New Yorkers right here. It is time that they receive the same kind of commitment from City Hall that they're seeing from themselves and the workers around them. That's what we're looking forward to doing. [Crosstalk.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think that's just despicable. The idea that this passes for political analysis — not you, but what he says — and that it passes for the norm of discourse, it is a reflection of where we are, not just as a city, but as a country. And there will be those that oppose policies that we put forward. I don't begrudge anyone their opposition. It's New York City. There are 8.5 million people here. We should see 8.5 million opinions. But to besmirch me as the first Muslim mayor of this city, that I would ever be doing anything other than looking to support our city, to defend our city, I really don't have anything else to add to that. And I think it's a reflection of exactly what motivates that kind of opposition.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI'll follow up on that. Thank you for raising that. [Crosstalk.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI support any initiative that will keep our students safe. And I think that this is part of exactly that kind of a vision of how we can ensure that each and every day when a parent sends their child to school, they don't have to worry about what their child is going to have to go through. I think this is one of the ways in which we can deliver that.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceYou know, I would say that as despicable as I find Jim Walden's views, they are also part of political speech that I'm not looking to infringe upon. You know, when people protest me, I can disagree with the protest and still believe that they should have the right to do so. When it comes to acts of hatred across the city, as you have said, we have seen the continued rise of those acts. And yesterday, we made clear that we were investing more than $26 million to increase the funding into hate crime prevention programs, [more] than 800 percent. And the importance of that, for me, comes from the fact that too often our only response to a hate crime is exactly that — it's a response. It's being there on the ground. It's showing New Yorkers that we see them, we recognize them, that we want to hold anyone who did something to them accountable. We also want to be investing in the prevention work. And so, these programs that this money goes into are ones that have been found to be effective. A lot of them are also focused on our youth across the city to ensure that we are teaching our young children across the city what it means to be a New Yorker. And a key part of that is to understand that difference is a part of life. It's what makes us such a special city. It's not something to be feared.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI've made clear about my belief on the SRG. The SRG, as it currently stands, is an active part of the NYPD, and I'm working with the police commissioner to end the SRG in a manner that both keeps New Yorkers safe and protects their First Amendment rights. ###
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mamdani Administration Releases “SPEED” Reforms to Deliver Affordable Housing Faster.