The “Most pro-housing administration in city history”? We break it down.

Plus, New York is bucking the national trend on evictions — with far fewer than everywhere else in the country. And we propose a small tweak to the 2019 rent laws that could boost home ownership.

This is your New York Apartment Association weekly update with CEO Kenny Burgos.

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Send us questions or comments at podcast@housingny.org 

On The Agenda

1:29: Evaluating Mayor Adams’ housing claims 

3:26: Survey shows ~25% of elderly New Yorkers struggle to pay their bills

→ Report: Less than half of eligible residents are signed up for SCRIE

4:41: Why NYC needs an eviction diversion program 

6:07: Unsustainable climate-change policies 

8:49: Want to boost home ownership? Make co-op conversions possible again

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Transcript

This week on Housing New York, we have new numbers and they are trending up when it comes to affordable housing in New York City. We break it down. 

Plus, New York is an outlier when it comes to evictions. It’s actually doing better than the rest of the country in making sure renters are able to stay in their homes. 

And we explain why it is so hard to buy a home in New York — and there is a small change to the laws that might fix that. 

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. Hundreds of thousands of renters are at risk, and there is literally no plan. The distress of rent-stabilized buildings is going to be one of the biggest stories for the next 12-18 months.”

[INTRO]

 Welcome to the Housing New York Podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Burgos, the CEO of the New York Apartment Association. If you're listening to us for the first time, this is the podcast where we discuss the housing news of the week and try to push better policies to benefit renters and their housing providers.

We're taping this on Monday, August 4th, which I guess is a holiday because my train, the stores — are all empty. It  seems everyone's out of the city except for me. So if you're on vacation, enjoy it. If you're not and you're working like I am, enjoy our podcast today. 

Okay. On to the news.

[01:29] [Breaking down the mayor’s housing claims]

On Friday, Mayor Eric Adams announced that since taking office, his administration has created, preserved, or planned over 426,000 homes. That’s a huge number, and naturally, it’s raising a lot of questions. What counts as “created”? What does “preserved” really mean? And how much of this housing actually exists today?

Let’s break it down.

Of that 426,800 figure, the city says it has created 95,100 units, preserved 134,700, and planned another 197,000 since 2022.

“Created” doesn’t mean all those apartments are built and ready for people to move in. A lot of those are projects that got city financing but haven’t finished construction yet. 

“Preserved” mostly means existing rent-stabilized apartments that got new protections to stay affordable, plus public housing units that have been moved into programs like Section 8 or are getting major repairs and upgrades.

“Planned” means just that: homes the city plans to build. These are possible future units tied to zoning changes, neighborhood rezonings and sites the city wants to develop. 

The thing is, planned doesn’t mean guaranteed. The cost of new construction in the city still remains very high and there is a lot of uncertainty around interest rates. 

The mayor says this is the most pro-housing administration the city’s ever seen, and claims he’ll build more housing in one term than Bloomberg and de Blasio combined. 

Here’s our takeaway: some of these numbers reflect real progress, some are long-term goals and some are just possibilities that may or may not come to life. But if we want to turn potential into reality, we have to build on this momentum. And that means unleashing private investment, cutting red tape and finally making abundant housing a reality in this great city.

[03:26] [One quarter of elderly New Yorkers say they struggle to pay the bills] 

We want to talk about New York’s aging population now. 

There was a city survey released recently that said nearly 25% of elderly New Yorkers are struggling to pay bills. The biggest reason is housing costs. 

The city study found that among people over 60 years old, one in four said they didn’t have stable housing. That meant they were either homeless or they were scared they were going to lose their home in the near future. 

This summer we have been paying particular attention to this issue. Data suggests roughly 300,000 rent-stabilized apartments in the city have an elderly person living in the home. In many cases, they might be eligible for a rent freeze through the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption or SCRIE. 

At the start of the summer, the city put out a new report about the effectiveness of this program. It found that only 42% of eligible residents are signing up for SCRIE, based on the Department of Finance’s analysis. 

So we are going to stay on this topic and we are going to continue to push for more people to sign up for SCRIE. And we are going to be working with elected officials directly to help their constituents where possible. We did this last month with Councilmember Althea Stevens. We also spoke on a panel hosted by City & State and we will continue to be out there pushing for more help for our senior citizens on fixed incomes. 

[04:41] [NYC needs an eviction diversion program]

We are going to talk a little bit about evictions now. We are doing this because I recently had a conversation with a reporter at a national publication about this topic; we suspect that story will be published soon. 

What I don’t think gets enough attention is how good New York City is on preventing evictions. We are literally the best in the country at making sure renters aren’t kicked out of their homes. 

New York City has seen evictions decline, while the rest of the country has seen them surge.

The truth of the matter is that when we are talking about evictions we are mostly talking about the inability to pay rent. In New York City, when tenants can’t pay rent, there are a host of social programs to help them. 

Unfortunately, it can take months and even years for those programs to provide renters with help. Which, in turn, causes massive delays in property owners receiving rent payments. 

You can talk to any nonprofit housing provider in the city right now and their number one issue is rent arrears and the inability to get those tenants help using the court system. 

This is why I advocate for an eviction diversion program. Some type of system where the renter and the property owner can avoid housing court altogether and get help from the government: That can either be a one-shot deal to pay back rent, or it could be a voucher to help with future payments and an agreement with the renter to pay back what is owed over time. 

There is always room for improvement on housing policy. This seems like a place where the interests of renters, housing providers and the general public could align.

[06:07] [Unsustainable climate-change policies]

We wanted to chat about climate change. 

Specifically about a report commissioned not by fossil fuel lobbyists, but by clean energy groups themselves. The New York Affordable Clean Power Alliance, which includes solar, wind and battery developers, says what many in housing have feared: New York’s climate mandates could push the power grid to the brink.

Let’s unpack this. Under Local Law 97, passed in 2019, most buildings over 25,000 square feet are required to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and to net-zero by 2050.

Sounds noble but what does it mean?

It means replacing HVAC systems, installing heat pumps, swapping out gas stoves for all-electric appliances, retrofitting insulation — maybe even adding solar panels on century-old rooftops.

We’re talking tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars per building, with fines looming if owners can’t comply. 

Now layer this on top of what the statewide report is saying: The grid isn’t ready.

The report warns that NYC could experience a major electricity shortfall by 2033, just as buildings are electrifying.

Why? Because renewable energy like wind and solar are intermittent, they depend on the weather. They don’t provide steady, around-the-clock power like fossil fuel plants do. 

With fossil plants retiring, there’s a serious risk that we won’t have enough power to heat or cool buildings, charge cars, or run electric systems — especially during winter and summer peaks. Building owners are being told to electrify, while the grid they’ll depend on can’t guarantee power. 

That’s not a climate plan, it’s a setup.

The report also outlines why renewable energy projects are falling behind schedule and going over budget. Reasons like inflation, supply chain disruptions, rising interest rates, grid connection fees having doubled since 2017 — just to name a few. As a result, developers are canceling or scaling back projects. And those Con Ed rate hikes? Partly to cover green mandates. 

And if that weren’t enough, local opposition has become a major obstacle.

Hecate Solar had to shrink its plans; Union Energy Center was paused for six months and Lighthouse Wind was scrapped entirely. Across the state, dozens of projects have been blocked — not by oil companies, but by New Yorkers who don’t want giant energy infrastructure in their backyards.

Governor Hochul says she’s still committed to clean energy, but not if it risks reliability. 

Lawmakers on both sides are pushing back on things like the gas car phaseout and the gas stove ban. 

When developers and elected officials are both hitting pause, it’s a sign the policy might be greener than the reality.

[08:49] [Co-op conversions boost home ownership]

We wanted to end the podcast talking about homeownership. This is a topic we haven’t covered a lot – but it is very relevant to what we are seeing in New York City right now. 

The recent political election made it clear that housing is a top issue. And if you talk to young people or people my age, it is clear that most believe that they will never buy a home in New York City. Not just a big house with a yard type home. Many feel they will never afford to buy a condo or buy into a co-op building. 

In most cases, these are people with good jobs. And good salaries. But owning a home is just not possible. 

If you go back 40 years or so, when interest rates were even higher than they are now, the average home prices were about 2.5 times the average income for a family. So even if you had to take out a mortgage to buy the house, you could afford to make the payments. 

Today, the average household income in New York City is about $128 thousand according to the U.S. Census. But the average home price is about $809 thousand. That’s more than 6 times as much. 

One way to create affordable homes for sale is co-op conversions. The 2019 rent law changes basically eliminated any pathway for struggling rent stabilized buildings to convert to co-ops or condors.  That’s why we have seen maybe a handful in the past five years. Before there would be dozens each year. 

And these would generally be great opportunities for renters. The conversion had a negotiation process where renters could buy their apartments at discounted rates, typically without any money down. This is because banks would lend them money for the purchase price against the future market value of the unit. 

For example: If you had a family household income of $80,000, you couldn’t afford to pay $500,000 for your apartment. But usually it would be offered to you for closer to $300,000 – which was still a little bit of a stretch but when you don’t have to put any money down, it was doable. 

A simple change to the 2019 rent laws would bring back this option overnight. And that would likely lead to thousands of low cost homes on the market. Most importantly – it would bring back hope for young people who want to own a home in this great city.

[OUTRO]

 That's our show this week. I wanted to quickly thank Crain’s New York for naming me to their 40 Under 40 list, and congrats to all my fellow honorees. I'm also thankful we weren't named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list… because that list is cursed.

We're gonna be back in two weeks with the next podcast. Until then, be sure to follow us on our social media channels. Our handle is @housingNY on Instagram, X and TikTok. 

You've been listening to Housing New York with Kenny Burgos and I'll see you all in a few weeks. 

And remember, good housing policy starts with good conversation.