Last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani made two appearances designed to showcase a hands-on leader tackling the city\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n
Instead, they revealed a mayor focused on optics \u2014 while missing the priorities that matter.<\/p>\n
In one social-media video, the mayor shadowed Housing Preservation and Development inspectors at a privately owned apartment building.<\/p>\n
Here comes the mayor, on the ground \u2014 cameras in tow \u2014 to hold landlords accountable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of New Yorkers who live with a worry about whether or not the conditions they\u2019re living in are actually up to code,\u201d Mamdani declared.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the city\u2019s job to deliver them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind the mayor, however, viewers saw a clean apartment in a well-kept building, whose landlord was being nitpicked to death in a city suffering the worst housing shortage in its modern history.<\/p>\n
Important items, like the lead paint test, came out negative \u2014 yet the inspectors issued six violations for trivialities like a flowerpot on the fire escape, a crack in the plaster and a busted window spring balance.<\/p>\n
Who would invest in such an environment?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo issue is too small when it comes to your home,\u201d read HPD\u2019s video caption.<\/p>\n
No kidding.<\/p>\n
If that\u2019s true, the mayor ought to follow the same principle in managing NYCHA, the city\u2019s public housing authority.<\/p>\n
NYCHA\u2019s residents endure the worst housing conditions in New York<\/a>, hands down.<\/p>\n They\u2019re beset by mold, lead paint, rodents, roaches, no heat, leaks, broken elevators, busted pipes and inoperable appliances \u2014 not to mention sky-high crime rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n It takes NYCHA 434 days on average to complete a repair.<\/p>\n Democratic Socialist Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has said the authority would \u201cfar surpass anyone\u201d on his list of the city\u2019s worst private landlords.<\/p>\n If Mamdani cares so much about a jammed window balance, surely he\u2019d be interested in transforming the lives of NYCHA\u2019s residents by moving quickly to fix their immediately hazardous conditions.<\/p>\n Apparently, he has different goals.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Earth Day, the mayor stood \u2014 this time, outside \u2014 NYCHA\u2019s Woodside Houses in Queens to announce $2.5 billion<\/a> in green-energy upgrades like heat pumps, induction stoves, solar panels and EV chargers, plus green jobs for NYCHA residents.<\/p>\n In particular, he touted the \u201cclean, beautiful heat pumps\u201d that would replace \u201cfossil fuel-guzzling boilers.\u201d<\/p>\n But as Breakthrough Institute\u2019s Jennifer Hernandez has written, heat pumps are far less effective at low temperatures \u2014 and therefore must work harder to heat a room when temperatures fall.<\/p>\n And unlike gas boilers, which can last decades and serve an entire building, heat pumps have an expected lifespan of 10 to 15 years and must be installed in each apartment.<\/p>\n It sounds like a perpetual green-energy jobs program \u2014 unless and until the public money runs out.<\/p>\n Mamdani insisted, \u201cWe can show the world that meeting climate goals, addressing affordability and connecting New Yorkers to jobs are all part of the same larger fight for dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an odd claim, given that residents in the building behind him \u2014 and hundreds of thousands like them \u2014 are living in conditions that fall well short of essential human dignity.<\/p>\n \u201cOur needs are fundamental, basic needs,\u201d Gloria Carter, a Woodside Houses resident, told The Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m OK with [the] heat and air conditioning. What I\u2019m not OK with is mold, cracks in the walls, hinges that don\u2019t open. Those are the kinds of things I need the mayor to invest in.\u201d<\/p>\n Taken together, Mamdani\u2019s HPD inspection and Earth Day announcement underscore a performative mayoralty.<\/p>\n Since taking office, Mamdani has shown up to shovel out cars<\/a> in the snow, pound asphalt into potholes<\/a> and sing \u201cWheels on the Bus\u201d<\/a> alongside former President Barack Obama in a preschool.<\/p>\n He wants to signal solidarity with regular New Yorkers and the problems of ordinary life.<\/p>\n But by rolling out unnecessary green-energy amenities for NYCHA residents while dinging well-run private buildings with penny-ante violations, he\u2019s getting those priorities backward.<\/p>\n In particular, rent-stabilized buildings are facing a growing maintenance crisis, as owners who can\u2019t recoup repair costs through rent increases are forced to defer needed work.<\/p>\n Buildings that are 90% to 100% rent-stabilized suffer about four times the rate of immediately hazardous violations as those with 35% or fewer stabilized units.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s publicized inspection of a well-maintained unit reveals how his anti-landlord zeal eclipses any recognition of these economic undercurrents.<\/p>\n If Albany allowed owners to recoup more repair costs and to reset rents upon vacancy, conditions in these buildings would improve.<\/p>\n Freezing the rent would make matters far worse.<\/p>\n NYCHA investment should follow the same logic: fix the pipes, eliminate the mold, exterminate the rats and stop the crime.<\/p>\n The solar panels can wait.<\/p>\n John Ketcham is director of cities and a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani made two appearances designed to showcase a hands-on leader tackling the city\u2019s housing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":756432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,42046,7065,24668,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,36798,1269,39810,55485,24845,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-756431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-department-of-housing-preservation-and-development","tag-housing","tag-landlords","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nycha","tag-opinion","tag-public-housing","tag-rent-control","tag-rent-stabilization","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116476293421655709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}