New York City Mayor debuts with housing measures and revokes predecessor’s orders

New York.- New York City Mayor, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, debuted this Thursday in office after taking office by signing a series of executive orders to address the housing crisis, in addition to revoking part of his predecessor’s work.

Mamdani signed three orders: one to revitalize the Tenant Protection Office, and two others to establish work teams focused on evaluating public properties suitable for building housing and lightening bureaucracy and accelerating projects.

You may be interested in: Zohran Mamdani sworn in as mayor of New York

He also named Cea Weaver, an affordable housing activist, as director of the aforementioned Office, which will defend tenants against landlords and ensure the rapid action of city agencies in places with unsafe or illegal conditions, according to a statement. Mamdani, along with Weaver, announced their first major action: to intervene in the bankruptcy process of a leasing company, Pinnacle Realty, with thousands of violations and complaints in a total of 83 buildings, and which owes money to the City Hall, to protect its tenants. To exemplify that action, which he has entrusted to the nominee for chief legal officer of the Mayor’s Office, Steve Banks, Mamdani convened a press conference in one of Pinnacle Realty’s buildings and showed the abandonment conditions faced by its inhabitants. The mayor also signed an order to appoint five deputy mayors who will structure his administration, including the one for Housing and Planning, Leila Bozorg, who will oversee the two work teams mentioned. A team, with the acronym LIFT, must review local public properties and identify those suitable for construction before July 1st, and the other team, called SPEED, must find and eliminate bureaucratic barriers that increase costs and slow down housing construction. The first order signed by Mamdani today has been a revocation of the orders of his predecessor, moderate Democrat Eric Adams, issued from September 26, 2024, the date on which he was charged with corruption, although the case was closed after the intervention of the Donald Trump government. According to a statement, the revocation seeks a new beginning for the Mamdani Administration, although it will reissue some measures from that stage that it considers relevant to its agenda. Mamdani, who became mayor after a meteoric campaign that mobilized young and working people, has as one of his great promises to make the city more affordable and, among other things, has proposed freezing the rent for a portion of the housing.