Andrew Cuomo, NYC mayoral candidate, releases affordable housing plan

Warming up the crowd at Andrew M. Cuomo’s first mayoral campaign kickoff event, his daughter Cara Kennedy-Cuomo climbed onstage with her sisters and proclaimed herself a proud Brooklyn resident who has seen New York City's expensiveness firsthand.

"As a person who just spent several months looking for a new apartment, I can tell you there’s not enough affordable housing," Kennedy-Cuomo, daughter of Cuomo and his ex-wife, Kerry Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister, said Sunday.

On Monday, Cuomo’s campaign released a 24-page document, "The Crisis of Affordability in New York City," the first policy proposal of his nascent run.

Taxes would be lowered — and eliminated on tips. Affordable housing stock, increased. Subsidized transit fares, expanded. 3-K classes, universal for all 3-year-olds, and child care expanded too.

"New York City should be for everyone, not just the wealthy," he said in a statement.
The document is the first to flesh out how Cuomo — governor for almost three terms before being felled by scandal — would govern America’s largest city.

Cuomo has promised to "save our city."

Other campaign pillars include expanding the NYPD's headcount, lowering crime and reducing public school class size.

Cuomo resigned in scandal in 2021 after being accused of sexually harassing female state workers. His COVID-19 pandemic stewardship also came under criticism.

Some of what Cuomo proposed Monday requires legislative approval, some borrows from predecessors and rivals, and some actions he can take on his own. Some involves existing plans from others, such as exempting tips, previously proposed by then-presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Building more affordable housing has been a cornerstone of the mayoralty of incumbent Eric Adams, who is running for a second term, and was a focus of another predecessor, Bill de Blasio. The city’s 3-K program was pioneered by de Blasio.

New York City’s home rental vacancy rate has fallen to 1.4% — one of the lowest on record and a driver of higher rent.

The city allows just a fraction of the housing to be built than do other big cities — Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C. — even as the demand surges, according to a recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

An anti-Cuomo group called New Yorkers for Better Leadership, issued a four-page rebuttal to Cuomo’s plan, outlining steps it says he took as governor to make New York less affordable and promises he allegedly broke.

"Mr. Cuomo says he will make New York City more affordable, but the fact is that he had already had ten years to do that and he failed," said a statement from the group's spokeswoman Lauren Hitt.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.