Jumaane Williams on de Blasio’s Affordable Housing Announcement

Jumaane Williams, the Chairman of the City Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings, was generally positive about Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing announcement yesterday. However, Williams would like to see de Blasio make repealing the Urstadt Law a top priority, and more outreach to low-income households. Passed in 1971, Urstadt put New York City rent regulation in the hands of the State, which has generally leaned towards deregulation. Williams lauded de Blasio’s 50/30/20 mixed income program (50% middle income, 30% moderate income, 20% low income), but pushed for more.  “They talked about 80/20 kind of being outdated and we need a new model…I’m hoping he will research some of the other models” said Williams, “…because I think we need to dig a little deeper to get more of the lower income band.”  In this vein, Williams has been a vocal advocate of regional AMIs [Area Median Income] – the current AMI used by HUD includes Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester Counties, which have higher median incomes than New York City. He also noted that some people believe the City actually needs an additional 400,000 units of affordable housing, not the touted 200,000 number. Williams has some lingering questions going forward: “I would like to see how much money the City is going to put in of the $41 billion…they’re going to be talking about [NYCHA] later on, and I’m looking forward to what [Councilman] Richie Torres has to say about that.”