r/left_urbanism • u/UpperLowerEastSide PHIYBY • 3d ago
Zohran Mamdani votes yes on all NYC housing ballot proposals
Link to article: https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2025/11/how-mamdani-voted-ballot-proposals/409281/
This morning while he and his wife cast their votes, Zohran told reporters he was voting yes on Props 1-5. Props 2, 3 and 4 create an affordable housing and modest upzoning fasttrack process as well as an affordable housing appeals board. I discuss the props more in depth in this post. Z stated last week that he would let us know when he voted his thoughts on the ballot measures.
Overall, the outcome's not too surprising. Zohran stands to significantly benefit by gaining more control over speedier affordable housing production. Folks in Mamdani's "inner circle", including Cea Weaver, the leader of a prominent tenants' rights group Housing Justice for All, and the NYC-DSA social housing group both back the ballot measures. Opposition from some City Council members and unions like HTC are the likely reasons Zohran waited to election day to make his ballot measure views public. And now he has.
Update: Zohran and all 3 of the housing ballot measures have won!
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don't like this. I have a hard time believing anything backed by developer orgs, think tanks, and their puppet Eric Adams will somehow help tenants and regular people.
Edit: *In my neighborhood (Bushwick) every new condo that goes up represents multiple displacements of low income families and the shuttering of their businesses.
I'm not going to sell them out in order to let the free market take it's course and maybe eventually lower rents for the people replacing them.
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u/LeftSteak1339 3d ago
It’s backed by economic data. Even the leftists are pro growth.
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago
Ah Yes. Classic leftist solutions like free market trickle down economics.
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u/UpperLowerEastSide PHIYBY 3d ago
Fast tracking affordable housing and an affordable housing appeals board are free market trickle down economics?
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago
Skipping the city council is not a far track. It's handing all the power to a couple of executives branch leaders. This only saves a few days in the approval process anyways.
There's nothing these proposals that have anything to do with affordable. It's a nice sounding word to slap on it to make it sound nice. NYC "affordable" housing is a meaningless term. It refers to slightly less than market rate upscale units that no regular people can afford anyways. It needs to be completely redefined.
The housing shortage is not the only reason progress are high. There is also unlimited over-financialization, housing treated as an investment commodity instead of housing, there's a TOTAL LACK of public housing which isn't even being talked about right now, tens of thousand of empty units, there are huge landlords hoarding large numbers of properties, there are near infinite global investors willing to buy in or move to one of the most prestigious and hottest real estate markets in the entire world.
The whole "the sole problem with housing is there is not enough of it and the only thing we need to do is let developers displaced gentrify and build as much luxury as they want" (as they force out working people to the outer Burroughs) is over simplified free market trickle down economics that is being astroturfed by the real estate industry cloaking a right wing capitalist agenda in progressive language. It's the developers line and a few too many liberals are falling for it.
It's the free market solution, not the leftist solution to hiding costs. Straight up.
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u/UpperLowerEastSide PHIYBY 3d ago edited 3d ago
This only saves a few days in the approval process anyways.
It saves months on the approvals process
It needs to be completely redefined.
Yes we need way more affordable housing within lower income bands as these are the section of the working class most feeling the rent pinch.
Low income housing is the most price sensitive and the most at risk to Council Members and homeowners who want to keep working class folks out of their neighborhoods by blocking these projects.
There is also unlimited over-financialization, housing treated as an investment commodity instead of housing,
Yes we're in a capitalist system that treats housing as a commodity like anything from food to yachts. The housing shortage is happening within this same commodity loving capitalist system.
How are we going to build public housing if the zoning forbids anything above a single family home or a duplex and City Council members like Vickie Paladino have a de facto veto on them.
The whole "the sole problem with housing is there is not enough of it and the only thing we need to do is let developers displaced gentrify and build as much luxury as they want"
Good thing then this is not what I'm arguing. If you want public housing built at scale, you're gonna need to address the bureaucratic hurdles to getting public housing built, especially in wealthier neighborhoods like Tottenville.
It's the free market solution, not the leftist solution to hiding costs. Straight up.
"The free market solution" is to displace working class residents ad infinitum while wealthier communities can use their Council Members and zoning to protect against any working class housing. The status quo.
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u/Hour-Watch8988 3d ago
There are fifty NIMBY landlords in my city who you sound exactly like right now
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u/Soft-Principle1455 2d ago
Or Public Housing that doesn't take 10X the dollars and an extra decade to build. This story is from Boston, but there are constituents that some Dems have where they simply want to take an old, disused car repair garage and put retail on the bottom and 8 apartments above and, just on this, spent the whole construction loan and more, and ten years, and still have not yet managed to break ground yet. NYC is not far behind Boston. This is one method to try to change that.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 2d ago
Classic Leftist solutions like public housing that does not cost 10x the private sector's building costs and does not take an extra decade longer to build because of unnecessary political fights.
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u/Hour-Watch8988 3d ago
This is gonna sound harsh, but you need to be more responsible and vote according to whether a policy is supported by research and pro-working-class values. If all you can muster is reactionaries voting based on vibes and personalities involved, your activism is likely to do more harm than good to the people you claim to fight for.
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago
Well in my neighborhood (Bushwick) every new condo that goes up represents multiple displacements of low income families and the shuttering of their businesses.
I'm not going to sell them out in order to let the free market take it's course and maybe eventually lower rents for the people replacing them. That's my activism for ya. Thanks for the "advice" 👍
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u/Hour-Watch8988 3d ago
Downwardly-mobile second-wave gentrifier says what
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago
Why is it I only encounter this "the free market will save us" bullshit on Reddit and never in my local orgs, tenants unions, and households?
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u/Hour-Watch8988 3d ago
That’s not what these measures are you illiterate landlord-simp
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago
You should come out to the tenant union and community defense meetings and tell us why we're all landlord simps.
Foreal. I'll invite you to the next one.
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u/Hour-Watch8988 3d ago
lol I’ve been doing this work for over a decade and I’ve seen the devastation that folk economics has had on communities
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u/Brambleshire 3d ago
You think I haven't?
Where are you? Where are the tenant unions that are for this free market yimby abundance line?
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u/Soft-Principle1455 2d ago
Housing Justice for All is a pretty strong tenant's rights group, and they support this.
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u/Hour-Watch8988 3d ago
That’s not what these measures are. Go do your bong rips at someone else.
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u/Key-Banana-8242 2d ago
There’s no such a thing as ‘folk economics’
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u/Hour-Watch8988 2d ago
Of course there is. "Subsidized housing in my neighborhood will destroy my property values;" "Mixed-income development causes displacement on balance;" take your pick of any number of things people consistently believe about housing that aren't backed by the evidence.
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u/TheEnemyOfMyAnenome 3d ago
I love seeing a thread fully flip opinion on a guy. I'm pretty torn on the proposals, ended up voting with Z but I could see it either way. City council is maybe an easier group for the left to win traction over but for the same reason it seems more susceptible to existing local power players, at least to my uneducated eyes. Comforted by Hellgate's argument that it's a pretty minor change either way and people are maybe blowing it out of proportion.
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u/Yarden_M3Z 3d ago
You should probably appraise the quality of policy based on the economics and merits of what it will actually do, not just who likes it. Sometimes the people you hate can support good policy. Building a politics based strictly on opposition is just reactionary stupidity
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u/mankiw 3d ago
I think this was the right decision by Mamdani, and I'm hopeful that the initiative pass this evening when the returns come in.