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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. With us now, Adolfo Carrión, New York City's deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce, to talk about some of the things in the news that affect New Yorkers. One is President Trump's latest round of tariffs announced today. Another is Mayor Adams' veto yesterday of a bill to decriminalize street vending without a license. There's the mayor's recent decision not to go ahead with the senior housing project on the site of the Elizabeth Street Garden in Lower Manhattan, but City hall has made some other housing policy announcements the last few days as well in what they're calling Housing Week.

Obviously, though the deputy mayor is a city official, not here as a campaigner. This all comes in the context of the mayoral election, with Adams arguing he has been successful. Some of you know Adolfo Carrión from his previous positions, such as Bronx Borough president, member of City Council, Obama administration official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He says housing is his main policy interest. He was even the third party independence candidate for mayor himself in 2013, back when voters elected Bill de Blasio. Deputy Mayor Carrión, always good of you to come on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión: Thank you, Brian. Great to be with you. As I listen to your show, I always think, "Brian Lehrer, the great translator and decoder of all things complicated."

Brian: Thank you very much. That's one of the nicest things anybody could say about me. Let me start on the news from Washington and how it might affect New Yorkers in particular. We were talking about it in the previous segment in a national context. All these new tariffs announced by President Trump. With housing and economic development being in your portfolio, how do you think this will affect the city, or with the tariffs that have already gone into effect or already affecting the city?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Well, Brian, our ace card, our strength as a city is that we have a diverse economy. We're in a very strong position as a global city, and as a city of commerce. Like every municipality across the United States and really across the world, economies are trying to figure out, "Where do we land in this back and forth around tariffs?" In the meantime, what we have done and do is to control the things that we can. We've invested heavily in producing affordable housing to create a more affordable city for working families.

This is Housing Week. It's, we're topping it off. I'm in Brooklyn. We just announced the production numbers for our housing. What we've created, what we've preserved, what we have planned. That totals more than 426,000 units of housing that we're going to be able to put into this market. You should know, and your listeners should be aware that of that, and we're being very conservative in our estimates of that, at least 250,000 of those units will be affordable homes for low, moderate and middle income families, for working people. To keep in the theme of things that we can control, the mayor put forth an executive order that said to all of the city agencies, "Let's look at the assets we currently have that have the potential to create more housing."

We started Housing Week with a big announcement at an old defunct airport that's been inactive for 40 years, the old Flushing Airport that preceded the larger, more well known and modern airports that we now have, where we're going to build 3,000 units of workforce housing, tens of acres of parkland, and generate a whole bunch of economic activity. The things that we can control, we're controlling. We went to the state, we got authorities to do more incentives so that we can boost our production of housing and increase the supply. I think everybody knows, you know, I've heard you many times talk about it, we have a supply problem.

We currently have a 1.4% vacancy rate in our housing here in New York City. If you're a low income family, if you're a moderate income family, it's a virtual zero. We're flooding this market over the next 10 years with the supply that this market needs to keep New York City competitive.

Brian: I want to follow up on some of the things you just listed. I know those are the things that you and the administration want to tout during this Housing Week. That's all fair, and I'll follow up explicitly on a couple of those things. One more thing on the tariffs as it relates to housing, let me play a clip from the mayor of another major city, Denver, that was played on NPR's Morning Edition today. His name is Mike Johnson. He's not that Mike Johnson. He's a [unintelligible 00:05:45] Johnson. Here's the mayor of Denver.

Mike Johnson: If we can't keep up with supply of housing, then it becomes unaffordable for teachers or nurses or firefighters to live in our city anymore. That has huge impact on commute times, on traffic, on climate and all the things that make Denver Denver. Yes, we are fighting hard to undo the escalating expenses in someone's kitchen counter right now, and this is going to just add to them.

Brian: As you heard from sort of the punchline at the end there, escalating costs of somebody's kitchen counter, the example that he used, and the larger context there was that he was talking about if the price of supplies to build new housing or renovate homes is going up as a result of the tariffs, it puts upward pressures on already high housing prices. Do you think that's happening in New York?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: The mayor is right. There is upward pressure on pricing to produce a unit of housing in New York City. It costs more than Denver and more than a lot of places, but here's the thing. There is an intentionality, and a clarity, and a sense of urgency with this administration that we understand that in order for us to keep that price point down, Brian, we're going to have to invest more, more capital. We're going to have to discount land. We're going to have to use the land resources that we have available. That's why we're out there looking at the assets we have.

The office building at 100 Gold Gold street that now houses the housing agency, we put it out for a request for proposals earlier this year. We got responses. There will be thousands of units of new housing in that location, and that's a city asset. The same thing with Flushing Airport and many other examples around the city. I don't know that people have kept up with the investments we've made. We're Talking about a 10-year plan with the biggest investment of any prior administration. We're talking about $26 billion of investment just in housing, let alone the tax holidays that we got for low income New Yorkers that put money back in their pockets.

That's a whole other category where we're trying to lower the cost of living. Expanding the earned income tax credit that reached many, many thousands of families, and allowed them to afford to live in New York. The affordability challenge is something-- I've been at this for a long time, as you suggested in the introduction, and at every capacity, City council, borough president, at the county executive level, nationally, I have never seen the issue of affordability be so present and prominent in every conversation. Even in rural America, absent of party, everybody is concerned about, "Are my kids going to be able to live in the United States in a good place, and have prospects for the future?"

Brian: Certainly in New York. This announcement that the mayor is making today, or maybe he already made it while we've been on the air, I'm not sure.

Deputy Mayor Carrión: We Just did. Yes.

Brian: That you mentioned that represents success in housing policy. He would say that number, 425,000 homes built, preserved or planned is the way I see this being written. Built, preserved or planned. That's a very broad category. Built, preserved or planned. What are you and the mayor saying it means in real terms, for example, how many have already been built as opposed to planned?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: I'll break it down for you very quickly. 95,000 new homes in the term that we have been in charge here as an administration, and that is affordable and market rate wherever we as a government have an influence to put development to ensure that it happens. We've invested for the creation of almost 100,000 homes, close to 135,000 homes separately preserved. We have a suite of programs that we were able to secure through the legislature to ensure that we could invest in the preservation of existing housing where New Yorkers live.

We're a city of renters. We've got three million almost rental homes in New York City. Every time that we put a dollar into the preservation of a housing unit, we preserve affordability. We lock that property into an agreement. It's a social contract between the city of New York and that owner that for the life of that mortgage and probably beyond, because once the mortgage goes through its entirety, we usually renew these relationships, preserving 135,000 units. Then what excites me most, because I'm a city planner by profession, is we've planned for the development of 197,000 units over a 10-year cycle.

Your audience has probably heard others talk about the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which is basically a modernization of the zoning code citywide that hadn't been done since 1961, the year of my birth, that will allow more housing to be developed everywhere in every zone of the city in many forms. We advanced, Brian, five major neighborhood plans in four of the five boroughs that will put into the cycle close to 50,000 units of housing. Between the City of Yes, 80,000 units, the neighborhood plans, 50,000 units.

Then all of the investments that we're making with our-- there's a term called as-of-right, which is if you build housing in New York City, we offer a tax holiday to you as a developer to give us back, give the city back 25%, 30% of those units, make them permanently affordable. That was that whole 421A that was sunsetting the tax holiday program. It is now called 485X.

Brian: Right.

Deputy Mayor Carrión: We also got the authority, Brian, to take old commercial buildings, many of which suffered through the pandemic economy, and convert them from office to residential. That's going to create tens of thousands of units of housing. All of those things were calculated into that number, and we tried to be as conservative as possible because we know that there's much more potential, but that's what we could measure.

Brian: Out of all those categories, what's the most specific number you could put on? Because I know that various mayoral candidates are promising various things over the next four years. Mayor Adams is as well, as well as he's talking about his record in the last four years, as you've been talking about here. What is the actual number of below market rate units built in the four years of this administration?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Built and preserved, affordable, it's, we broke records three times in the three years and seven months, close to 100,000 units. Just about 100,000 units of built and preserved.

Brian: Preserved. Putting them together. I mean, I had this conversation with Mayor de Blasio many times too when he was in office. Preserved only indicates that they're not going away. Yet we have a shortage even with those that were already there, that are preserved. Can you say how many are new?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Yes. 33,000 this year, 26,000 last year, 26,000 the year before. We're talking about close to 100,000 units of housing that were financed by the city to create affordability. Then, it does not factor in all the new market rate that comes onto the market because of the ability of the programs that government offers, the incentives that we offer, but just about 100,000 units.

Brian: Let me take a call on a related point. It's what happens next after you get these promises. Josh in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Josh.

Josh: Hi. My question is this. I know that it seems to have been city policy for a number of years to allow developers to build high income luxury housing in return for a promise to build a certain percentage of affordable housing. I wonder, though, how many actually do it. One example I point to is Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, which I think the Gothamist has reported on. After over 20 years, less than 50% of the housing there is affordable. What does the city do when developers break their promise?

Brian: Thanks, Josh. Yes, in general. What about Atlantic Yards in particular? Because that has been in the news. My colleagues at Gothamist have reported on it. So many of the affordable units that were promised apparently have never been built.

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Two things are important. One is that we do have the most productive public private partnership anywhere in the country for the production of affordable housing. That largely most of the applications that do come into the city from the development community come from the private sector, come from what's called private applications, privately owned land. We have a suite of programs, also known as term sheets, where developers come, and either they will develop 100% affordable housing, or they will take advantage of some of the tax incentive programs that we've created over the years that require them to dedicate a share of the housing to affordable housing for working families and low income New Yorkers.

Brian: Yes. The listener's question is about enforcing that those promises actually get fulfilled.

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Yes. There is a system of enforcing that those units are not market rate, they are not available at market rate. They go into a lottery. They are managed in this housing connect lottery system by the city of New York. There are not developments out there where the developers have not fulfilled their obligation. What the caller might be talking about is plans for development that has not occurred yet. Atlantic Yards is one of those areas that is in the process of continuing to evolve. We have a number of projects that are in the queue that will be part of the future of Atlantic Yards. The neighborhood rezonings. Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan includes tens of thousands of units of affordable housing that will be generated by this plan.

Brian: Let me just follow up for time. The headline on the Gothamist story in May that the caller was probably referring to is, "New York Lets Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards Owner Skirt Huge Penalties for Affordable Housing failure." Fair?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Yes. I think in that case, and I don't recall all the details, but the reference is to New York State. It was a New York state government action. I think that's obviously different from what the--

Brian: Oh, and that was about a state policy. That's fair that that was state, not city, but still. Another Trump issue related to housing in the city from what I've read, more than a $350 million cut in federal housing funds for the city. You used to be an official at the Federal Housing and Urban Development Department under President Obama, can you confirm that number? Is that a threat or is that a confirmed thing?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: I believe it's a threat. I will tell you this, that in this cloud, there is some silver lining for New York City, because one of the things that we have been fighting for for years is the reduction of what's called the 50% test, where low income housing tax credits that are part of the IRS code can be used to develop affordable housing here and across the country. The reduction of that 50% test to 25%, which is what we called for, we work in a bipartisan way to achieve that, unleashes tens of thousands of units of potential over the next several years, and hopefully it'll remain into the future.

We're talking about thousands and thousands of units of housing that we can build. Then, Brian, the Section 8 rental support and voucher system seems to be surviving so far. Again, you look across the country, who are the beneficiaries of rental assistance, it's everybody across the country, rurals, exurban, suburban and urban. These threats that were campaign rhetoric, some of them are coming to be, but many of them, when they get to the level of the House and the Senate having to work with the agencies to execute, they're starting to protect some of those safety net programs.

There are a lot of threats, no doubt, lots of threats. We have to brace ourselves just as every other municipality, and we have to fight to ensure that we support our city's economy, jobs, economic activity. We had a big fight with the administration early on when Trump came in on the offshore wind project that got paralyzed by the administration and threatened to completely cut it. We were able to get it back, which will allow us to fire up half a million homes in New York with offshore wind that was restored. We're fighting the good fight one battle at a time, ensuring that we protect New York and keep investing in the people of New York.

Brian: Before you go, I want to ask you one question about the news coming out of City Hall this week that the mayor vetoed the City Council passed bill to end criminal penalties for illegal street vending. Council issued a statement in response that said, "While leaving in place the enforcement tools of violations, fines and civil offenses, the bill simply removed the excessive criminal misdemeanor penalties that can block New Yorkers' access to educational, employment, housing and immigration opportunities.

The council negotiated this bill in good faith with the administration only to have the mayor disregard the work of the advisory board and his own staff with his veto as the Trump administration continues to attack working families and immigrant communities. Mayor Adams' veto is yet another example of of him supporting Trump's agenda over New Yorkers," from the City Council. Why do the mayor, and you, if you're aligned with him, think the criminal misdemeanor charges are necessary in addition to the fines and other civil penalties that would remain in place, especially if they might subject more hardworking, otherwise law abiding immigrants to deportation?

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Our administration is committed to improving the quality of life and safety of all New Yorkers. Street vending, as you know, is a complex issue. We can't address this with piecemeal legislation. We need real reform that incorporates all voices, addresses real enforcement issues, and really prioritizes the quality of life for all New Yorkers. It's a complex issue. We're going to continue working with the City Council to address this.

Brian: Deputy mayor for housing, and workforce, and economic development, Adolfo Carrión. Thank you for giving us your time today.

Deputy Mayor Carrión: Thank you, Brian. It's been a pleasure.

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