The investigations of the Adams administration appear to be more about nightlife enforcement, overseas junkets and campaign cash from the Turkish government than about real estate.
Yet the industry figures to be collateral damage nonetheless.
Barring an unlikely bill of clean health from the feds, Mayor Eric Adams will remain a weakened figure as he tries to push his pro-development agenda through an ornery and often provincial City Council.
Imagine if he had a high approval rating, and legislators coveted his endorsement and feared his wrath. Passing the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity would be child’s play.
Popular and powerful mayors and governors can get things done, for better or worse, because legislators and interest groups seek their blessing and are hesitant to challenge them.
Remember when then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo shut down the Indian Point nuclear plant? It was a terrible idea — New York’s fossil fuel emissions soared — and few people were even asking for it. But Cuomo was at the peak of his power, was living in Westchester and wanted the plant closed, so he made it happen.
He also renamed the Tappan Zee Bridge after his father and allocated funding to study a preposterous tunnel under the Long Island Sound. No one dared stop him. (He later abandoned the tunnel project because Long Islanders hated the idea and the study found it would cost $55 billion.)
But Adams does not enjoy the same popularity. Besides the federal investigations, Adams has been wounded by questionable hiring that led to bad behavior and resignations (next to go: the police commissioner). Now, even his good ideas are tossed aside: Two weeks ago, his nominee for corporation counsel, the talented and experienced Randy Mastro, was shouted down by Council members at a public hearing.
Now Adams is trying to pass a citywide text amendment that would allow a little more housing in every neighborhood. To be sure, some version of it will pass, because everyone agrees additional supply is sorely needed and the City Council speaker has pledged that her chamber will be remembered as pro-housing.
Yet with the FBI regularly raiding the homes and confiscating the phones of Adams aides, the mayor’s administration has been seriously weakened. As a result, some of the City of Yes will be stripped away by individual Council members’ placating constituents who already have housing and don’t want more of it nearby.
We have already seen an Adams-backed Bronx rezoning reduced by more than 500 units and laden down with parking mandates that will lower the number of apartments in certain projects.
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That rollback came at the behest of a rookie Republican in a Council dominated by second-term Democrats. If Kristy Marmorato can whittle down a mayoral rezoning, any of her 50 colleagues can.
To understand why silly, unwanted plans sail through, while smart, urgently needed ones are watered down, one need only look at the strength of their champions. Or in Adams’ case, the lack thereof.