Mamdani, Myrie, Lander and Adams Bash Cuomo’s Housing Plan

Four mayoral candidates joined forces on Friday against a common enemy: Andrew Cuomo. More specifically, they bashed one of the former governor’s favorite — and most powerful — allies, the real estate industry.

Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander, Sen. Zellnor Myrie and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams stood outside City Hall, in front of a crowd holding signs that read “Freeze the Rent,” “Cuomo’s Housing Crisis,” “Andrew Cuomo = Your Landlord’s Favorite Candidate” and “Real Estate Out of Politics.”

The candidates, each with differing stances on those sentiments, took turns criticizing Cuomo, who entered the race in March and quickly became the frontrunner. They highlighted his housing record, the typo-ridden housing plan he released this week and the fact that his campaign has raked in millions of dollars from real estate donors in the short time since declaring his candidacy.

The event, organized by the far-left tenant advocacy group New York State Tenant Bloc, featured candidates endorsed by the Working Families Party. Ana Maria Archila, co-director of the New York WFP, urged the crowd to rank all four candidates as the best strategy to ensure one can elbow Cuomo out of the running. Speakers repeatedly urged against ranking “your landlord’s favorite mayoral candidate,” Cuomo, and occasionally reminded the crowd to also leave out Mayor Eric Adams.

During his time speaking, Mamdani pointed to the more than $2 million Cuomo’s super PAC raised from real estate.

“He does not have an answer for how he could make this city more affordable when he has worked arm in arm with those who have made millions from its inequality,” Mamdani said.

Mamdani is the only candidate of the four who has outright pledged to freeze rents for stabilized tenants for four years if elected, a top priority for the Tenant Bloc. Such increases are determined by the Rent Guidelines Board, and the other three candidates have largely deferred to the board. (Lander and Adams have said they would support a freeze if supported by data. Myrie has not.)

In a statement, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi touted the former governor’s “decades-long record of fighting for tenant rights and protecting renters,” pointing to the creation of the state’s tenant protection unit in 2011. He also noted Cuomo’s time as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration and his launch of a program to build 100,000 affordable homes throughout the state in 2020.

“New Yorkers know he’s the candidate with the experience and the record to help fix what’s broken in this city and they are not going to be swayed by this gaslighting from far left political operatives and a clown car of career politicians with no vision or achievements of their own,” Azzopardi said in a statement.

When Adams took the podium, she cited the loss of more than 66,000 rent-stabilized apartments by the time Cuomo left office in 2021. A fellow Queens native, she questioned Cuomo’s bona fides as a “regular” New Yorker.

“He has never lived the lives that you all have lived as regular New Yorkers,” she said. “He’s never struggled to pay rent. He’s never had to explain to his children, like I did, that we had to shop at JCPenney so we could pay our mortgage.”

She mentioned Cuomo’s wealthy donors, but did not call out real estate explicitly.

Comptroller Brad Lander touted the Gowanus rezoning, which was approved while he represented the area on the City Council. He also pointed to a “corrupt bargain” Cuomo made with the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of Democrats in the state Senate that sided with Republicans and real estate donors to open “the loopholes like vacancy decontrol into our rent laws.” (Vacancy decontrol pre-dated Cuomo’s tenure as governor, but the dissolution of the IDC and the ousting of its members in 2018 paved the way for the 2019 rent law that eliminated vacancy decontrol and other means for increasing rents at stabilized apartments).

Sen. Zellnor Myrie refrained from criticizing Cuomo’s relationship with the real estate industry. He pointed to a report released by his campaign, which found that average housing prices rose 80 percent in New York while Cuomo was governor. Myrie also criticized Cuomo for visiting Black churches when Black New Yorkers were disproportionately affected by rising costs. (Cuomo’s campaign has dismissed the report.)

“Cuomo is bad for housing now, and he was bad for housing in the past,” Myrie said.

Housing is a major talking point in the mayoral race so far, with most of the major candidates having released plans to address affordability and availability. It is unclear to what degree these plans will sway voters.

The WFP is expected to endorse a top candidate before the June primary. A representative with the Tenant Bloc indicated Friday that the group is discussing if and when it is making an endorsement.