New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday signed three executive orders to confront the city’s housing crisis.
The executive orders brings back to life the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and creates two new task forces to accelerate housing construction, get New Yorkers into homes faster, and increase supply by identifying suitable city-owned properties.
Mamdani signed the executive orders at 85 Clarkson Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, a building owned by Pinnacle Realty. The firm, which recently put up its affordable housing units for sale via bankruptcy auction, is responsible for more than 5,000 housing violations, 14,000 complaints across 83 buildings, including in Brooklyn.
While there, he toured an apartment that revealed the consequences of Pinnacle’s negligence — broken walls, torn flooring, and a failure to provide heat.
The mayor directed his Corporation Counsel nominee, Steve Banks, to take action in Bankruptcy Court to protect the renters of the Clarkson Avenue building and the thousands of other renters across the city.
“Today, on the first day of this new administration, on the day where so many rent payments are due, we will not wait to deliver action. We will stand up on behalf of the tenants of this city,” Mamdani said in a statement.
The two task forces created are:
- LIFT Task Force (Land Inventory Fast Track) will leverage city-owned land to accelerate housing development, increase supply, and drive down costs. The task force will review city-owned properties and identify sites suitable for housing development no later than July 1, 2026. LIFT will be overseen by Leila Bozorg, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning.
- The SPEED Task Force (Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development) will identify and remove bureaucratic and permitting barriers that drive up costs and slow housing construction and lease-up, making it more affordable to build and easier to access housing across New York City. The task force will be overseen by Bozorg and Julia Kerson, Deputy Mayor of Operations.
The mayor also appointed Cea Weaver as director of the newly revitalized Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. Weaver, a Brooklyn resident, is a nationally recognized affordable housing and tenants’ rights advocate and the executive director of Housing Justice for All and the New York State Tenant Bloc, sibling organizations that work to strengthen tenant organizing, advance pro-tenant legislation, and elect tenants and their allies to public office.
