Council Forms Affordable Housing Preservation Taskforce

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced Wednesday that she and 13 colleagues had formed an Affordable Housing Preservation Task Force, with the goal of identifying and wielding every mechanism available to protect the city's regulated housing stock.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is working to rezone neighborhoods and facilitate affordable housing construction. But the number of affordable units created has been dwarfed by the number leaving the market, according to City Councilman Mark Levine. The task force will explore how the city might use financing for capital repairs, building violations or outstanding taxes as leverage to goad landlords into new regulatory agreements, Levine said.

“Any time a building expires out of affordability, that owner knows they can go market rate. And unless it’s a mission-driven nonprofit, that’s going to be a big temptation,” Levine said. “But there often are many other complicating circumstances—maybe this is a building with big backlogs of repairs and the city can come in with some very favorable financing to help with that in exchange for affordability; maybe this building has a lot of violations and we can use enforcement leverage; maybe they want to do upgrades. … We just need to make sure that we have the resources to pull every one of those levers.”

The task force’s members were selected because they represent districts where longtime constituents struggle to keep up with rising rents, but lawmakers believe they can counteract displacement “crises,” Levine said. The task force will cull from members’ experience in their districts, advice from housing advocacy groups and the knowledge of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development to compile policy recommendations.

Mark-Viverito said she does not have a timeline for when the task force will put forth suggestions. “We want to give this the thought that it merits and that it needs, but we’re understanding that there is a sense of urgency,” she said. “We don’t even have a database that lists like, OK, these Section 202 buildings will expire, the contracts will expire on such and such a date, what can we do to preserve those affordable units for seniors?”

The group will examine what regulatory programs cover which buildings, their expiration dates and what strategies the government can take to generate new housing agreements or extend existing ones. Buildings deemed to be in physical or financial distress and those in HPD’s asset and property management portfolio will also be studied, Mark-Viverito said.

Another pillar of the task force’s work will involve informing residents in regulated housing of their rights.

“The task force will conduct outreach among affordable housing residents to ensure awareness of their rights as tenants and improve access available to city services and other resources, like legal services, for instance,” Mark-Viverito said. “As costs of living in New York City rise dramatically, more and more New Yorkers are finding it impossible to make ends meet in the neighborhoods they helped build. … Low-income residents of color are, too often, left behind or pushed out.”

When asked whether legislation to guarantee attorneys to low-income residents facing eviction in Housing Court would play into the plan, Mark-Viverito said the task force would look at “every possibility.” She said she did not have an answer as to when there would be a hearing on the so-called Right to Counsel bill, which was introduced last year.

“Last year we almost doubled the amount of resources we put toward our legal organizations,” Mark-Viverito said. “There’s a lot of attention being put to legal services for residents.” 

The Affordable Housing Preservation Task Force includes: City Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito, Mark Levine (co-chair), Jumaane Williams (co-chair), Ydanis Rodriguez, Andrew Cohen, Ritchie Torres, Costa Constantinides, Antonio Reynoso, Robert Cornegy, Rafael Espinal, Carlos Menchaca, Darlene Mealy, David Greenfield (ex officio) and Julissa Ferreras (ex officio).