Wednesday, March 25, marked the 84th day of Zohran Mamdani’s term as mayor. amNewYork is following Mamdani around his first 100 days in office. We are closely
Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks Wednesday at a vacant lot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where his administration announced Neighborhood Builders Fast Track, a program aimed at speeding affordable housing development on city-owned land.
We are closely tracking his progress on fulfilling campaign promises, appointing key leaders to government posts, and managing the city’s finances. Here’s a summary of what the mayor did.’s administration on Wednesday launched a new program aimed at speeding up affordable housing development on city-owned land, saying the effort could cut months from the time it takes to select builders and shave years off the broader pre-development timeline., will allow the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to pre-qualify affordable housing developers for certain projects, shortening the pre-development request-for-proposals process from about 18 months to 10 months, according to the mayor.the city could reduce the time it takes to move affordable housing forward by as much as 2 1/2 years. “What this means is that we are creating a pre-qualified roster of developers,” Mamdani said at a press conference on a vacant lot in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “New Yorkers cannot afford to wait any longer.”Administration officials said the first three sites expected to use the faster track — 784-800 Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn, 1337 Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, and 109-43 Farmers Blvd. in Queens — could produce as many as 300 affordable homes. About 100 of those would be affordable homeownership opportunities at the Bronx and Queens sites, according to the mayor’s office, which also stated that HPD expects to use the program to help advance as many as 1,000 new homes over the next two years. Speaking at the Myrtle Avenue site, Mamdani cast the effort as part of a broader push to keep New Yorkers from being priced out of the city. He said the program would help create both affordable rentals and affordable homeownership opportunities, adding that the city should not force a choice between tenants and homeowners. Later in the event, he said the goal was to build “apartments that are affordable enough to rent and homes that are affordable enough to own.” Mamdani also tied the announcement to displacement in Black communities. He said more than 200,000 Black New Yorkers left the city between 2010 and 2019, and said the decline in Black children and teenagers over that period showed the consequences of failing to build enough affordable housing. “We need to make this a city where it’s affordable enough to yell at your politicians,” the mayor joked as Raul Rivera, a pro-driver activist and regular heckler at elected officials’ press conferences, jeered from behind a chain-link fence throughout the mayor’s remarks. Council Member Chi Ossé speaks Wednesday at a Bedford-Stuyvesant housing announcement as Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg stands at right.Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg said the administration is trying to move faster not only on rental housing but also on homeownership, which she said has become increasingly out of reach. She noted that the first expedited land-use review project was launched last month in the Bronx and that additional recommendations from the administration’s housing speed task force are expected later this spring. She also said the city is reviewing public sites across the five boroughs to identify more housing opportunities. Bozorg said the program is intended to elevate nonprofit groups and minority- and women-owned businesses with roots in the communities where projects are built. The city’s request for qualifications for developers is due May 8. Council Member Chi Ossé, whose district includes the Myrtle Avenue site, said the property had been part of the 2019 Bed-Stuy housing plan and argued that too much time had already passed without development. He said the fast-track effort was needed in a neighborhood where rising rents have pushed out longtime residents, especially Black New Yorkers. “That’s too much time that has gone by without activating and building much-needed affordable housing here in Bed-Stuy,” Ossé said.Mamdani’s administration on Wednesday named Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez to lead the city’s new Office of Street Vendor Services, a unit inside the Department of Small Business Services that officials say will help street vendors navigate licensing, training, and city regulations. Kaufman-Gutierrez, who previously served as co-director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, will be the first executive director of the office. City officials said the administration is launching the unit following the City Council’s passage of Intro 408-A, which called for a new Division of Street Vendor Assistance within SBS. The appointment places a longtime street-vendor advocate in a key role as the city begins carrying out a broader reform package approved by the Council earlier this year after lawmakers overrode then-Mayor Eric Adams’ vetoes. That package was designed to ease long-standing bottlenecks in the city’s licensing system and expand access to legal vending. As, the reforms could allow the city to grant up to 10,700 new general vending licenses in 2027 and add 2,200 supervisory licenses for food vendors annually through 2031, though actual approvals still depend on the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Advocates estimate roughly 20,000 street vendors work across the five boroughs, but only a fraction are licensed: about 6,880 food vendors and fewer than 1,000 general vendors. The waitlist for licenses exceeds 10,000 names. For years, vendors and advocates have argued that the city’s system effectively shut many businesses out while relying heavily on enforcement. Under the new office, the administration says SBS will become a central hub for vendor outreach, education, and interagency coordination. Officials say the office will also work with community groups and other agencies to recommend policy and rule changes to reduce unnecessary penalties and make enforcement more consistent. In a statement announcing the appointment, Mamdani said the city needed to stop treating vendors primarily as an enforcement problem.Kaufman-Gutierrez has been one of the more visible advocates in the push for street-vendor reform. In January, after the Council overrode Adams’ vetoes, she called the reform package “a win for all New Yorkers” and said it honored “the tens of thousands of street vendors who suffered decades of injustice.” Her new job will put her inside the city government, overseeing an office expected to help build out programming for food and general vendors, coordinate with partner agencies, and support implementation of the reform laws. “Together with street vendors, interagency partners, community-based organizations, and local stakeholders at the table, we can build a more vibrant and equitable street vending ecosystem across the five boroughs,” she said. 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Jupiter’s lightning is 100 times stronger than Earth’s boltsAndrew Paul is Popular Science's staff writer focused primarily on tech, AI, physics, and culture news. He was previously a regular contributor to The A.V. Club and Input, and has been featured by Rolling Stone, Fangoria, GQ, Slate, NBC, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. He lives outside Indianapolis.
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