Adams’ housing team pans affordable housing proposals from Lander and Council as costly and inefficient

Top housing officials from Mayor Adams’ administration criticized a package of affordable housing bills considered in the City Council Thursday as overly complex, costly, time consuming and redundant.

The bills, which are backed by several Council members and are being championed by city Comptroller Brad Lander, aim to create more affordable housing through establishing a land bank to acquire property, studying the feasibility of creating a new “social housing” agency and allowing the city to give preference to non-profit developers in certain scenarios when public land is involved.

Kim Darga, a deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, voiced concerns with each of those proposals, but didn’t shut the door entirely on considering them further during her testimony before the City Council on Thursday.

Darga told the Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings that the city uses already-available methods to “expand the capacity of and opportunities for non-profit partners” and voiced concerns that a bill proposed by Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) runs counter to the administration’s policy goals.

Restler’s bill would require the city to prioritize non-profit developers and community land trusts when selling public land intended for affordable housing or other public uses. The rationale behind doing that, he noted, is based on data that shows non profit-run projects are more likely to build out more deeply affordable housing.

He pushed back on Darga’s argument that the city already employs requirements to hire non-profits and minority- and women-owned businesses on such projects by saying that while those firms may be involved in affordable housing projects, that doesn’t mean they are running the show.

“We are focused on maximizing affordable housing as quickly as possible,” Restler said. “I believe what I laid out is an efficient and effective way to do that that wouldn’t slow you down one millisecond.”

Darga also panned a bill floated by Councilwoman Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) to study creating a social housing agency, saying it would lay the groundwork for more government inefficiency. And she said a bill introduced by Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) is unnecessary because the city already has a mechanism in place to buy, warehouse and transfer land to affordable housing developers.

“It would … add time, complexity and significant cost to the existing process,” Darga said. “Land banks are undeniably an important tool in many cities. HPD has the tools that allow the city to achieve similar outcomes as a land bank.”