Below is my column in The Hill on the new housing plan of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to seize the properties of the “worst landlords” and hand them over to tenants or tenant groups. It is a plan that is hardly unexpected given the socialist agenda of the Administration. However, it promises to replicate the failures of socialist systems of the past.
Here is the column:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised in his inaugural address to introduce New Yorkers to “the warmth of collectivism.” It now appears landlords will likely to be the first to feel the heat.
This week, Mamdani revealed an effort to transfer properties to tenants and non-profit groups. Mamdani announced that “through our new citywide campaign, Fix the City, we will focus on the worst landlords in New York City.” For landlords, it has been clear that the fix was in for some time.
Mamdani faced criticism for his appointment of Cea Weaver as the new director of the Office to Protect Tenants. She previously called for efforts to “impoverish the white middle-class” and called homeownership “racist” while demanding the seizure of private property.
Videos of Weaver echoed thread-worn socialist mantras that are the signature of the Mamdani Administration. “I think the reality is, that for centuries we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good,” she said. “And transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently and it will mean that families — especially white families, but some POC families who are homeowners as well — are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.”
Weaver famously tweeted out her beliefs about private property, which are apparently widely shared in the Mamdani administration: “Private property, including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of White supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.”
Other socialists on the national level have pursued the same policies to target landlords. In pushing national legislation, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) joined fellow Democrats in calling for the passage of the HELP Act to “crack down” on some evictions and bar the use of evictions on credit reports. Pressley has declared that “evictions are an act of policy violence.”
Mamdani insists that he will be targeting “the worst landlords in New York City.” Yet, who constitutes the “worst landlords” could prove a relative notion to the ardent socialist. Mamdani proposes to transfer their properties to “responsible stewards,” including tenants and nonprofits.
In his 112-page report, Mamdani is again pushing to unleash his “Block by Block agenda for expanded rent controls, promising not to exempt landlords from Rent Guidelines Board limits. He and his allies have previously heralded Cuba and South Africa as models for policy changes.
Mamdani faces a considerable challenge in fulfilling his pledge to build 200,000 new affordable homes, with an additional 200,000 stabilized units over the next decade. There is reportedly only a 1.4 percent rental vacancy rate, with 100,000 New Yorkers sleeping in shelters each night.
Rent controls have generally been a disaster, reducing landlords’ ability to make improvements to their properties. They cannot recoup those investments due to rental limits as costs, particularly insurance, skyrocket.
The result is a type of planned failure. As landlords postpone improvements, they are often cited by the city in housing hearings. When those findings and fines increase, the landlords risk being declared “negligent” and subject to a transfer due to unpaid citations.
There is no argument that the worst landlords warrant the loss of their properties. But transferring such properties to tenants or non-profit groups is a new and costly form of subsidy. Ordinarily, delinquent properties can be sold on the free market to pay off outstanding debts. That allows neglected properties to be put to the most profitable use, which in turn generates more taxes and jobs for the city. If these properties go to non-profits or tenants, that can further reduce the city’s tax revenues.
More importantly, neither tenants nor nonprofit organizations have a proven track record of maintaining properties without substantial city subsidies. It is a mirage created by activists, hiding the true cost to taxpayers.
Mamdani continues to pursue policies that will suppress, not surge, new construction. His administration is requiring construction companies to pay a minimum of $40 per hour for city-funded affordable housing, which will further discourage investors.
He announced a $22 billion subsidy for housing costs, with 25 percent going to the New York City Housing Authority. These increased costs will likely grow as fixed budgetary items for the city.
Although it is economically dubious, it is politically dynamite. Much of Mamdani’s support comes from young people who have no memory of or experience with the failures of socialist policies in the twentieth century. He simply promises things like free buses or city-run grocery stores as if they can be supported by free money without addressing their true costs.
His grocery stores show the same economic sleight of hand. The city is planning to spend $30 million to create the first store — four times what such stores normally cost. On top of that cost, it was discovered that the city had already appropriated $25 million for the improvement of the site. That is $55 million for a site that will not go on the market for the highest bidders, but rather be operated by the city at a loss.
In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss this trend in Western countries toward socialist policies. It is what I refer to as the “economic factionalism” that has been used in prior years by figures ranging from Huey Long to Bernie Sanders.
With the highest rental rates in the country (with median rents at $3,616) and a shortage of units, there is widespread support for building new affordable housing. But government rent controls, mandatory wage increases and property seizures will inhibit such efforts.
Mamdani’s free buses, city-run stores and this new housing effort will achieve one overriding goal: introducing socialism in New York City, “block by block.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
“There is no argument that the worst landlords warrant the loss of their properties. But transferring such properties to tenants or non-profit groups is a new and costly form of subsidy.”
So Turley agrees with Mayor Mamdani at least on principle.
But he’s wrong about the transferring of properties as something new. There are NYC laws that allow this and they have been on the books for a long time.
According to NYC Administrative Code § 11-401 et seq., the city defines a “distressed property” based on strict financial and physical violations, rather than political ideology:
“…any parcel of class one or class two real property that is subject to a tax lien… with a tax delinquency period of at least three years… [or] an average of five or more hazardous or immediately hazardous violations of the housing maintenance code per dwelling unit…”
Rules of the City of New York (RCNY) Title 28, § 8-04, the direct transfer of title is explicitly detailed;
detailed:%E2%80%9C…HPD%20may%20request%20the%20Commissioner%20of%20Finance%20to%20execute%20a%20deed%20to%20a%20Third%20Party%20selected%20by%20HPD…%20Such%20notice%20will%20advise%20tenants%20of%20the%20foreclosure%20action…%20and%20advise%20Tenants%20of%20an%20opportunity%20to%20apply%20for%20eventual%20ownership%20of%20such%20property%20under%20the%20sponsorship%20of%20a%20Third%20Party.
These statutes prove that the law requires a lengthy pattern of code violations, emergency conditions, or extensive tax delinquency. Property cannot be “seized” arbitrarily based on mayoral discretion or political definitions of “worst landlords.”
Mamdani, is referring to these kinds of landlords. And ironically Turley does agree they deserve to have their properties confiscated. It’s just the manner in which they are that he has an issue with.
We act as if this were new, this business of landlords and tenants. Yet we have records going back centuries of similar behavior. For a brief peek, review this very nicely put together article. https://commonedge.org/high-density-living-2000-years-ago-inside-the-roman-apartment-building/
My point? Mankind has been scratching for a better solution for quite a long time. If I were king for a day I’d wave my magic wand (mixing my metaphors horribly) and eliminate rent control so that assets may be priced appropriately.
Would those on the edge hate it? Yes! But would we get more housing units built if a proper return were not limited by government fiat? Yes, also. Question is; which would we rather? Wring our hands in despair about landlords and the decrepit buildings, or see the hustle and bustle of renewal?
—
John
NYC residents, I am given to understand that the neighborhood formally known as Bay Ridge, is being referred to as Beirut. Hence, you’ve earned the right to augment your address by adding ‘Mamdanistan’ following the zipcode. When the 12th Imam finally arrives after the apocalypse as it has been foretold, allwill be in readiness to welcome him. Yes him! There’s no issue of gender in this eschatology.
We’ve just past the 50 year anniversary of President Ford telling NYC the federal government would not bail them out. People still remember the infamous Daily News headline: “Ford to NYC: Drop Dead”.
Hopefully that will be Trump or the next President’s response when NYC runs out of money.
NYers voted for Mamdani. They must live with the consequences of that decision.
And by all means, do not fall for the media’s emotional blackmail routine that people will suffer if NYC is not bailed out. And don’t fall for the lies of GeorgeX and Natacha, who with 100% certainty will try to pin the fault on Trump, Republicans, or anybody except where it rightfully belongs: Democrats and the Mamdani government.
With 5 government run grocery stores serving 8.5 million New Yorkers (that’s 1.7 million New Yorkers per store), what could possibly go wrong?
To Mamdani and other socialists like him, this seems like a grand idea.
The question is, does Mamdani really believe it or is it just political posturing?
Stand back, wait and see.
Mamdani’s West coast socialist in Seattle Katie Wilson is finding out in real time her socialist ideas is producing a great sucking sound as businesses, people and taxes leave her city and in some cases, the state.
In a last-ditch move to salvage his “US Freedom 250” concert, Donald J. Trump announced on Monday that the only remaining musical act will be Secretary of State Marco Rubio playing a kazoo.
“Quite frankly, we don’t need no-talent losers like the Commodores,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We have Little Marco playing his Little Kazoo!”
According to sources, Rubio is taking his new assignment extremely seriously, spending hours practicing the kazoo in the Situation Room.
In an official statement, Rubio declared, “I am honored to blow anything President Trump asks me to.”
New York receives twices as much federal aid per person as Florida? Why?
END THAT!
Also a 1% tax on the gross of all wall street trades or moving money offshore.
Take away centralized power of wall street from buying DC!
The benefit…more investing…less useless TRADING!
Modami is a Robert Mugabe wannabe. Stealing the apartments is like stealing the land was. Zimbabwe crashed and could no longer feed itself. Turning over the apartments to members of the polit bureau will be a double whammy. First., it will remove the property from the property tax rolls and then the tax payers will have to pony up to maintain the property because the rents will be too low to self sustain itself. Like “W” said – “you are doing a heck of a job brownie”.
The Bolsheviks had to go to war to take the property. Just as Lincoln had to go to war to take back the states from the Confederate government – states that chose to secede because the US government was in breech of the Constitution their ancestors had ratified.
Mamdani can not go to war to take the property. There will be some sort of sham legal process to transfer the deeds. Heck, they may even make the deal sweet enough – effectively bribe – that some of the current owners will voluntarily transfer the deeds.
But that just means the city will be stuck with a bunch of dilapidated property that they overpaid for. That’s just the first step in a series of uneconomic transactions to follow, leaving the broader NYC society poorer than they otherwise would have been.
President Trump, Speaker Johnson, Majority leader Thune, GOP
I have a solution
End Federal Aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges
Outlaw Public Unions
The Democrats will destroy themselves in 6 months!
welcome to national socialists German 1930’s
Heck they were better…they loved their country
Democrats HATE America….love illegals invaders and criminals
Democrats are SET ON DESTROYING western society
and every single person voting democrats is 100% AT FAULT!!! Voting Democrat at this point is TREASON!
Interesting breakdown from Hon. Vickie Paladino on X. The real reasons why Zohran the Terrible is trying this.
I generally disapprove of lawyers that sue for ridiculous reasons, however this will count as an exception. Take him to court on each building, multiple times if necessary and let the lawfare run out the clock on his term as mayor. Hopefully the courts will act appropriately with blind justice. In the end it will be the same as what the Democrats are trying with Trumps policies, tie him up until they win the next election.