Lame Duck Duck Goose
What our electeds are doing on their way out the door
RSVP for our January 13 happy hour and Community Board mixer! From 6-7pm we’ll welcome current and prospective CB members, then from 7-9pm we’ll have general abundance mingling.
No matter what Alan Dershowitz says, the president is in his lame duck era. His ironclad grip on the GOP is starting to loosen, and the American people are increasingly unhappy with his performance—try as he might to persuade them not to be.
But Donald Trump isn’t the only lame duck making noise and making news. On their way out of City Hall, Mayor Eric Adams and the 2025 City Council are leaving their marks for the next administration.
Read below for a roundup of what you might have missed—and enjoy the holidays!
The Council Clears the Decks…
Yesterday, the City Council held a marathon of hearings and votes on the bills still on their docket. They passed a handful that could have major implications for the future of housing and the streetscape in the city—if they survive potential vetoes, of course.
🦆 New Restrictions on Housing Construction: Zohran Mamdani has promised to unleash torrents of new affordable housing construction. That might get harder with new restrictions on development just passed by the Council—including $40 wage minimums on some projects, requirements for various combinations of 2– and 3-bedroom units, and new mandates for homeowner and low-income set-asides.
The Council argues that these requirements will be helpful for New Yorkers seeking family-sized homes, but critics are concerned that adding complexity can only slow down new home creation. Among the critics are Mamdani’s housing advisor Cea Weaver, the New York Housing Conference, and the progressive Fiscal Policy Institute. Mayor Adams may veto the bills, setting up a potential override battle in the new year.
🦆 New Restrictions on Housing Sales: The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act is another controversial housing bill that passed yesterday. COPA gives nonprofits (and nonprofit/for-profit partnerships) a first chance to buy certain housing.
Supporters say the bill gives buyers who will center the needs of renters a fair shot against private buyers. Critics fear that these buyers may not be any better at managing the housing—and landlords complain that they should be able to sell to whoever they want without government intervention or delays that could put their sales at risk.
🪿 Loosened Restrictions on Street Vending: As the Council made it harder to build and sell homes, they made it easier to sell goods. For decades, vendors have been operating within a highly constrained market for permits, driving many mostly immigrant small businesses to operate in the shadows or to pay exorbitant fees to rent permits from a small set of owners.
This scarcity is being addressed under new legislation spearheaded by Council Member Pierina Sanchez, who built broad support for the proposal by pairing raised caps with stronger enforcement of vending rules.
Yesterday’s marathon session wasn’t this season’s whole legislative story, good or bad. The City Council advanced a few landmark rezonings, but Julie Won’s citywide daylighting bill—which could have saved countless lives—didn’t see the light of day.
In Albany, Governor Hochul has been busy with her pen. Today, she will reportedly veto a misguided law mandating two conductors on New York trains, even as other big cities move to single-conductor of fully automated operations. Rather than locking in old systems, we can be using those resources and staff to expand service and increase speed.
…While Eric Adams Stacks the Deck
Mayor Adams will get the chance to veto the laws just passed by the Council, but he’s not waiting for them to land on his desk to shape New York City’s future. He’s using his appointment power to fill slots that would have been left for his successor.
🦆 Anti–Rent Freeze Appointments to the RGB: Zohran Mamdani’s signature promise is to freeze the rent on stabilized apartments, whose rates are set by the mayoral-appointed Rent Guidelines Board. That will get harder now that Adams will appoint two new members and reappoint two current members.
In a not-so-subtle jab at Mamdani, Adams said he’s “confident [the appointees] will serve as responsible stewards of our city’s housing stock, using facts and data to reach the right decision for both tenants and property owners.”
🦆 Bulwarks on Other Boards: The RGB isn’t the only board Adams is padding with his partisans. He’s added last-minute appointees to bodies overseeing city schools and the police department.
Beyond appointments, Adams is making it harder for a Mayor Mamdani to follow through on maintaining the current NYPD headcount and building affordable housing at the Elizabeth Street Garden site, adding funding for 5,000 new cops and designating the Garden as parkland.
🪿 The Next Team Takes Shape: Zohran Mamdani isn’t letting Adams’s lame duck actions get in the way of building his administration-in-waiting. Today, he announced Leila Borzog as his Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning—a major boon for abundance given her role in architecting pro-housing policy in the Adams admin and on the recent charter commission. That follows Mamdani’s creation of 17 transition committees to advise on policy and personnel, which also included many abundance advocacy leaders and community members.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Mamdani’s head of appointments submitted her resignation after reporters surfaced a raft of antisemitic comments she had posted to Twitter. New Yorkers are awaiting further announcements of Mamdani’s deputy mayors and department commissioners—but first he’ll have to figure out who’s going to lead his hiring now.
Not yet facing real consequences for hateful comments? Council Member Vickie Paladino, who recently called for the “expulsion of Muslims from Western nations.” Maybe next year.
We’ll be tracking the impact of these lame-duck actions—and the first moves of the new administration—in the new year.
In the meantime, here’s to an abundantly joyful holiday season.