Most of us make New Year's resolutions or at least we attempt to.
We hear them recited over and over by friends, family and in our own heads:
"I will lose 30 pounds."
"I will quit smoking."
"I will stop introducing frivolous resolutions."
Wait, what?
Just like the personal pledges we make every year, the City Council has its own resolutions. Some, like those approving the budget, have clout. But many opine on state or federal policy or take a stand on a controversial issue outside the council's jurisdiction and are completely nonbinding. The 51 members of the New York City Council introduced 507 resolutions in 2007, and some City Hall observers and prospective candidates argue they should cut back for 2008.
"I think often my gut instinct is they are symbolic expressions of sentiment by the City Council or perhaps groups that are pressuring the City Council or exerting pressure on the legislature," said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group, of resolutions.
Contending the measures are merely symbolic or for political gain, some critics claim that resolutions waste the council's time and should be eliminated completely or capped at a "reasonable" level.
While you may agree or disagree with a resolution's purpose - whether it's your own promise or one from the New York City Council - at least one similarity is difficult to ignore: Like the more than 90 percent of individuals who will fail to meet their goals in 2008, most City Council resolutions will likely fail to fulfill the aspirations of their sponsors, observers said.
What exactly does a resolution do? Technically - for a large number of them - nothing.
While resolutions are used to formally approve the budget and financial transfers and to confirm any uniform land use review procedure, many merely express the views of the council - after all, they call them nonbinding for a reason.
Thanks to the City Charter, the City Council really can't do that much. It may have sole power over the budget's approval and land use review procedures, but much of the "sexy" issues, as one lobbyists put it, are the responsibility of the mayor or the state government. Resolutions provide a means for council members to get involved, said City Hall observers.
From urging the state legislature to adopt a real estate tax rebate for veterans to creating a symbolic moratorium on the pejorative use of the word bitch, policy-related resolutions have no teeth and no requirement that any New Yorker comply.
Though nonbinding resolutions lack the power of enforcement, some members can't get enough of them.
Out of the 507 resolutions introduced in 2007, 66 percent were procedural in nature, usually a land use resolution memorializing a rezoning or redevelopment approval. About 170 were policy oriented, nonbinding resolutions, and of those 17 percent were approved.
Not surprisingly, of the 51 City Council members, chairs of committees affiliated with the land use review procedure or finance, like Melinda Katz, who chairs land use, or David Weprin, who heads the Finance Committee, have sponsored or co-sponsored the largest portion of resolutions - 268 and 147 respectively.
While the majority of members have sponsored or co-sponsored about 50 items, a few, including Dennis Gallagher and David Yassky, signed on far more sparingly.
Policy-based resolutions often express opposition or support for state or federal legislation and can even take a stand on foreign policy - from the distribution of resources in China to the plight of democracy in Myanmar. Even council members admit that their efforts to weigh in on such distant matters has made the body the target of ridicule.
But the introduction and subsequent approval of these resolutions can send a meaningful message to one's constituents, some council members say. While the People's Republic of China may not notice if a City Council thousands of miles away votes to condemn its labor practices, residents of Bed-Stuy, Jackson Heights and Harlem could appreciate that their representatives took a stand.
"I think its good idea for us to come out and condemn genocide in Darfur," said Councilmember Michael Nelson. Overall, he added, a resolution's impact can depend on its scope. "It can definitely have an effect. In some cases it can be questionable."
Knowing that internationally focused resolutions are unlikely to affect uprisings in Asia or Africa, some say the intentions behind this type of measure are entirely political.
"Is it just something they are going to trot out in their end-of-year newsletter or are they trying to educate the public?" asked Haven of New York Public Interest Research Group. "It's very hard to separate the just self promotional aspects to the genuine advancement of policy."
Even some council members admit that these resolutions are to draw attention to the sponsors. Councilmember Tony Avella said as the 2009 elections approach, he expects many more symbolic gestures to be introduced on the council floor.
In the 2007 legislative session, council members introduced 30 resolutions calling on the federal government to pass legislation or change policy. Of those, four were approved, including a resolution (Res. 842) urging Congress to adopt a comprehensive immigration policy that protects the civil liberties of undocumented immigrants and fully incorporate them into society.
As you recall, Congress was not swayed by the New York City Council.
Whether this legislation can make an impact on a smaller scale is a greater question. More than 50 resolutions introduced in 2007 were aimed at the state government in Albany - though the full council approved only seven of them. Given the size of the city's delegation in the legislature, the council's resolutions on state issues could have some influence, some political observers suggest.
Weprin, for example, introduced a resolution in 2004 urging the state Legislature to approve Timothy's Law -- a bill that expanded medical coverage for the mentally ill and people with substance abuse problems.
Once the council held a widely publicized hearing and passed the resolution, Weprin said Albany finally acted. He couldn't attribute the bill's passage entirely to his resolution, but the councilman said it helped.
"I think it's part of your responsibility as the council to use that bully pulpit for the greater good, and part of that is trying to influence state and federal policy makers, whether it's legislators, governors, presidents," Weprin said.
But many of the state-targeted nonbinding resolutions passed in the 2007 legislative session were not so successful.
For instance, when the City Council approved a resolution urging the state legislature to approve a recycling center on the Gansevoort peninsula that would enable the city to follow through with its Solid Waste Management Plan, Albany turned a deaf ear.
It's even difficult to get city's agencies to pay attention. When the council approved a resolution in March urging the Department of Education to reassess its milk offerings in school cafeterias, the department did not change its policy to offer only low-fat or 2 percent milk in schools. A department spokesperson said the current arangement helps keep kids healthy.
"The effect of resolutions being introduced is to mobilize interest groups," said Norman Adler, president of lobbying firm Bolton-St. Johns. "Given the substantive number of them that are introduced, I would say their impact is minor."
Some, including Bob Zuckerman, who plans to run for the City Council in 2009, want to do away with the nonbinding measures all together.
"What is the purpose of a council resolution saying that we think the state legislature should pass this?" asked Zuckerman. "That's why we have state legislature."
Others argue a resolution can have an impact if an individual council member follows through. When a council member can get a resolution to the floor and get it passed, Avella said, the individual member must then work to see it become successful upstate, in Washington, D.C. or elsewhere.
"Even when you just succeed at getting it passed, the council doesn't do anything with it," said Avella. "It sits on a shelf. It's up to the author of the resolution to move it."
Most of the nonbinding resolutions never make it to the full council (Some council members contend whether a resolution gets a hearing depends on his or her relationship with Council Speaker Christine Quinn).
But even if a resolution doesn't make it to the floor, it can still cause ripple effects throughout City Hall.
It may, for example, mobilize interest groups for and against the measure. More than a decade ago, the then-sitting City Council introduced a resolution condemning the Anheuser-Busch Companies for alleged discriminatory policies against minority and independent business owners.
Adler, who was hired by the beer company as a lobbyist, recalled the company paid thousands of dollars in a successful effort to quash the resolution. While the symbolic legislation never threatened Anheuser-Busch financially, it still thought it had to fight the nonbinding measure.
"In my experience in lobbying at City Hall over the years, resolutions very frequently annoy or frighten corporations," said Adler. "It puts meat and potatoes on the table of many a lobbyist."
Here is a sample of some of the resolutions that were introduced during the 2007 legislative session:
Limiting Homework: As Councilmember Peter Vallone prepares to introduce a resolution to limit homework for New York City public schools students to two hours a night, he has his kids in mind. The resolution, which calls on the Department of Education to reform its homework policy, also landed him on a plethora of national broadcasts and made headlines in many city papers.
Obama's Bill: Sometimes it's not the premise of the resolution that sparks controversy, but its lack of movement. Councilmember Darlene Mealy introduced a resolution earlier this year endorsing a bill on voting rights sponsored by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Another councilmember, Charles Barron, claimed Quinn buried the resolution because she supports Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. He also called Quinn a racist. Barron and Quinn often clash over legislative matters.
Iran Divestment: City Council Minority Leader James Oddo introduced a resolution in August urging the city and the state to divest their pension funds in companies who invested in Iran's energy sector. The resolution hasn't received a hearing but did get some press.
Curbing Curses: Twice this year, members introduced resolutions symbolically banning the use of certain words. First was one on the n-word, introduced by Councilmember Leroy Comrie, which passed in February. The b-word measure introduced by Mealy followed. That resolution, introduced in July, has yet to receive a hearing.
Sorry for Slavery: Following the example of some states in the South, several black members of the City Council introduced a resolution in April expressing profound regret for slavery. That resolution also has not received a hearing.
Caffeine Count: Councilmember Simcha Felder introduced a measure in February urging the federal government to require food companies to include caffeine counts on nutrition labels. The council never moved on it and neither did the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Faced with the opportunity to take on issues like these, the City Council is unlikely to abandon such resolutions anytime soon. Members like resolutions: The number of them introduced on the Council Chamber floor in 2007 outnumbers the number of bills, or introductions, during the same time period by nearly 3 to 1.
"Every resolution has its place," said Councilmember Letitia James. "Some of them are more influential than others. Some of them are not worth the paper they are written on." Â
Oh woe is the idealistic political observer in 2007. Last year, nearly two-dozen journalists, City Hall observers and politicians predicted the taking-Albany-by-storm Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer (a.k.a. The Steamroller) would root out corruption and inefficiency upstate with his combative prosecutorial ways and reform-minded agenda.
"Spitzer will be very popular in his first year, despite a tough love budget," predicted WNYC's Brian Lehrer last December.
But that's not exactly what happened, is it? Spitzer's approval rating is treading in the thirties, and many Democrats polled said they would not vote him in for a second term.
While many of our so-called psychics may have missed the mark last year, Gotham Gazette is willing to give it another try.
Every December we ask New York's political know-it-alls and policy wonks to predict what could be in store for next year. For 2008, they predict a struggling economy - thanks to the mortgage meltdown - continuous scandals upstate and a presidential pulpit starring some well known New Yorkers.
Tom Robbins, reporter, The Village Voice
Rudy Giuliani defends Yankee steroid users. "What's wrong with wanting to be the best?" he insists.
Mike Bloomberg fires Dan Doctoroff as Bloomberg LP prez after learning he has cut a deal to sell the company to developer Steve Ross and government of Abu Dhabi.
Bernie Kerik cops a plea with federal prosecutors. Burly ex-corrections chief tells judge: "I did the crime and I can do the time -- standing on my head." Then he demonstrates.
Giuliani campaign is hit by scandal after Human Growth Hormone capsules are left behind in the New Hampshire hotel room of top campaign aide.
Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey resigns to take top campaign post with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Says: "I just couldn't wait any longer. Mike's great, but he couldn't make up his mind."
Eliot Spitzer gets his old mojo back and climbs in polls as Democrats take control of the State Senate.
Andrew Cuomo opens new Spitzer probe. Aides say: "This one makes Troopergate look like a lunchroom food fight."
Mike Wallace, co-author of "Gotham"
A lot of futurology amounts to assuming tomorrow will be just like today, plus or minus 5 percent. Given the power of inertia in history, would-be seers who bet that things will continue along the same trajectory aren't likely to go too far wrong.
In this cautious vein I foresee: another round of corporate mergers and concentration of capital (especially in finance); another increase in CEO salaries (for all the astonishing flubs that sent high officials out the window to float down on golden parachutes); more high-rise office and luxury housing development; more sub-prime foreclosures; more conspicuous Gilded Age type consumption; another round in the third great wave of immigration; a continuing decline in blue-collar jobs and increase in low-wage service sector positions; a worsening shortage of truly affordable housing (despite heroic efforts by the current administration); and, overall, a steady widening of the enormous chasms between Gotham's poor and rich and superrich.
A trickier task is to spot the fault lines along which more seismic shifts might occur. Set aside a last minute lunatic lurch into Iran by cornered Bushies -- damn the National Intelligence Estimate, full speed ahead. Set aside, too, the arrival in New York -- the last domino? -- of the toppling real estate prices raising havoc elsewhere in the country, which might in turn torpedo many mega-developments (Atlantic Yards, Hudson Yards).
These apart, the most worrisome source of instability -- not unrelated to the above -- stems from the ongoing transformation of the city's (and the world's) financial arrangements. The sloshing about of trillions of dollars in the largely unregulated speculative hedge fund and derivative markets has generated a level of buccaneering reminiscent of the 1920s. Given the city's hyper-vulnerability to perturbations in the global economy -- and given the gaping national budget and balance of payment deficits, the impatience of Europeans and others with the declining dollar, the possible quantum surge in oil prices and the conceivable cardiac arrest of credit markets shocked into seizure by subprime screwups -- the possibility of a global financial perfect storm, while remaining unlikely, can, alas, not be entirely excluded from the menu of worrisome possibilities for 2008.
New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan
After yet another year of losing $13 billion to congestion, political and traffic gridlock are broken for the first time by a congestion pricing plan that brings $350 million in federal aid to expand mass transit and get New York City moving.
Representative Charles Rangel
I can work with the new president, no matter who she is.
Next year the country and the world will know that the change in the administration will bring a new hope for world and peace.
The economic success New York City is having must be shared with the poor and working class. In the coming year we need to invest in housing— not just luxury housing, but affordable housing.
Jonathan Bowles, director, Center for an Urban Future
The city's crime rate goes up, housing prices begin to go down, the economy cools and at least one cupcake shop goes out of business.
Concerns about overdevelopment in neighborhoods outside of Manhattan, the loss of New York's uniqueness and the squeezing of the middle class become the early hot button issues of the 2009 mayoral campaign.
Shelly Silver gets just about anything he wants from Governor Spitzer.
City Councilmember Simcha Felder
Ray Kelly will announce his candidacy for mayor in 2008.
The MTA will refund all MetroCard users 4 cents a year as a result of them increasing the fare so much. This is the equivalent of the $400 rebates the city is giving real estate owners - not very good.
The Brooklyn Bridge will be closed and affordable housing will be built on top of it to eliminate the problems that congestion pricing is trying to address. That way cars won't come into the city. All commuters from south Brooklyn will have to take the train.
Steven Cohen, professor of public administration at Columbia University
The Democrats will take the White House and hold onto the Congress.
Rudy Giuliani will return to the private sector, but won't hire Bernie Kerik to work for him.
The federal Clean Air Act will be amended to regulate carbon dioxide and reduce global warming, President Bush will veto the bill and Congress will override his veto.
New York City will continue to export its garbage out of state and costs will continue to grow.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg will not run for president, and rumors that he will run for governor will continue to grow.
The Yankees and Mets will both get past the first round of the playoffs.
The Knicks will not get to the first round of the playoffs.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn
Plastic bags will be recycled by the thousands in neighborhoods around the city.
CouncilStat data will help constituents get their problems solved at lightning speed.
The Yankees and Mets will battle it out in a Subway Series.
Americans will elect our first female president.
Madison Square Garden will pay property taxes for the first time in decades.
Bruce Springstein's "Magic" will win the Grammy for album of the year.
More New Yorkers of all incomes will have access to healthy, nutritious foods.
Building on the success of its metal bat ban, the council will ban the words "metal bat ban."
Gotham Gazette will surpass Drudge in number of page views per day.
Julia Vitullo-Martin, senior fellow, The Manhattan Institute
The Bloomberg administration will continue its triumphant rezoning of the city, opening up more land for residential and commercial development than any administration in history, including major rezonings for 125th Street in Harlem, 161st Street in the South Bronx, Coney Island in Brooklyn, the Rockaways in Queens and West Shore in Staten Island. Yet as New Yorkers pursue their drive for living space, they will find that, contrary to the promises of economists, new supply will not bring down rents or prices. While property values may stall briefly in response to national economic problems, they will then return to their upward march, rising inexorably until they match those of London—our ruthless and successful competitor across the sea.
Don Hastings, actor, As The World Turns (interviewed on the Writer's Guild picket line outside the Time Warner Center)
Hopefully things like this (the Writer's Guild Strike) will get the city back to normal and will get more film and television production in this city. I'm hoping that all of this unrest in labor gets quickly and amicably resolved.
I think you've got a great mayor, and I wouldn't mind seeing him run for president. I'd hate to lose him in New York, but I'd like to see him in the White House.
City Councilmember Letitia James
Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic nomination for the presidency and select John Edwards as her vice president.
The Atlantic Yards project will go down in flames.
David Birdsell, professor and dean, School of Public Affairs at Baruch College
After suffering further damage in a difficult budget environment in the spring, Governor Spitzer will regain his footing with a series of popular, politically achievable policy proposals in 2008-09.
The scale of savings from a variety of "green" initiatives in New York will create new industries, new subsidies for start-ups, and make environmental sustainability the brightest spot in the local economy for the next two years.
Presidential candidates in both parties will continue to ignore the nation's cities.
Baby boomers will finally start using social networking sites in large numbers, but primarily for business and community organizing, not social encounters.
Gene Russianoff, senior attorney, New York Public Interest Research Group and the Straphangers Campaign
The Traffic Mitigation Commission will recommend programs to:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will change its "If you see something, say something" ad campaign to, "If you see something, feel free to laugh at us."
The now-independently run 7 line will secede from the transit system and re-route itself from midtown to downtown.
Mayor Bloomberg will recommend building new X subway line from his East Side townhouse to his vacation home in Bermuda.
Charles Geisst, professor of finance, Manhattan College, and author of several books about Wall Street, including "Wall Street: A History."
Poet e.e. cummings once remarked that, "I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart." Given the current state of affairs in the credit and mortgage markets, 2008 will prove that many will be living apart since a recession is looming. On a cheerier note, there will be some reconciliations afterward.
City Councilmember Peter Vallone
Isaiah Thomas is finally fired, goes to work on Wall Street and loses $10 million on the first day in bad trades.
City Comptroller William Thompson
New York City's pace of economic growth will slow down, but the local economy will still generate 40,000 new jobs.
Tourism will remain a bright spot in the city's economy as foreigners take advantage of the weakened dollar.
The recent trend of companies relocating to New York City will accelerate as the city's inexhaustible capacity for creativity and innovation becomes more widely valued in uncertain times.
The mortgage debacle will continue to dominate the economic headlines in 2008 and emerge as a challenge to community stability. Its impacts will be mitigated somewhat in New York as the city's fundamental attractiveness makes the housing market more resilient than in many other places.
Michael Miscione, Manhattan borough historian
2008 will begin badly for city history lovers.
New Yorkers, ever oblivious to events that took place before they were born, will wonder why the number 1625 appears on the city seal. (The two oddly dressed figures also on the seal -- one in a loincloth and feathers, the other in a cap and knickers -- will elicit no such questions since they will be assumed to be Fashion Week models.) The question will leave government officials scratching their heads. The City Council will create a special committee to solve the mystery, but their findings will be inconclusive.
The best we could come up with, the chairman will say, is that 1625 probably represents the number of World Series wins by the New York Yankees. When asked how the committee came up with that theory, he will say, "Well, what number could possibly be more important than that?" The theory will be dashed, however, when someone points out that surely that figure is too small.
Things will pick up a little later in the year when another historical mystery is finally solved. Diggers of the Second Avenue Subway will stumble across a long-forgotten station built in the 1920s, when the line was first conceived. Long-lost Judge Joseph F. Crater, who was last seen entering an automobile in 1930, will be found impatiently pacing the platform and peering down the tracks. When asked what he is doing there, the judge will explain, "Traffic was murder, so I thought I'd try the train. But this is taking longer than I ever imagined."
How true, judge. How true.
Andrea Batista Schlesinger, executive director, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy:
I predict that New York City government will finally understand that New York City cannot function as a city of the super wealthy and everyone else, and that creating public policy that enables the middle class to actually live here is as high a priority today as targeting crime was in the 1990s.
I predict that, at some point in 2007, NYC's elite will get fed up with being an ATM for aspiring presidential candidates who have no ideas about how to save our nation's cities.
I predict that New York City will make a strong stand against global warming by getting people out of their cars and onto a strengthened system of public transit.
Nicole Gelinas, co-editor, City Journal
2008 will be the year in which New York City figures out that Wall Street's now-six-month-old "credit crunch" isn't temporary. The crisis may become less acute, but sharply lower volume in one of Wall Street's bread-and-butter industries -- securitization of not only residential mortgage assets but of commercial loans as well -- will be the new normal for a while. Depressed volume on Wall Street will hurt personal income and job creation as well as cut tax collections: property taxes, property-transfer taxes, income taxes, and business taxes.
In a related matter, 2008 also will be the year in which New Yorkers realize that the fact that the richest part of the city is on an island doesn't insulate Gotham from the housing-market slump that's started to bring prices closer to earth in the rest of the nation. And no, the Europeans aren't going to save us from reality by buying up our property, residential or commercial. Just like the rest of us, Europeans have been buying property here only because they expect to reap double-digit percentage gains on that property every year; when that stops, the buying will stop.
Roberta Reardon, national president, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
It's going to be a very busy year for the entertainment business, negotiations wise. The writers are on strike now; we hope they will come to an agreement soon. The director's guild has announced they will probably go to the table in January.
AFTRA is negotiating their network code in mid-January with the networks, which covers 80 percent of television.
Then in June AFTRA and the Screen Actors Guild both have their prime time theatrical negations come due. These are all with the same employers that these people are on strike against right now, and it's all the same issues. It's digital. It's new media.
It's going to be a very tough fight. We're certainly watching what the Writer's Guild is doing, and I'm sure when the directors go to the table we'll be watching them as well.
Hopefully this (the writers) will be the only strike, because this industry can't take repeated strikes.
Alexandra Pelosi, HBO documentary filmmaker
The end of network television as we know it.
Jad Abumrad, host and producer, WNYC's Radio Lab
As election season heats up, I predict another round of entertaining (but not to be trusted) brain research into what, anatomically, separates blue-staters from the reddies.
Last prediction: 2008 will see the rise of the personal surveillance industry - targeted at those of us who can't trust ourselves.
Councilmember Tony Avella
What a wonderful city it would be if in 2008 ...
The City Council voted to abolish the anti-good government practice of issuing "lulus" to members and formally establish the position as a full time job, prohibiting outside income.
The mayor recognized that the Department of Buildings is in total chaos and undertakes a complete overhaul of the agency.
The City Council becomes a more open, transparent democratic body with committee chairpersons being able to schedule hearings and set committee agendas.
The mayor keeps promises made during his 2005 re-election campaign to rezone neighborhoods throughout the city to protect their residential character and stop the rampant overdevelopment.
The City Council truly considers community input and puts residents' interests before the interests of the real estate industry.
Eminent domain is not misused and the rights of private property in this city are respected.
And, City Council meetings actually start on time!
We can only hope....
Â
Is the tenant movement rejuvenated? Many housing advocates think so and point to a variety of achievements in 2007 to bolster that claim. From a renewed sense of mission at the state's housing agency, the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, to vigorous legislative lobbying on a variety of bills, in housing 2007 was a year of new energy and activity that helped create a better environment for tenants in the state.
At the city level, officials expressed satisfaction with the progress in 2007 on building affordable housing, among other things. But property owners said 2007 was another costly year for people operating buildings in New York.
Amid the good news the housing crisis in the city remains acute. The city's homeless population still is at record highs and, particularly on that front, 2007 was a bad year.
"Homelessness worsened considerably this year," said Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless. "We started out the year, in February, sadly breaking the record for homeless families sleeping in New York City shelters. And that number increased during the year."
In accounting for that, Markee blamed the city's affordable housing crisis and what he considers the Bloomberg administration's policies on homelessness.
"I wish I could say that I thought the administration would change its flawed policies but they've shown themselves to be very stubborn and unwilling to revisit their policies," Markee said. The mayor, he added, needs "to address family homelessness as a housing problem as opposed to a welfare or behavioral problem."
In a statement, the homeless services department disputed Markee's assessment. "Far from having flawed policies, DHS has policies that work," a spokesperson wrote. "Street homelessness is down 15 percent in 2007 from two years ago. In November 2007 our single adult census was at its lowest November level in seven years."
Two stories stood out in 2007 as far as those policies go. First, in April, the city abandoned its Housing Stability Plus rent subsidy program. Then, in October, for the first time in decades, the city started denying shelter to some homeless families that the city said had other places to go and so, it claimed, were not, in fact, homeless. That change drew national attention after it led to instances of women and children sleeping on city streets, a sight unseen since the 1980s.
For low- and middle-income people, the rapid evaporation of affordable housing continues to make city living financially miserable. Connected, inescapably, to every other facet of life, the stress of unaffordable housing continues to weigh heavily on a huge number of New Yorkers, perhaps fueling an exodus of middle-income New Yorkers.
Nevertheless, advocates had some reason to be satisfied, if incompletely, with some advances in 2007. They point particularly to actions by Gov. Eliot Spitzer who took office on Jan. 1, 2007.
Spitzer's naming of a new housing commissioner, Deborah VanAmerongen, was one of the first indications that in some ways, Spitzer's inaugural pledge that "everything" would change, was sincere.
In November, for example, the state housing agency said it would no longer allow owners of buildings in the Mitchell-Lama program to use a loophole that let them charge higher rents when they left the middle-income housing program. "I know Gov. Spitzer is not perfect for tenants and affordable housing advocates, but he's done a lot for tenants already just with the regulation blocking the 'unique and peculiar' loophole," said Jenny Laurie, executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, said of the move.
At the same time, the state housing agency is apparently gearing up to enforce rent regulation laws, too.
In many ways, to be sure, Spitzer disappointed advocates: The New York City Housing Authority's budget remains troubled partly because the state still pays virtually nothing to operate the apartment complexes it built, a problem that has persisted since 1998 when then-Gov. George Pataki cut state subsidies.
But Spitzer did try to address the problem. In August, he signed legislation that directs public assistance to pay the same shelter allowance for people in public housing apartments as those in private apartments. That will mean about $40 million more for the cash-strapped housing authority.
Also at the state level, the rewriting of legislation dealing with the program to provide tax breaks for new housing construction in New York City was another notable housing story in 2007. The new law extending the 421-a program expands the areas where developers are required to build affordable housing in order to get the tax exemption.
Spitzer's moves came after continued pressure from housing advocates. And their unity was an important, if largely unreported, story in housing in 2007. Starting in February, housing advocates came together under one banner, "New York is Our Home: Affordable Rent Campaign." The unity led to the largest tenant rally in the city in several years: About 10,000 people encircling Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. The sale of Stuyvesant Town for $5.4 billion in 2006 was the largest real estate deal in the history of the United States.
"Housing First five years ago brought us all together for one plan that was broadly accepted," said Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. "They hung in there, spoke to all the mayoral candidates and got them to commit to the Housing First plan. It all helped to create an environment where a lot of things started to happen. And it's like this blooming forest of activities now."
Pat Coleman of New York State Tenants & Neighbors echoed such sentiments. "While we've had our ups and downs, there is a unique unity in the tenant movement now," Coleman said. "People are working really well together. There is a really clear focus on what we need to do."
In the city, the year saw a raft of new legislation that reflect renewed activism, said Ben Dulchin of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. He cited pieces of legislation before City Council that would, if passed:
"I think there's a lot more activism, a lot more energy," Dulchin said. "All of these efforts are a direct outgrowth of tenant and neighborhood activism that did not exist before."
Dulchin said the use of zoning policy to promote the construction of more moderate-income homes was another positive development in 2007. That approach, known as inclusionary zoning, allows developers to build buildings at a higher density than otherwise allowed if a percentage of the apartments built are set aside to be affordable.
City officials saw 2007 more positively, perhaps, than advocates. In an e-mail, a spokesperson for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development pointed to several achievements of note over the year:
In a separate e-mail, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeless Services noted the number of single adults who are homeless has decreased by 8.5 percent. This has allowed the city to reduce the number of shelter beds for single homeless adults by 1,250 beds. Street outreach was also improved in 2007, the e-mail said, with new non-profit agencies helping more homeless people than expected. The agencies also have wireless devices allowing them to input data immediately into a citywide database, the spokesperson wrote.
Not surprisingly, the city had a more positive view than advocates of its new Advantage New York rent subsidy program.
"The Advantage New York Program is extremely flexible, providing subsidies to fit the situation of anyone who is eligible," the e-mail said. "It helps people save money, and even matches their savings, and is available for people who might just need it for a month or two or for people on a fixed income who can't work."
According to the department, the program has helped more than 1,800 families and individuals obtain permanent housing.
For landlords, the year was difficult, said Frank Ricci of the Rent Stabilization Association, which has a membership representing over 25,000 property owners in the city.
"How could it be a good year for property owners?" Ricci asked rhetorically. "Water bills are up 11 percent, the cost of fuel has gone up and rent increases don't match it. Ten to twelve percent of multiple dwellings are operating at a loss."
Looking to the year ahead, housing advocates hope the Democrats can win control of the State Senate in the November elections. If that happens, the advocates hope the legislature ultimately will repeal vacancy decontrol and other loopholes in rent laws that allow landlords to jack up rents.
Helping the Democrats win is a top priority for many housing activists. "There's no other way to save the rent laws," said Michael McKee, treasure of Tenants PAC. "If people don't get their minds around that fact then nothing's going to happen legislatively. Everything's going to continue to go downhill, the affordability crisis will continue to get worse."
Every advocate interviewed for this article agreed with that view and McKee said failing to win in 2008 could mean the end of the rent laws altogether.
"I think this is the end" of rent regulation if we do not win, he said. "This is not business as usual. It's all or nothing."
Not surprisingly, landlords take a different view. Ricci said if the State Senate went Democratic, discussions there would be one-sided. "It would certainly take some of the balance out of the political debate that takes place in the legislature," he said.
Beyond the fight for the State Senate, predictions abound for 2008. City Council is seen as likely to pass the harassment legislation, sponsored by Speaker Christine Quinn.
The sub-prime mortgage crisis sweeping the country, which has yet to cause major problems in the New York housing market, probably will create more difficulties here in 2008, said Coleman of Tenants & Neighbors.
For the homeless, the year most likely will not bring glad tidings, Markee said. "The numbers of homeless are going to continue to be extraordinarily high," he said.
Joe Lamport is the assistant director of the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court, a coalition of community housing organizations. Â