Neighborhood wine and liquor shop in Midtown Manhattan (photo: Claudia Cowley)

Get used to seeing more vacant retail space in a neighborhood near you. Like small hardware stores and other mom-and-pop businesses that have disappeared over the years, with the proliferation of big box retailers, small liquor stores will be forced to close too under legislative initiatives underway in New York, and the rest of the country.  

It has taken decades of careful regulation in the liquor industry to create a system that safeguards communities, prohibits the sale of liquor to minors, and establishes a multi-layered sales and distribution network that employs thousands of people in good-paying and in many instances at the wholesaler and distribution level, these are union jobs.  

Now, intensive lobbying efforts led by deep-pocketed self-interests are threatening to destroy that tightly regulated system and put a lot of people out of work. 

Stores like Walmart and Amazon’s Whole Foods are among multi-billion-dollar corporations now seeking the right to sell wine and liquor across the state.  

While New York’s 3,500 small retailers and liquor store owners are allowed only one single license, multi-billion-dollar supermarket chain and big box store owners want to rewrite the rules and laws to allow them to take over and dominate wine and liquor sales.  

Small businesses can’t compete with their tremendous buying power or advertising clout. Small shop owners would be crushed as the whales take over and cannibalize a market that has been very well served by local mom-and-pop liquor retailers for decades. 

This past November, states including Colorado experienced a very hostile and public battle over many of these same rules and laws governing the retail sale of wine and liquor. It is the reason why one Maryland-based big box liquor retailer spent over $13 million to propel a voter referendum, taking place over 1,600 miles away from their corporate headquarters.   

While the average U.S. grocery store is 38,000 square feet, their appetites are more aggressive than Ms. Pacman.   

One study determined that Whole Foods, controlled by billionaire Jeff Bezos and his Amazon.com, had been evaluating further expansion into former Sears department store locations, which should illustrate the enormity of their ambitions.   

At $138 billion in annual sales, national supermarket powerhouse Kroger controls 16 different supermarket chains, and is acquiring even more, while planning Kroger Marketplaces twice the size of the traditional supermarket at 120,000 square feet. 

How would it even be possible for any local wine and liquor store to compete against that?  

Or how about Amazon being enabled to deliver bottles of vodka direct from their regional warehouse to your doorstep? If our State Legislature allows this type of thing to pass, it could be the end of the line for thousands of local stores and the average of ten jobs each store contributes to communities across the state.   

When local merchants on Main Street close, those jobs often disappear forever. Think about how Home Depot killed so many local hardware stores, and Barnes and Noble killed so many local bookstores. Now even Barnes and Noble can no longer compete against the might of Amazon.   

And history shows that when local competition is wiped out, the big box retailers are then free to raise prices or narrow your selection.   

Many small, local liquor store owners, who are second or third generation owners or immigrants, settled in their community to achieve or continue their American Dream of owning and operating a local business. Neighborhood wine and liquor store owners know their patrons, and are established parts of their communities.  

Imagine asking the forklift operator at Sam's Club or BJ’s Wholesale to recommend a good chardonnay!  

We need to stand up for local people willing to start a business. We have to support our local merchants. America is a nation of entrepreneurs. We cannot make everything big box and mega corporation. The Walmartization of America diminishes the importance of local businesses, costs jobs, and hurts communities, and it’s up to all public officials to acknowledge the positive outcome that years of thoughtful regulation, planning, and fair play have created for this industry. 

***
Michael Correra is Executive Director of the Metro Package Store Association representing 3,500 local wine and liquor retailers across New York State and whose members are fighting a battle for survival vs deep pocketed supermarket and big box retailers.

At the polls (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York’s final state legislative race of 2022 was decided in 2023, but it didn’t have to be that way.

After months of litigation, Queens Democrat Stacey Pheffer Amato beat out her Republican challenger by 15 votes to hold onto Assembly District 23. The incumbent made up ground after initially trailing by three votes because of curable absentee ballots, which are ballots with small defects that New York law allows voters to fix (or “cure,” in election parlance).

New York passed a ballot cure law in 2020, in recognition that no citizen should have their vote tossed because of a minor administrative error. This cycle, that law was crucial in determining a representative for 135,000 New Yorkers and helping Democrats maintain a narrow Assembly supermajority. 

But what happened in AD23 doesn’t represent a success story for our ballot cure law—and that’s not just because the city Board of Elections (BOE) failed to notify 94 Queens voters of their opportunity to cure as required by the law, the latest in a long line of BOE boondoggles.

I managed national Democrats’ 2022 ballot cure efforts in New York as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Voter Protection Director for the northeast. From that front-row seat, I saw that even when properly implemented our ballot cure protocols have many defects of their own.

To start, New York calls too many absentee ballots “defective” that should simply be counted, including many of the ballots subject to litigation in AD23. If we handled them more appropriately, Pheffer Amato could have been declared the winner in November, avoiding months of expense and stress for the courts, campaigns, and voters. 

Moreover, New York’s process for curing defective ballots is needlessly confusing and complicated—especially compared to other states, which too often lead the Empire State on inclusive and efficient election administration.

Getting ballot cure right is a big deal. These laws affect tens of thousands of votes and can decide races up and down the ballot. In 2020, New Yorkers cast 20,000 absentee ballots that were defective but curable—and only cured 8,000 of them. Meanwhile, Anthony Brindisi lost his reelection to Congress by just 109 votes, less than 1% of the number of curable but unfixed absentees. (Sadly, Democratic losses in competitive House races this cycle were much bigger than the number of curable ballots.)

Unsealed Inner Envelope Rejections
What ballots do we needlessly reject in New York? First, 60 absentees in AD23 were deemed defective because the inner envelope holding the ballot was judged by the city’s BOE to be “unsealed” when it arrived. The ballots were thus rejected even though those inner envelopes, intended to keep the voter's ballot private, arrived inside sealed outer envelopes—and though all other required steps had been taken by the voter.

The rules around how to complete and return ballots are designed to ensure that each ballot was duly cast by the voter who requested it. Giving the voter a chance to fix a mistake makes sense when they’ve clearly made a mistake, like forgetting to sign the envelope confirming whose ballot is inside.

To the contrary, when the BOE finds the inner envelope unsealed upon arrival, they cannot be sure the inner envelope was unsealed upon mailing. We spoke to multiple voters this fall whose ballots were judged defective due to unsealed inner envelopes who insisted, incensed and unsettled, that they sealed their inner envelopes before returning them. 

Our communication with counties suggested some of these envelopes had “peel and seal” strips; these may have been looser than a licked seal and come undone in transit. As such, a BOE cannot be sure that in these cases there was any lapse, even a minor and immaterial one, on the part of the voter. (Another possibility is that these envelopes confused voters, especially older voters, who may have licked them rather than peeling.)

In any case, when a ballot is placed in an inner envelope, that envelope is signed by the voter, and then that envelope is placed in a sealed return envelope, any doubt about whether that voter has intended to cast the ballot as completed is next to nil. 

In some counties, “unsealed inner envelope” was a leading cause of ballot rejections. Given the lack of certainty that this issue even represents a defect—and certainly not one we can be sure is the fault of the voter—these ballots should simply be counted in the first instance if the outer envelope is sealed and all other provisions are met.

Signature Match Rejections
New York also has a “signature match” provision in our absentee ballot laws. When a ballot is returned, the BOE compares the signature on the inner envelope with a signature on file. If the BOE deems them not to match, the ballot is rejected unless cured.

It is unconscionable that New York, a state with Democratic legislative supermajorities, has a signature match provision. This process is known to be subjective junk science, likely to disenfranchise already marginalized voters. It has even been ruled illegal by courts in redder states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

In our ballot cure efforts last year, we saw high variability in counties’ rates of signature mismatch rejection—proof of the capriciousness of the assessment. New York should wholly eliminate the signature match provision.

Needless Variability in How and When to Cure
Beyond eliminating widely used but needless rejection reasons, the Legislature can improve the cure statute by streamlining how voters fix their ballots.

New York voters cure defective absentee ballots by submitting a signed form to their BOE. The state is unique in making the deadline for the return of that form variable: it is due either the day before Election Day or seven business days after the county issues a voter’s cure notice, whichever is later.

Did you follow that? This math is confusing, and it gives both voters and BOEs one more complexity to track. New York should follow other states’ lead in setting one clear date on which all forms are due—say, 14 days after Election Day, allowing everyone time to process cures for all otherwise valid ballots, including those that arrive post-election.

What’s more, New York’s process involves rare variability in how voters can submit cures. Voters who requested their ballot with a “wet signature” can return their form by email or fax; those who requested their ballot electronically must submit their form with a wet signature in person or by mail.

Again, this is needless complexity, especially troubling when voters don’t remember how they requested their ballot. New York should join other states in allowing all voters to cure by email or fax—or even by phone, as is allowed in Maine, where I was the state Voter Protection Director advocating for the institution of its first cure process in 2020.

Our ballot cure work at the DCCC meant thousands of calls, texts, and knocks on voters’ doors, providing an unparalleled view into the emotional distress and logistical hoop-jumping citizens experience when told their ballots have minor issues preventing them from counting. When each voter has different rules about when and how to return their cure forms, it is astronomically more difficult to guide them through the steps necessary to exercise this fundamental right.

New York’s Legislature is continually tweaking our ballot access laws to make voting easier. Laws recently passed will ensure ballots accidentally cast at the wrong polling place but the right county will be counted; ban the misleading practice of allowing parties to use “independent” in their name; and extend the voter registration deadline from 25 days before Election Day to ten, the latest constitutionally allowed. The State Senate started its 2023 session with a suite of bills meant to make our elections freer and fairer.

It’s time now to also cure our cure process. We should eliminate rejection reasons that don’t reflect a true voter defect and just count those ballots instead. And we should eliminate complexities regarding when and how to submit cure forms that make New York’s process uniquely hard to understand and undertake. 

Casting a vote should be simple—and so should curing one.

***
Ryder Kessler has led multiple voter protection teams for Democrats, most recently as Northeast Regional Voter Protection Director for the DCCC. He was a 2022 candidate for New York State Assembly in District 66. On Twitter @ryderkessler.

Justice Hector LaSalle (photo: NYSBA)

The New York State Senate’s Wednesday rejection of Justice Hector LaSalle’s nomination for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, is yet another example of how Latinos continuously get shafted. We can no longer say such dismissal is the fault of conservatives rather than progressives: lack of advancement for Latinos has truly become a nonpartisan affair. The shafting is equal opportunity, with Latinos consistently on the receiving end.

Like Governor Hochul’s last major nominations—first the selection of Brian Benjamin and then, after Benjamin’s resignation amid corruption charges, Antonio Delgado for lieutenant governor—the rollout of this pick has been riddled with problems from the outset.

The Delgado and LaSalle choices apparently recognized that Latinos are a group to be reckoned with. Yet, serious Hochul blunders plagued both selections.

Delgado has a Latino sounding name but is not actually Latino, much to the disappointment of Latinos across New York who have long clamored for representation at the highest levels of state government. LaSalle’s nomination — which could have made him the first Latino Chief Judge in state history — resulted in a backlash from many progressive and some moderate elected officials and groups, as well as some labor unions. Hochul’s inability to communicate with key stakeholders before a public announcement that she was going to nominate LaSalle is partly, though not entirely, to blame for this defeat.

There is no guarantee that another Latino candidate will be nominated, especially if the previous list of candidates presented by the state’s Commission on Judicial Nomination is any indication.

The contentious battle spurred by this nomination has further exposed a shift that is occurring in Latino politics in New York: there is a crop of Latinos that were part of the early (and current) struggles for Latino representation at all levels of government and there is a newer generation of Latino leaders that see ideological fidelity as being as important as representation itself, if not more so.

In this LaSalle battle, Luis Miranda and Roberto Ramirez represent the protagonists of the first group, both long-time powerhouse lobbyists and political consultants. Miranda and Ramirez were architects of Fernando Ferrer’s mayoral bids in the mid-2000s, and have more recently worked on Letitia James’ successful run for state attorney general, among other campaigns.

Miranda and Ramirez organized a number of other Latino leaders, many of whom have long struggled for representation. There is Fernando Ferrer himself; Melissa Mark-Viverito, a progressive who made history as the first Latina to serve as speaker of the City Council; and former labor leader Dennis Rivera, among many others. Miranda and company know first-hand the importance of representation and have seen LaSalle’s nomination as a necessary step for a group that has long been ignored, under-valued, and held back.

The newer group of Latino leaders recognize the importance of representation but seemingly not at the expense of certain ideological affinities. Among the newer generation of leaders are State Senators Jessica Ramos, Gustavo Rivera, Julia Salazar, and recently-elected Kristen Gonzalez, who would all have had a vote in LaSalle’s nomination had it passed committee. Ramos and Luis Sepulveda were the two Latino senators on the Senate judiciary committee; Ramos voted against LaSalle; Sepulveda was a staunch supporter.

The current divide among Latinos immersed in political affairs in New York is clearly largely ideological. It is yet another obstacle to Latino progress, empowerment, and representation. Latinos have seemingly always had difficulties maintaining the necessary level of unity for more progress to ensue. This was the case even when Puerto Ricans were the dominant Latino group in the city. One can think of the Herman Badillo versus Ramon Velez battles, and other intra-Puerto Rican squabbles that hindered the Puerto Rican quest for fairness and representation.

Yet as Latino groups increased in numbers over the years, among them our Dominican and Mexican sisters and brothers, the rifts that some predicted never fully materialized. There has been genuine support for leaders who trace their origins to places other than Puerto Rico. For example, Puerto Rican Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez’s early support of Antonio Reynoso, a Dominican who represented a City Council district (and is now Brooklyn Borough President) that had an overwhelming number of Puerto Rican voters. Then there’s her support of Carlos Menchaca, a Mexican who represented a district with a large number (though now decreasing) of Puerto Ricans. Notably, Velazquez has been another prominent progressive Latina in support of Justice LaSalle.

There is also former Assemblyman Jose Rivera, who was one of the pioneering Puerto Rican political leaders who supported a number of Dominican candidates at a time when Dominicans were just beginning to increase in large numbers in the Bronx. Rivera’s support for now-Assemblymember Yudelka Tapia when she ran for school board (when New York City had school boards) and his support for Nelson Castro’s bid for State Assembly are indications of this.

Of course, there were and are exceptions to the work of these extraordinary leaders. But the rifts in their time were not overly detrimental to the Latino cause, even if more advancement would have been possible through more unity.

There is no obvious remedy to bridge the ideological divide that has engulfed Latino politics in New York. What does appear certain is that Latinos will continue to impede their own progress, and in consequence, make the job even easier for those who are already resisting their empowerment and advancement.

Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

If Mayor Eric Adams wants to solve New York City's housing crisis, he must challenge some of the city's most powerful players: landlords. The absurd demands that landlords place on renters is one major part of New York City’s housing crisis that simply does not get enough attention. The standards many landlords use to confirm whether prospective tenants qualify for housing need massive reform and are often as much of a concern – and barrier – as rental prices.  

Ambiguous or absent laws governing the apartment application process are detrimental to New Yorkers and to solving the housing crisis. If most landlords continue to require a perfect financial profile and massive down payments for renters, there will always be a large population of New Yorkers unable to meet the demands of the application process. 

The unwritten rules for New York City's housing applications are in desperate need of regulation: landlords typically require tenants to make 40 times the rent, have a minimum credit score of 700, and provide upfront payments of first month's rent and a security deposit — while also paying an exorbitant broker fee that is pushed onto tenants by landlords.

Tenants typically need several thousand dollars upfront to rent an apartment, sometimes approaching what could be a down payment on homeownership. The paperwork required for renting an apartment is comparable to buying a home. Landlords demand an employment verification letter, recommendations from past landlords, three months of full bank statements, a year or more of tax returns, three pay stubs, among a list of other documents. The current housing application process is unsuitable to lower-income New Yorkers because they usually lack the documents and resources to compete with a wealthier applicant’s financial profile.

As long as tenants continue to jump through hoops to obey property owners' demands and legislation doesn’t help minimize invasive requirements and protect tenants' privacy, landlords will continue to have no incentive to stop considering working and lower-class New Yorkers a threat to their status quo.

The average rent in New York City is about $3,000 per month. Using landlords’ 40 times the rent income standard, New Yorkers need to make about $120,000 per year to qualify for average rental housing. Obviously, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers’ don’t earn that much — the 2020 Census reported the median household income in New York City at $67,046. Income requirements prohibit an enormous population from participating in the whole rental housing market, even when they can afford it. With high income and extensive documentation requirements put in place by so many landlords, it is impossible for many New Yorkers to not feel pushed out of most of the rental market. 

Wealthier applicants exclusively benefit from the current housing rental application process and many hardworking New Yorkers and seniors don’t get the decent housing they need and deserve. Landlords are seemingly looking to find ways to discourage lower-income tenants from applying for housing and for reasons to reject them if they do — the application requirements for many apartments are nearly impossible for lower-income residents to meet. It becomes disturbingly worse once you factor in the high broker fees that are pushed on to tenants.

Broker fees in New York City are typically 15% of the annual rent, which means tenants must fork over several thousand dollars on top of the first month's rent and security deposit. Landlords hire real estate brokers to aid their rental process, yet they somehow evade the price of this service and make the tenant responsible for the bill.

In 2020 legislation was enacted that protected tenants from being responsible for the landlords’ broker fees. But, after the efforts of a powerful real estate lobbying group, the decision was quickly reversed the following year. The brokers do the leg work for the landlords, often listing the property, filtering through applicants, showcasing the property, collecting fees, and essentially ensuring that there is a smooth application and leasing process for the landlord and tenant. Yes, it is true that brokers need to be paid for their work, but the question is, should the tenant be responsible? 

To expand access to housing, reduce homelessness, and create a new standard of living for many New Yorkers, new rental application regulations must be established. This includes laws prohibiting property owners from charging tenants for their broker fees, laws related to preventing the disqualification of tenants based on their financial profile, and laws to limit how much landlords can require from tenants.

Additionally, New York should examine its affordable housing policies and increase eligibility for income-restricted housing to mostly benefit long-time residents of the community where new housing is built. This would require increasing the 50% threshold for community district residents in affordable housing lotteries and increasing the length of time that a resident must live in New York City to be eligible for affordable housing.

Meanwhile, the development of new affordable housing is often prolonged and dysfunctional, and officials are simply not ensuring we are building anywhere near enough of it.

But while more needs to be done on affordable housing development and the lottery process, it is essential that New York leaders take steps as soon as possible to regulate the tenant application process.

Smart and fair regulations will transform the New York City housing market by creating more opportunity for lower-income New Yorkers to qualify for quality housing. As Mayor Adams pursues more housing development on a large scale, he must be willing to sacrifice some of his popularity with developers and property owners by making the rental market fairer by removing income restrictions set by landlords and abolishing the precedent that landlords’ broker fees are the tenant’s responsibility. And the City Council should work with him or take the lead on this effort to create a fairer housing market.

New York City apartments are in high demand and rental prices reflect the market, but New Yorkers are being excluded from much of that market even when they can afford the rent. It’s time for that to change.  It is time for the Mayor, New York City Council, Governor, and State Legislature to take this on in 2023.

***
Khiteriara Brown is the Founder and Director of Millennial Channel. Khiteriara is a xenophile, world affairs commentator, and philanthropist. She has a master’s in Chinese translation from New York University, a master’s in political management from George Washington University, and a bachelor’s in history from the University of Alabama. On Twitter @millennialchannl

City Council Member Sandra Ung, the author

During a New York City Council hearing last month, a person affiliated with a local nonprofit group stated that Asians aren’t real New Yorkers, saying “it’s not their neighborhood, because they’re from China, they’re from Hong Kong. We’re from New York.”

While this incident has largely disappeared from the public discourse, it brought to the surface a pernicious stereotype about Asian New Yorkers as we come off another year when hate crimes against the AAPI community continue to be a far-too-common occurrence.

Like many immigrants, my family came to the United States after escaping tragedy. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge began persecuting and killing thousands of people during what would be known as the Cambodian genocide. The government eventually murdered or disappeared nearly 300,000 Chinese Cambodians, including my mother’s sisters and parents. 

The United States took us in and we became proud Americans. We rebuilt our lives in New York City and have called Queens home ever since. I was educated in American schools, grew up around other American kids and culture, and always thought of myself as American. Like many AAPIs, this is the only home that I know.  

Despite the welcome and our deep roots here, there was an uglier side to growing up in America as an Asian immigrant. Throughout my childhood, I often received one of two common pieces of “advice”: that I should learn English and that I should go back to my own country. And despite attending school here for most of my life, graduating from Columbia Law School and working for Congress, individuals continue to “compliment” me on how well I speak English.

When statements like these were made, very rarely did anyone denounce them or start a discussion about how they affected me. I just accepted it as part of growing up an immigrant — an Asian American immigrant — in the United States.

Words like these and those said in Council Chambers have real consequences. Casting Asian Americans as foreigners rationalizes the continued treatment of Asians as belonging to a nebulous group of outsiders who don’t have the same rights or value as other Americans. Like Islamophobia, homophobia, or anti-Black racism, this “othering” serves as a tool to legitimize both exclusion and violence.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I began to realize that my experiences with racism weren’t just part of growing up an immigrant in America, it was part of a larger issue that prejudice against the AAPI community is not only overlooked, but in too many instances tolerated. 

While perusing soda bottles in a store one day, a woman began screaming at me to stop touching everything because the virus came from me. Her visceral anger stemmed from the belief that I was spreading covid because I was Asian. I looked around for help because I was worried I was about to be physically attacked, but as usual there wasn’t any help to be found. 

This isn’t a new threat for Asian Americans.

While the recent rise in hatred targeting Asians may be attributable to a president who threw around words like “kung flu” and the “China virus,” attempts to cast Asians as foreign is an age-old trope repeatedly utilized in attempts to justify both violence and racist government policies. The pandemic bigotry and the recent rise in violence is just the newest incarnation of a form of racism that has pervaded the United States since its founding.

When an economic downturn tightened the labor market in the 1870s, many political figures and the press scapegoated Asians, who they claimed were unassimilable. Asian workers were blamed for putting downward pressure on wages for white workers. Efforts to brand Asians as foreigners culminated in the 1885 Rock Springs massacre, when at least 28 Chinese miners were murdered. 

The same trope was rolled out shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the United States began forcibly relocating people of Japanese descent into concentration camps. Approximately 80,000 of those interned were actually second or third generation Americans with U.S. citizenship.

Fast-forward to 1982 in Detroit, where Vincent Chin, an American of Chinese descent, was beaten to death by two men motivated by anti-Japanese sentiment caused by the decline of the auto industry. His killers received three years’ probation and a $3,000 fine. 

Chin wasn’t seen as an American citizen or an individual, he was a foreigner to be blamed for the ills of this country. As in the murders of Asian Americans in the 1800s, Chin’s killers were essentially excused for their actions.

For Asian Americans, insinuations and outright accusations of being foreigners aren’t just words. We are too often not viewed as equal citizens of this country, so people feel justified setting fire to an elderly AAPI woman, pushing an Asian American woman from a subway platform, or entering City Hall and delivering bigoted remarks.

After the incident before the City Council, some tried to explain away the comments by stating the person who delivered them was reacting to his own history with racism. Once again, many in the AAPI community felt like our pain was being ignored; that our rights and freedoms as American citizens are conditional and that this will never be our home.

As we enter a new year, it is my hope that the conversations around the AAPI community aren’t centered on whether or not we belong here, but rather our indispensable role in this great city.

***
City Council Member Sandra Ung represents parts of Queens. On Twitter @CMSandraUng.

New park investments (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York took a big step forward last month when Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams released Making New York Work for Everyone, a plan with 40 commitments meant to steer New York City toward economic growth and livability. The report sets goals and policies for reinvigorating the city’s commercial corridors and fostering vibrancy by addressing commute times, housing, public space, outdoor dining, and more. But even more promising than the individual commitments is the clear acknowledgement that people-centered policy and placemaking is at the heart of New York City’s future.

As members of the Alliance for Public Space Leadership, we’ve been advocating for this exact progress. Our public spaces — parks, plazas, streets, sidewalks — are the lifeblood of this city. But great public spaces have too often been reserved for wealthier neighborhoods, and haven’t been prioritized as essential pieces of a healthy and thriving city for all.

As a coalition, we want government leaders to understand that these public spaces need central investment in the same way as other public services. Currently, there is no holistic management or investment in New York’s public space. Every Open Street, block party, or neighborhood safety initiative is the product of intense volunteer effort, organization, and coordination. It’s inequitable, exclusionary, and burdensome. And within government, city agencies and departments are too often working in isolation. They can’t focus on collaborative problem-solving because our government structure doesn’t allow for it.

That’s why the new report is so promising. For the first time, New York City is acknowledging the need for structural and holistic leadership with a new Director of the Public Realm. This central decision-maker can help envision the city’s public spaces as part of a larger ecosystem — one that impacts physical health, mental wellbeing, sense of community, economic success, and climate resilience.

Our Director of the Public Realm should provide communities with the resources they need to cultivate Open Streets and other street activations, prioritize equitable access to public space in underserved neighborhoods, and provide design leadership to ensure our public space is high-quality and sustainable. This is our chance to build New York City’s first overarching vision for public space.

The 59 ‘New’ New York panelists who wrote this report (and we were glad to meet with during their research phase) have recognized that economic growth doesn’t happen in a bubble. Commerce is connected with place and people, as the recent Streetscapes for Wellness and Streets for Recovery reports have shown. When New Yorkers have safe, reliable, and joyful space in their neighborhoods, they support local business. When curb lanes are used for things other than car storage, bus commutes get shorter and neighborhoods become more livable. When we give communities the tools to build inclusive, communal space in their neighborhoods, everyone benefits.

These aren’t just nice ideas, they’re proven solutions to a better future.

New York City has made a bold step here, but there’s still a long road ahead. We will need everyone’s support and commitment in fulfilling the 40 goals in this report and moving beyond pandemic recovery into a bright, thriving, and equitable future. 

Our alliance has joined forces to advocate for shared space and shared goals; we’ve found strength in our numbers. Now, New York City’s leaders at all three levels of government must do the same. To reimagine New York’s business districts — and every district — as vibrant, 24/7 destinations, we’ll need local officials to prioritize people over cars. We’ll need leaders with vision who will catalyze a new future, not a return to the way things were. The siloed status quo is harmful to the wellbeing of our city’s residents, particularly those in underserved communities. It isolates public space in wealthier communities, strips New Yorkers of their ability to create inclusive spaces, and creates dangerous street conditions where thriving public space could be. We must move beyond that. We must think cooperatively about our shared spaces to arrive at shared solutions.

As an alliance, we’re committed to pushing the city forward, helping to illuminate the possibilities and solutions for a brighter future. We’re energized to see the Adams administration commit to do the same. We’re looking forward to working with the city’s first Director of the Public Realm, and all our decision-makers, on the exciting road ahead.

***
Elizabeth Goldstein, President, The Municipal Art Society of New York. @MASNYC
Jackson Chabot, Director of Advocacy and Organization, Open Plans. @OpenPlans
Benjamin Prosky, Executive Director, American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York. @AIA_NewYork
Adam Ganser, Executive Director, New Yorkers for Parks. @NY4P

Under construction (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

The Stand for Tenant Safety/Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing applauds the New York State housing agency’s proposed regulations regarding the first rents for combined or “Frankensteined” apartments. Under that proposal, where at least part of a newly-combined apartment is rent-stabilized, the newly-created unit would be rent-stabilized at whatever the last stabilized tenants paid, with any rent increase or decrease tied to the percentage in the new apartment’s change in size, plus any individual apartment increase (IAI).

Tenants are facing major displacement pressure from Frankensteining just as they did from IAIs, the vacancy bonus, and other now-limited ways that landlords had an incentive to increase rents and remove tenants from their homes.

As tenants who have lived through Frankensteining construction, we have experienced the drastic decline in living conditions in buildings undergoing these changes. Construction has led to excessive dust, noise, and disruption. 

Frankensteining allows landlords to enrich themselves while undermining neighborhood stability and reducing the number of affordable and rent-stabilized units. There are no mechanisms for government agency oversight or even the minimal accountability for the rent increases that come with IAIs or building-wide improvements.

Apartments that previously rented for $1,000-$2,000 each per month, when combined, can be listed for $9,000 or more — whatever the market will bear. The landlord may add a dishwasher, fancy kitchen counters, and some crown molding, essentially cosmetic changes that do little but raise rents, while most working people just need a decent, affordable place to live.

It’s frustrating that this “apartment combination/setting a new first rent” loophole has caused the loss of affordable housing (as shown in “Warehousing and Frankensteining,” our recent report with case studies of nine Manhattan buildings), especially after the valiant efforts of tenants throughout the state to protect their homes led to the passage of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), which significantly strengthened rent regulations. 

In our ever-increasing housing and homelessness crisis, every affordable apartment makes the difference for someone who needs housing immediately. Building more affordable housing is necessary, but preservation is easier, less costly, and the effects are immediate. While we wait for more housing to be built, we are losing more and more of the 858,000 rent stabilized apartments we do have. Since 2019, some 116,000 rent stabilized units vanished from the rent regulation system altogether, unregistered. 

The hearings about the new rules are over. Now we urge the state Department of Homes and Community Renewal to quickly implement the rules that disincentivize Frankensteining and preserve affordable housing. Any delay in the implementation of the rules is an egregious affront to the intent of the law and contributes to furthering the greatest affordable housing crisis since the Great Depression.  

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by Jodie Leidecker, Sue Susman, and Edward Ratliff on behalf of The Stand for Tenant Safety/Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing. On Twitter @NyWarehousing.

Housing across the city (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

I can’t say I am optimistic about 2023. Increasingly I am hearing from owners of rent-stabilized apartment buildings that they will not be able to make their mortgage payments this month or soon thereafter. A confluence of "once in a lifetime" events is pushing this much needed housing toward the brink of insolvency.

A well-run rent-stabilized building should have two to three years of cash reserves set aside. This helps the owner keep up with mortgage payments and unexpected costs that pop up. The COVID-19 emergency was one of those unexpected costs, though at an almost unimaginable scale. A massive number of renters lost income and simply could not pay their rent. The state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) helped many. But ERAP only covered a maximum of 15 months rent. It’s been 34 months since covid hit, and thousands of renters haven’t paid any rent in that time.

Another factor that is dragging down these buildings is the inability to bring outdated rent-stabilized apartments back online. Unfortunately during COVID-19 many elderly or long-term tenants left their apartments or passed away. If the tenant lived in the apartment for more than 20 years, it likely needs very substantial renovations and upgrades to comply with a host of city and state requirements that didn’t exist when they moved into the apartment. This work is not optional. It is mandated by government building codes. 

In order for the apartment to be in compliance with Local Law 1 of 2004, the entire apartment must be lead remediated, which means all doors, window frames, and other features need to be completely replaced and possibly the entire walls, floors, and ceilings. In order to comply with Local Law 97 of 2019, the apartment should get insulation improvements, electrical upgrades, and energy efficient windows. In many cases, plumbing upgrades are necessary as well. This is why it usually costs $100,000, or more, to get each of these apartments available to rent again. Any owner who attempts to rent the apartment without doing the work would face significant fines. 

The rents on these apartments already do not cover their operating costs, let alone the renovation cost. Because of this, the only logical option for an owner is to leave the apartment vacant. That is bad housing policy.

The final straw that is forcing these buildings into insolvency is inflation and interest rates. The operating costs on every aspect of housing has gone up, driven by increased property tax assessments, skyrocketing fuel costs, and other increased expenses. Then, in order to combat inflation, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, making it harder to borrow money. The typical rent-stabilized building needs to refinance every 5 to 7 years. Banks and lenders require this because they want to re-adjust the mortgage on a building to better reflect the changes in the market conditions and regulatory changes that the government has implemented. The process is far different than a typical 30-year home mortgage.

How big is this problem? Hundreds of buildings housing many thousands of renters don’t have the cash flow to pay their mortgages or maintenance. The banks and lenders for these buildings are scrambling to find anyone who will take them over. This process is ugly for renters in the building, who suffer most from deferred maintenance. 

My organization, CHIP, is proposing a small and simple change that would help many rent-stabilized buildings be preserved and bring thousands of affordable apartments back online, helping to alleviate the city’s severe housing shortage.

Under our proposal, building owners would fully renovate vacant apartments coming off of long-term occupancy, setting an affordable new rent, but leaving the apartment in stabilization. These new apartments would be lead-free and energy efficient, which is vitally important for the long-term health of tenants. In most parts of the city, the new apartments would have rents low enough for voucher holders to access them.  

Every other place in the country with rent regulations has a path for old apartments to be brought back on the market. The new rent would cover the renovation costs and take the pressure off rents in other parts of the building. The government would put in place measures to ensure work is done to code and rents are kept in line with comparable rents in the area. The result would be housing that is safe, clean, updated, and affordable for decades to come.

This simple fix would help house tens of thousands of people and ensure the quality of housing for hundreds of thousands of other renters isn’t diminished. It’s a win-win for everyone.

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Jay Martin is Executive Director of CHIP. On Twitter @jaymart222.

Gov. Hochul signs substance use treatment legislation (photo: Governor's Office)

Governor Hochul’s veto of the Nonreligious Recovery Options bill is a significant missed opportunity to both improve New York’s civil rights record and improve public health outcomes in the midst of an ever-worsening addiction crisis that is claiming the life of a New Yorker every three hours. 

This bill would require New York’s courts, prior to specifying a substance use program, to inquire on the record if the defendant objects to a religious element of the program. If such an objection was registered, the bill would then require the court to identify an alternative equivalent program to which the defendant has no religious objection, and confirm the defendant’s consent on the record.

This noncontroversial bill passed the Legislature earlier this year, sponsored by the Senate’s leading voice on addiction recovery, Senator Pete Harckham, and Assembly Member Harvey Epstein, a powerful criminal justice advocate. It was supported by a broad coalition of First Amendment and recovery groups, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, Friends of Recovery, and SMART Recovery, among others. It is disappointing that the governor disregarded the collective expertise and lived experiences of our coalition and its constituencies. But to justify doing so due to perceived administrative burdens and the potential expansion of civil rights protections is unacceptable. 

It is well-settled law that any individual mandated by a court to attend recovery treatment must be provided with a secular option, and that 12-step programs are religious in nature and therefore cannot be the only option mandated. The governor’s veto message acknowledges this, yet fails to recognize that a constitutional right is a right in name only if not enforced by our justice system.

The Nonreligious Recovery Options bill had two purposes: to shift the burden from defendants to the courts to ensure judicial compliance with the Constitution and to improve overall recovery outcomes by providing defendants with multiple paths.  

Regarding the latter, it’s about much more than aligning programs with a defendant’s values. As was noted in personal testimony provided to the governor’s office, some faith-based settings stigmatize individuals using Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), a life-saving and evidence-based tool strongly endorsed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a federal agency devoted to substance abuse and mental health issues.

In 2009, SAMHSA issued a “Know Your Rights” document that specifically criticized courts for discriminating against people using MAT. With even SAMHSA acknowledging bias (and outright illegal discrimination) in courts handling substance abuse cases, it's not a stretch to imagine that even well-intentioned judges may not be in full compliance with the law when mandating individuals to attend recovery programs.

Courts nationwide, including in New York, have a bias toward faith-based programs. For many of the criminal justice system’s practitioners,12-step programs are ubiquitous and well-known, while alternatives that research proves work just as well are not. There are also cases in which defendants and incarcerated individuals are outright denied a secular option when requested.

This was the case in lawsuits in New York and in dozens of additional cases across the country. The problem is not limited to the court system either — just last year a Buddhist won a case against their employer and collected $305,000 in damages for being denied a secular recovery option.

The defendants who get appropriate recovery treatment are those who know their rights (many do not) and have the resources and courage to go up against the very system that wields power over their individual liberty — as you can imagine, most opt to keep their head down. Governor Hochul callously disregarded this reality when she characterized this bill as “unnecessary.” Shockingly, the governor outright rejected the notion that the responsibility to ensure compliance with the Constitution falls to the justice system, putting it squarely on the defendant: “Given that defendants already have the right to request nonreligious treatment, this bill…imposes an overly rigid burden on courts and judges,” she stated. 

Perhaps an even more disturbing line of argumentation was her concern that the Legislature could be emboldened to codify the affirmation of other rights. Stating the bill could “invite future selective legislative efforts to inject a similar burden upon judges to inform litigants of their rights to opt out of other court mandates.” For the governor to state concern about setting a precedent that could further empower individuals to exercise well-established constitutional rights should be cause for concern for any New Yorker who values individual freedoms.

If personal testimony from individuals who work directly with mandated defendants were not sufficient proof of the problem, one need not look any further than the impassioned testimony of Assemblymember Angelo Morinello. A former judge who served on the bench for 14 years, he opposed this bill. He stated that defendants “need direction and control,” should not be given a say in their recovery options, and denied that Alcoholics Anonymous "ever tried to be a religious component to these individuals." He proudly boasted of overseeing 600 addiction cases in which it is clear his "direction and control" involved mandating faith-based recovery options.

Recovery advocates know that multiple paths are necessary to improve recovery outcomes. When the vast majority of New Yorkers, 46% of whom are religiously unaffiliated, are provided with a narrow set of recovery options, the state is undermining its own policy goals.

As Mayor Eric Adams pursues his homelessness and mental illness plans, including more arrests and involuntary hospitalization, this issue will become even more acute. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, substance abuse disorder is more prevalent among the homeless than the general population.

Homelessness and substance use disorders are overlapping challenges for the state and city, and there is no doubt that if the unhoused are forcibly removed from the streets, many will end up in drug courts. The governor’s veto will mean that defendants may only get their constitutional right to a secular recovery option if the officials who happen to be handling their cases are concerned enough about the protection of rights to grant it. And for many individuals, including LGBTQ+ people and others who have suffered trauma in religious settings, they will be forced to attend faith-based programs that may retraumatize them and are not conducive to their recovery.

As an advocate for the rights of nonreligious Americans, this veto is a slap in the face to my community, and calls into question whether Governor Hochul is serious about tackling New York’s addiction crisis.

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Sarah M. Levin is the founder of Secular Strategies. On Twitter @SarahMLevin.

Governor Hochul gives her first State of the State (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

A year ago, after Governor Hochul had made her first State of the State address, I wrote a column, For State’s Future, The Governor Must Say No, urging her to reject well-intentioned but unwise proposals by legislators and activists. Reading it again now, after Hochul’s inauguration to her first full term as Governor, I am struck by how much of it is still relevant. 

The state’s fiscal situation is more precarious than it was a year ago as federal covid relief tapers off, the economy’s recovery is slower than in other parts of the country, and recession looms as a real threat. Even under relatively optimistic assumptions, the current state financial plan shows a fiscal cliff of $6 billion in 2027 and a risk of as much as a $13 billion deficit in 2028. So, my previous admonition to Governor Hochul is even more important now: say no to ill-advised policies and spending and take actions to put the state on a sound financial path even if they may be unpopular in the short-term.

In brief, here are some of the most salient things Governor Hochul should say in her State of the State to send a message to the Legislature that she will be strong and resist pressure to raise taxes and spend excessively:

-Because user fees from those who can afford them are an important source of revenue, MTA fares must be permitted to increase by the small, incremental amount approved by the MTA board. We need riders to continue to cover a reasonable portion of the costs of running a 24-hour transit system. 

-By the same token, tuition at CUNY and SUNY should continue; there is simply no responsible way to pay for free college for those who are not eligible for the considerable need-based grants and subsidies already available.

-The reforms to the New York City property tax system recommended by the report of the NYC Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform should be enacted into state law. They address only some, not all of the inequities in the current system, but will go a long way to rationalize the taxation of individually-owned residential property in the city.

-Absent more comprehensive property tax reform that addresses the excessive burden placed on rental and commercial properties, a replacement for the “421a” program to incentivize the construction of rental housing must be enacted. We need much more rental housing to meet demand, encourage growth, and accommodate a variety of income levels in a diverse array of neighborhoods.

-The rates of spending growth in the two largest programs in the state budget are unsustainable. There must be reforms to control the costs of Medicaid and school aid in a way that more appropriately targets benefits to those who are in need. Specifically:

-The Foundation Aid formula for school aid must be revised to redirect aid to the neediest districts and stop providing regular increases to school districts that are already fully resourced. 

-The Medicaid Redesign Task Force reforms that were set aside during the pandemic must be implemented and additional reforms developed  to help constrain the dramatic growth in by far the largest expenditure in the state budget.

-Congestion pricing will get out of the planning phase and into operation ASAP with minimal exceptions!

Nothing on this list will generate resounding applause from the members of the State Senate and Assembly in the State of the State audience. But now is the time for the Governor of the Empire State to show that she will be tough and relentless in assuring that New York remains a thriving place for people to live and work where government resources are used wisely and effectively.

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Carol Kellermann is a long-time New York civic leader who has worked in and out of government and led nonprofits including Citizens Budget Commission, The September 11th Fund, and Learning Leaders.