Land Use & Zoning

Mitchell Korbey, chair of Herrick's Land Use & Zoning Group, was quoted in GlobeSt. discussing how New York commercial real estate developers have been reacting to the fact that Zohran Mamdani could become the next Mayor after upsetting former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the 2025 Democratic primary.

"I would describe it as concerned," Mitch said of the sentiment. "People are looking to see what happens [and] who will be part of a future administration."

The article states that the most obvious concerns come from the proposed rent freeze, which is one of the easiest things an NYC Mayor can implement. In fact, this happened three times under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mamdani, if he wins, will be able to pick who serves on the NYC Rent Guidelines Board, which sets the annual rates for stabilized units, representing about half of the city's two million total apartments.

"It might cause real angst for the part of smaller and mid-sized owners of rental buildings," Korbey told GlobeSt.

He added by questioning, "The concern there is that, how do you maintain the city's rental stock? How do you keep it in good condition, and how do you bring it up to where it needs to be, and make improvements? You've got some considerable issues with inflation, the cost of owning property and other expenses. It's a real challenge to do that in New York. At the end of the day, these properties need to be viable."

GlobeSt. notes, that it's unclear what kind of an impact rent freezes could have on development. Mitch, who has worked with NYC agencies, city council members and the Department of City Planning, can see Mamdami building on Eric Adams' City of Yes initiative, which amends the zoning code to loosen restrictions on residential developments.

"That may mean rezoning the neighborhoods where there may be some neighborhood opposition," he said of what Mamdani could potentially accomplish.

"I don't think he's afraid of density. I don't think he's afraid of trying to find neighborhoods that could be upzoned." But going forward, overcoming local opposition to rezone certain neighborhoods will be a challenge, according to Mitch, who added, "I think he can be helpful with the private sector in identifying neighborhoods that can be rezoned and work with the City Council to avoid some of the hyper-localism that's gone on that's resulted in some of these neighborhood rezonings not moving forward."

The publication speculated that a part of his administration could include Brad Lander, New York City's chief financial officer, whom Mamdani cross-endorsed during the Democratic Mayoral primary. Korbey wonders if Lander would serve as the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, should Mamdani win the general election in November. This is a move that could be welcomed by CRE.

"Brad was instrumental, in fact, he spearheaded the Gowanus canal rezoning, which has resulted in thousands of new units," Mitch said. "He's somebody who has a relationship with the real estate community and somebody who has had a long history of addressing zoning and planning and development issues."

While uncertainty remains, Korbey said he's cautiously optimistic about the next New York City Mayor solving the housing crisis by building enough homes.

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