Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who misplaced the Democratic main for mayor of New York Metropolis to Zohran Mamdani by vital margins and is now contesting as an impartial, is second within the race to clinch the mayor’s title within the largest metropolis in the USA.
Mamdani received on a message of affordability, however Cuomo has slammed his plans as excessive and never possible. Al Jazeera did an evaluation of Cuomo’s financial insurance policies to see what he has to supply for New Yorkers.
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Housing
Cuomo – who solely moved into New York Metropolis in September 2024 after dwelling in Westchester, a suburban group north of town – has promised to construct over the subsequent decade half one million new residences, two-thirds of which shall be “reasonably priced”. The plan affords tax incentives to personal builders to construct extra residential developments. It additionally says it can loosen zoning legal guidelines to advertise office-to-residential conversions.
Nonetheless, a lot of what he’s touting is already metropolis coverage.
New York launched an office-to-housing programme in 2020 below former Mayor Invoice de Blasio, adopted by reforms final yr to hurry up conversions below incumbent Eric Adams.
In keeping with a report from Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, who additionally ran within the primaries however has since endorsed Mamdani, these initiatives have already produced 44 conversions. Tasks completed or below method are anticipated to create as many as 17,400 items citywide – principally studios and one-bedroom residences – together with one of many largest office-to-housing conversions within the nation in Decrease Manhattan.
Cuomo’s plan to broaden housing choices throughout town additionally faucets into publicly owned land, together with vacant tons, to permit for improvement of recent housing and mixed-use improvement – the identical as each different main candidates, Mamdani, a former State Meeting member, and Adams.
Cuomo needs to pump $2.5bn into public housing over the subsequent 5 years, which might be a 75 % enhance from town’s present funding. For housing protections, he needs so as to add extra attorneys within the metropolis’s housing courtroom system to assist renters with points like tenant harassment and illegal eviction and supply extra housing vouchers to assist handle homelessness.
Nonetheless, Cuomo’s historical past says in any other case. When he was governor, he pushed the state to chop funding for a rental voucher programme referred to as Benefit. The cuts from Albany, the state capital, left Metropolis Corridor no alternative however to chop the programme altogether.
One of many few new concepts from Cuomo, who has been US secretary of housing and concrete improvement previously, known as “Zohran’s Regulation”, a jab on the almost certainly subsequent mayor of New York. The brand new legislation would put in place earnings limits on those that are in search of rent-stabilised residences throughout town, which account for about half of the rental housing inventory.
Cuomo mentioned the legislation wouldn’t penalise those that see their incomes enhance whereas already dwelling in a rent-stabilised unit.
New York Metropolis’s rent-stabilisation programme was by no means designed with sure earnings ranges in thoughts. It was meant to manage the broader housing market and defend residents from lease value surges that market-rate residences face in instances of housing shortage.
“I feel that’s been the playbook all alongside, type of decide a battle, steal an concept, ship much less ambitiously than New Yorkers really want or deserve,” Adin Lenchner, founding father of the New York primarily based political consultancy Carroll Road Campaigns informed Al Jazeera.
Transit
Cuomo’s most bold proposal is to carry New York Metropolis’s transit system below the management of town itself. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which oversees subways, buses and commuter railroads, has been below state jurisdiction because the company was created in 1968. That construction provides the governor disproportionate energy over the operations of the nation’s largest transit system.
Shifting management to Metropolis Corridor can be a steep problem as a result of a lot of its funding comes from state-collected taxes and revenues. And even when it have been to occur and Cuomo would need to enhance town’s tax price to pay for it, he would nonetheless want a buy-in from the governor, who both accepts or denies town’s proposed tax price.
That funding dynamic is a key purpose why Mamdani’s free-bus proposal has drawn scepticism. Implementing it will demand coalition-building and leverage in Albany, which critics have mentioned are greatest used for different urgent points like common childcare.
As a state lawmaker, Mamdani was in a position to assist champion a free-bus pilot programme, however increasing such an initiative citywide can be way more difficult from the mayor’s workplace with out management of the MTA, a key weak point within the Mamdani marketing campaign that Cuomo has tried to capitalise on.
Cuomo, however, just isn’t pushing at no cost transit fairly like Mamdani however has steered he would contemplate some free routes. He additionally mentioned he would broaden entry to what’s referred to as the honest fares programme, which affords discounted charges to low-income New Yorkers.
Cuomo’s push to say metropolis management of the MTA additionally comes with a reasonably chequered political historical past.
Throughout his time as governor, he was steadily accused of weaponising the state’s authority over transit towards then-Mayor de Blasio, taking credit score for successes whereas deflecting blame for service breakdowns onto Metropolis Corridor. The tug-of-war over accountability for transit efficiency has lengthy been some extent of rivalry between Albany and Metropolis Corridor.
Cuomo does have a observe report of delivering on main transportation tasks. Underneath his watch, a subway line expanded, the long-delayed development of one other subway line started and Penn Station, one of many metropolis’s largest transit hubs, started a considerable revitalisation. He additionally oversaw the rebuilding of LaGuardia Airport.
Lencher identified that Cuomo proudly took credit score for these wins however when town’s subway system confronted widespread delays in 2017 in the course of the development – colloquially known as the summer time of hell, through which there have been fixed gear failures and the worst on-time efficiency of any mass transit system on the earth – Cuomo mentioned it was “town’s MTA”.
Jobs
Cuomo has pitched a jobs plan that he has referred to as the $1.5bn 5-Borough Financial Transformation Capital Fund, which might fund tasks all around the metropolis. He’s additionally proposing an innovation hub that might give grants to start-ups and provide them tax exemptions if they will show they will present job progress alternatives to town.
He’s additionally including a 90-day “fast-track regulatory assessment”, a promise to chop purple tape for enterprise improvement. Each of his rivals have made related guarantees, however Mamdani’s is concentrated on the small-business financial system.
Cuomo’s plan for workforce coaching and improvement programmes consists of increasing present coaching and apprenticeship programmes for individuals who need to pursue jobs in fields like healthcare.
Whereas he has supplied to advertise extra coaching programmes that might assist with “preparation for jobs that don’t require a school diploma”, he hasn’t supplied any particulars about what that might be. Representatives for Cuomo didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s request for extra particulars.
Taxes
In 2021, Cuomo was behind one of many greatest tax will increase on the ultrawealthy in New York state’s historical past. His administration raised the company tax price by 0.75 %. He additionally raised the taxes for these making $1m to $2m to 9.65 % from 8.82 % and in-built two new tax brackets: For these making $5m to $25m, it was 10.3 %, and 10.9 % for these making greater than $25m yearly.
His new plan as mayor consists of no tax on ideas for restaurant employees and eliminating earnings tax for New Yorkers making at or lower than 200 % of the federal poverty stage – $31,300 yearly for a single-person family and $64,300 for a household of 4.
For rich New Yorkers, he mentioned he would enhance the edge for the mansion tax, a further tax for an actual property transaction, to $2.5m, up from its present stage of $1m.
His deliberate tax cuts are elevating questions amongst consultants about how he would pay for his proposals.
In contrast to Mamdani, Cuomo has not supplied an in depth plan on how he intends to pay for his platform, and Adams has his personal present report to level to, together with elevated tax collections and decreased spending.
“They [Mamdani’s campaign] all the time get requested how are you going to pay for it [Mamdani’s policy proposals]. Cuomo and folks to the best of him don’t face that very same line of questioning,” Kaivan Shroff, a New York State delegate for the Democratic Nationwide Committee and senior adviser to the Institute for Schooling, informed Al Jazeera.
“The truth right here is that [the Cuomo campaign] has give you a plan to have a plan.”
