Adams Agency Chief Takes Over Housing Nonprofit

This story gives you a peek at the content coming to our new platform, TRD Policy Pro. Sign up to get early access here.

Hey there, let’s get into today’s news at the intersection of policy and real estate:

Former DSS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park lands at NYC Housing Partnership as CEO.
The city’s new pied-à-terre tax could squeeze co-op boards from both sides.
What passed, what stalled and what's next for real estate after Albany's session wrapped Friday.

In this edition we mention: Incoming NYC Housing Partnership CEO Molly Wasow Park, Holland & Knight partner Stuart Saft, state Sen. Brian Kavanagh, Sen. Zellnor Myrie, Assembly member Alicia Hyndman and others.

We Heard

Housing hire: Molly Wasow Park, the former head of the Department of Social Services under Mayor Eric Adams, is stepping into a new role atop one of the city’s long-running affordable housing nonprofits. As of July 13 Wasow Park will become CEO of the NYC Housing Partnership, which has developed and preserved more than 100,000 low- and moderate-income apartments in the city since the organization’s founding in 1983. Park told The Real Deal that one of her top priorities is assembling a scalable toolkit to help stabilize distressed multifamily properties. She also plans to strengthen ties between the affordable housing and social services sectors, with an eye toward supporting tenants facing financial hardship whose missed rent payments can compound challenges for landlords struggling to maintain their buildings. “A lot of buildings are really suffering,” said Park. "I really believe very strongly that you can't stabilize the housing without also thinking about how we stabilize the people who live in the housing.” The Housing Partnership serves as the nonprofit partner on roughly 300 Housing Development Fund Corporation co-ops across the city — a portfolio that positions it to play a role in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing agenda. Mamdani has pledged to step up city intervention in severely distressed properties and expand financing options for nonprofits and HDFCs to preserve affordable housing. Park said she has already begun preliminary conversations with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development about how the Housing Partnership could work with the administration to stabilize troubled apartment buildings. “There’s opportunities where not-for-profits can be more nimble, more flexible than government sometimes,” said Park.
Co-op crossfire: The state’s pied-à-terre tax could squeeze co-op boards from both sides, according to new analysis from longtime real estate attorney Stuart Saft. Under the bill, boards would be responsible for collecting the surcharge but would have no way to challenge assessments they believe are incorrect. Collect the tax, and they could face lawsuits from shareholders. Refuse, and they risk running afoul of the city. The legislation also offered boards little protection. “No one thought to include an indemnification for boards,” wrote Saft in a 17-page client memo for the law firm Holland & Knight. “Did the legislators that represent co-op buildings consider these risks? This is what happens when there is no transparency,” he added. As written, boards could be left footing the bill for the legal and administrative costs associated with the tax. Property owners would have limited recourse, too. The measure bars legal proceedings to the tax, leaving owners to pursue only what could be a lengthy appeal before the city’s Tax Commission over a property’s valuation or its designation as a non-primary residence. Lawmakers left several key details of how the tax would be administered to the city’s Department of Finance, meaning the full scope of the program — and its potential pitfalls — won’t be clear until the agency issues rules in the weeks ahead.
State session recap: Albany wrapped up its legislative work Friday. While the state budget delivered some major victories and setbacks for the real estate industry, lawmakers largely spared the sector from the kind of sweeping standalone legislation that has defined past sessions. Even so, Albany sent a few noteworthy real estate bills to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for a final decision. One would block private listings unless sellers or landlords provide written consent. Another would impose a one-year moratorium on new data centers. Plenty of bills didn’t make it over the finish line. But only one was the source of protracted ire from landlords: a measure by progressive Democrats to create a new way for communities outside of New York City to adopt rent stabilization. The Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants (REST) Act attracted 57 Assembly sponsors and 25 in the Senate, but support didn’t coalesce enough for a vote in either chamber. Sen. Brian Kavanagh, one of the bill’s authors, said he and the bill’s backers “really just fell short of time” to make their case after budget talks stretched nearly two months beyond schedule and consumed most of the session’s remaining negotiating time. Kavanagh said he expects the bill to return next session, but it will do so under a new Senate sponsor due to his upcoming retirement. It’s unclear who will pick up the mantle. Meanwhile, other lawmakers are already moving to get a jump on next year’s legislative session. Sen. Zellnor Myrie and Assembly member Alicia Hyndman introduced a bill in the final days of the session that would toughen penalties for criminal possession of stolen property, creating a new felony threshold based on property type and the number of parcels — regardless of monetary value. The measure is aimed at cracking down on deed theft and other property fraud. The bill will have to be reintroduced next year, but its last-minute filing allows sponsors to plant a political marker and begin lining up support ahead of the next session.

Have a tip or feedback? Reach me at caroline.spivack@therealdeal.com.

Bill Tracker

Bill Number	Lead Sponsor(s)	Summary	Committee	Last Action Date / Status
S10651/A11429	Sen. Zellnor Myrie and Assembly member Alicia Hyndman	Creates a new felony threshold based on property type and the number of parcels, regardless of monetary value	Referred to Senate rules committee, referred to Assembly codes committee	June 3

The Catch-Up

A year after New York City passed a law limiting who pays broker fees, the bill created a flood of complaints about landlords not following the rules — and generated more than $15,000 in fees paid back to tenants so far, reports The City Reporter.

New York City’s revamped Neighborhood Pillars program offers hefty subsidies to help nonprofits rescue distressed rent-stabilized buildings — yet more than a year after relaunch, it still hasn’t closed a single deal, reports Bisnow.

Former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, an ally of Eric Adams, has joined the fight to block an East Village shelter that’s part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to shutter the Bellevue intake center in Midtown, reports Crain’s New York Business.

Older adults have traditionally been the face of grass-roots housing campaigns and tenant groups. Today, even young people who have never signed their own apartment leases are jumping into the movement, reports The New York Times.

Homeowners nationwide increasingly prefer six-foot-tall vinyl barriers to the white picket fence, the waist-high emblem of the American Dream, reports the Washington Post.

New York lawmakers just wrapped up their least productive legislative session since the pandemic lockdowns, writes Gothamist.

The Kicker

“This is a gross misrepresentation of reality but unfortunately thousands of families face the same kind of intimidation and abuse by landlords across the city,” said City Council member Julie Won, who has been accused of owing $25,000 in back rent to the landlord of the Long Island City waterfront condo where she lived.