Former Gov. and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo got here underneath fireplace on Monday for claiming that he “wasn’t in charge” of constructing inexpensive housing in New York Metropolis throughout his 11 years because the state’s prime government.
Cuomo, who’s operating for mayor as an unbiased after dropping the Democratic main to socialist Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani (Queens), argued that as a result of he was governor of the state and never town’s mayor, he didn’t management housing manufacturing throughout the 5 boroughs.
“I wasn’t the mayor of New York and I wasn’t in charge of building affordable housing in New York,” mentioned Cuomo, referring to town, throughout a July 28 interview with WNYC host Brian Lehrer. Cuomo was responding to the criticism that his actions as governor instantly contributed to town’s present housing disaster.
“If I were mayor of New York, we would have housing,” Cuomo mentioned.
He contended that his document of developing large-scale infrastructure initiatives within the metropolis, underneath the state’s purview, as governor exhibits that he’s greatest positioned to handle its acute housing disaster, which has seen rents soar and left simply 1.4% of flats vacant.
“I built LaGuardia,” he mentioned. “I built Moynihan Train Station. I built the Second Avenue Subway. I built the new Kosciuszko Bridge, new Shirley Chisholm Park. Those were all much harder than building housing. I can cut the red tape. I know how to do it. And I can get it done.”
Cuomo additionally cited his expertise because the Secretary of Housing and City Growth underneath former President Invoice Clinton to point out that he’s probably the most certified candidate to spice up housing manufacturing within the metropolis.
The average former governor will not be solely in a November basic election rematch with Mamdani, however can also be competing in opposition to incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and indepndent Jim Walden.
Cuomo’s feedback drew swift backlash from critics who charged that, as governor, he had immense management over inexpensive housing building within the metropolis and easily didn’t act on it.
“The governor has enormous powers to solve New York’s housing crisis, both in NYC and across the state,” the pro-development group Open New York wrote on X. “This claim is ridiculous, and New Yorkers aren’t falling for it.”
Political strategist Sam Raskin, who labored on former metropolis Comptroller Scott Stringer’s unsuccessful main marketing campaign, additionally slammed Cuomo’s remarks in an X submit.
“This is a pretty revealing admission by Cuomo that he was asleep at the wheel as the statewide housing-affordability and homelessness crises got significantly worse while he was governor,” Raskin wrote.
Cuomo took warmth from his rivals through the main over his housing legacy as governor. Particularly, they blasted Cuomo’s 2011 transfer to defund a state housing voucher program for homeless New Yorkers referred to as Benefit — an motion many say sparked a pointy rise within the metropolis’s homelessness inhabitants.
Cuomo’s staff has responded that he changed Benefit with a number of different related packages that he funded at greater ranges.
