NYC Mayor Adams sparse on splashy ideas in his 3rd State of the City address

Mayor Eric Adams leaned on a familiar agenda in his third State of the City address on Wednesday, focusing on public safety, housing and quality-of-life issues as he tries to reset the narrative surrounding his mayoralty after a tumultuous year.

After a heckler interrupted him just minutes into his speech at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, Adams responded with a trademark mantra fashioned during his 2021 campaign.

“Stay focused, no distractions and grind,” he said from the stage, spurring the audience to repeat the phrase.

The speech came as Adams faces record-low polling numbers, driven by his handling of the migrant crisis, the city’s budget woes and questions surrounding an ongoing federal investigation into his campaign fundraising. Neither Adams nor his campaign has been accused of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Adams’ relationship with the City Council has grown increasingly fractious after he vetoed a pair of criminal justice bills last week, despite both pieces of legislation passing with veto-proof majorities in December. In what appeared to be a low point in that relationship, the mayor’s office sought to remove chairs provided for reporters at a City Hall press conference that Council Speaker Adrienne Adams hosted in support of one of the bills on Tuesday.

In a statement after the mayor’s address, the speaker said the Council looked forward to collaborating with him on issues including housing access and production, opportunities for women, and public safety.

“At a time when our city is facing major challenges and overlapping crises, we must rely on our city agencies and workers to effectively help New Yorkers and our communities to persevere,” she said. “Our success is only possible with the right investments and policies to support the critical work of our agencies, which we are fully committed to advancing.”

The mayor’s roughly 40-minute speech featured few surprises or splashy ideas, though he did propose creating a new city agency to regulate deliveries as more vehicles carry packages across the city and boosting affordable housing production by using public land.

In his State of the City address last year, Adams laid out a “working people’s agenda” directed at his base. He aimed to advance that theme on Wednesday as he talked about job-generating plans — including a $100 million “climate innovation hub” in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — and efforts to crack down on unlicensed smoke shops and rats.

As for the city’s affordability crisis — arguably the biggest challenge facing many New Yorkers — Adams pledged to create or preserve 12,000 units of affordable housing at 24 publicly owned sites, including the New York Public Library’s Grand Concourse branch in the Bronx, a plot at 388 Hudson St. in Lower Manhattan, and Hunters Point South in western Queens.

“It’s time for a powerful new housing agenda,” he said.

Adams has previously set a “moonshot goal” of building 500,000 housing units over the next decade and wants the City Council to pass a bevy of zoning changes and incentives to advance it.

But during his speech, he acknowledged the future of the city’s housing market will depend on legislation passed in Albany, such as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pending proposal to refashion a controversial tax exemption program for developers that build affordable housing.

“Gov. Hochul was right in her State of the State address: New York City must build,” Adams said. “And we need Albany to clear the way for the housing we need now. Let us build.”

Hochul, one of the mayor’s key political allies, did not attend his address. And both leaders of the state Legislature, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, were in Albany.

“The Mayor and I are both united in the fight to solve our affordability crisis by increasing the housing supply," Hochul said in a statement later Wednesday. "I've committed to fight for legislative changes in Albany that will allow him to do just that."

Adams said the city would assist renters by creating a new “tenant protection cabinet” to address illegal evictions and other violations by landlords through better coordination among city agencies. The cabinet will fall under the purview of the deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce and will not include any new staff, according to administration officials.

The proposal immediately drew skepticism from tenant lawyers and advocates, who pointed out that budget cuts last year effectively gutted the existing Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants.

“I question what this cabinet will do while this mayor has already shut down the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and raised rents through the Rent Guidelines Board,” said Justin La Mort, a managing attorney with the nonprofit legal services organization Mobilization for Justice. “I would love to hear more about how this will actually benefit tenants beyond having them call 311.”

Progressive activists similarly argued that Adams’ proposals did not go far enough to help vulnerable tenants facing skyrocketing rents.

“The mayor’s proposals to alleviate the housing pressures on New Yorkers are insufficient for people facing eviction and rent-hikes today,” said Ana María Archila and Jasmine Gripper, co-directors of the New York Working Families Party, in a statement. “If the mayor wants to address housing pressures on working people, he can use his power to reverse the rent hikes on rent-regulated tenants, and press Gov. Hochul to pass strong tenant protections this year.”

Immigration advocates also criticized Adams for failing to introduce new plans to tackle the migrant influx that has earned him criticism from across the political spectrum. In a statement, the New York Immigration Coalition's Executive Director Murad Awawdeh said the mayor was recycling “arbitrary, short-sighted strategies that deny shelter and dignity to vulnerable families in need,” referring to the Adams administration’s policy of limiting shelter stays for migrants.

In his speech, Adams reiterated his calls for the Biden administration to assist the city with the influx.

“This is a national crisis that calls for a national solution, so that our newest arrivals can contribute to our economy, like the generations of immigrants before them,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional information. David Brand contributed reporting.