Top aides to Mayor Eric Adams were in Albany Tuesday to advocate for housing before the legislative session ends next week.

Lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul failed to pass a significant affordable housing package as part of the state budget earlier this year.

What You Need To Know

  • After a comprehensive plan to build affordable housing fell apart this year, time is running out in Albany to get something done

  • Mayor Eric Adams sent top aides to lobby lawmakers for some of the smaller bills they would like to see passed before the legislative session concludes next week

  • Lawmakers agree there is still time to pass some housing bills before they leave town for the year

With just days to go in the Albany legislative session, and not much serious discussion taking place around a comprehensive housing plan, members of the Adams administration were in Albany Tuesday for meetings.

While there is little expectation lawmakers can scrape together the kind of affordable housing package the governor first proposed earlier this year, which died during budget talks, there is hope some smaller initiatives can be passed.

That includes a bill enabling office conversions to adorable housing, and manipulating the Floor Area Ratio, or FAR, which limits how tall buildings can be built in the city.

“You saw a lot of our allies here standing with us, which was a much larger group than sometimes you get on the thorny housing topic,” the city’s chief housing officer, Jessica Katz, said. “So we are really excited to have this groundswell of support and we have eight days more to finish the job.”

Affordable housing development has been stagnant in the city since lawmakers let a tax break for developers known as 421a expire last year.

While it seems unlikely that lawmakers will renew or replace 421a, the city is asking for an extension on projects that have already been approved, and are in danger of expiring.

“In my district alone, should we fail to extend the 421a deadline extension, we are going to lose 3,000 units of deeply affordable apartments that are already in the pipeline,” Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn said. “These are apartments for people making $50,000 and $60,000 a year — $70,000 a year — the missing middle in our housing market right now.”

Hochul was in Buffalo Tuesday, and while she is in touch with legislative leaders, there does not seem to be much focus for her on a big housing deal before the end of the year.