NEW YORK CITY — Zohran Mamdani unveiled a housing plan on Tuesday proposing to build 200,000 affordable housing units and preserve another 200,000 in New York City over the next decade. The proposal, titled “Block by Block, a Housing Policy for a New Era,” outlines $22 billion in new investments for affordable housing construction.

The plan allocates $5.6 billion to enhance the New York City Housing Authority and establishes a $40-per-hour minimum wage for construction workers on city-financed projects. It also includes measures to loosen regulations around prefabricated homes, invest in a city-backed home insurance provider, and expand code enforcement efforts.

Mamdani said housing is “the No. 1 driver” of the affordability crisis. He added, “Too often in conversations around housing, there is a sense of a choice that has to be made, a choice between fighting to build more housing or fighting to organize to preserve the housing that we have. And that doesn’t have to be the case any longer.”

The proposal aims to create a “clear pathway” to homeownership for some renters and pledges to freeze rent on rent-stabilized units. Mamdani spotlighted the Sunnyside Yard development as a key component of the plan and said he is still working to secure federal funding for the project.

In the months before releasing the plan, Mamdani and his team held hearings with tenants to address long-standing maintenance and repair issues. He said expanded code enforcement is a critical element of the proposal, stating, “For many New Yorkers, their inability to see the city follow through on the kinds of complaints they make, it diminishes their trust in the city’s ability to do anything at scale.”

Mamdani pledged that “starting Oct. 1, the city is going to investigate” tenant complaints. He framed the housing effort as a response to more than 40 years of policy that restricted housing growth and neglected the upkeep of existing homes.

According to city data cited in Mamdani’s proposal, more than 150,000 new housing units came online in New York City from 2021 to 2025—the most for any five-year period since the 1960s. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign has centered on affordability, and he said his goal is to “reckon with the multifaceted nature of the housing crisis and deliver on all of it at once.”