Its a good time to be a New York architect, potentially. The 2025 mayoral race is heating up, and housing is dominating the debate stage given the citys affordability crisis. If the candidates are to be believed, tens or even hundreds of thousands of new units will begin construction under their watch, should they be elected.The numbers are eye-catching in a city beset by bureaucratic stumbling blocks. New York City Mayor Eric Adams set the tone with City of Yes, which was modified and then approved by the city council last December. City of Yes aims to deliver 82,000 new homes by 2040, said Adams, who is campaigning on this and other promises to improve affordable housing access. His competition is stumping on housing issues too. Candidates including Assemblymember Zellnor Myrie; Comptroller Brad Lander; and Scott Stringer, a former comptroller and assemblyman, have promised to build tens of thousands of new homes every year to meet pent-up demand. Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialists of Americas candidate, has also promised ample housing, but also rent freezes, fare-free bus service, and municipal grocery stores. Assemblymember Jessica Ramos, the New York State Senate labor chair, described her platform as a Green New Deal for Public Housing.Housing is the number one issue in this election, Christopher Marte, a New York City Councilmember who isnt in the race but represents the Lower East Side and Chinatown, told AN. Its important for every single candidate to have a well-thought-out housing platform that we can hold accountable, because, if youre not going to address the crisis of the moment, then why are you running for mayor?Its critically important we understand the question in front of us right now, Mamdani told AN. Do we want to grow the tax bases of New Jersey, and Pennsylvania? Or do we want to grow New York Citys? Because right now, whats happening is New Yorkers are voting with their feet. Thousands of New Yorkers are leaving the city they call home in search of cheaper housing. If we tie our hands in our ability to respond to a crisis of this scale, then we are effectively endorsing this outcome.How is New York Citys housing crisis shaping the 2025 mayoral debate? And what will happen if the Trump Administration hinders affordable housing construction, given its commitment to small government and slashing subsidies? May the best housing plan win? Here, AN takes a look at several candidates housing platforms in the run-up to the November 4 election.Brad Landers Plan: Housing as a Public GoodNew York City Comptroller Brad Lander has a multifaceted plan that promises a massive amount of housing production: 582,000 homes by 2035. He also has policy panache that has the wonks humming.The housing plan by Lander would generate capital for permanent supportive housing by creating not-for-profit land banks to take control of, and redevelop, vacant or abandoned properties to better serve the public interest, as defined by the Empire State Development Corporation. Under Landers plan, the city would seize foreclosed hotels and put them into the land bank. Annually, $100 million would be used to convert former hotel rooms into supportive housing. This would be made possible thanks to legislation Lander himself authored in 2018, City Council Introduction 118.Some candidates are interested in revisiting Mitchell-Lama, a program that offered affordable, subsidized housing. Pictured here is East River Housing Corporation in Manhattans Coop Village, designed by George W. Springstein and Herman Jessor, completed in 1956. It has 1,672 units across four towers. (Zara Pfeifer)Lander is a frontrunner. Already, hes won a key endorsement: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Lander has pledged $4 billion per year as part of the United for Housing coalition for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), vouchers, preservation, and new social housing construction. Landers plan alluded to the housing work by the Ed Koch Administration, and the opportunities that 1970s mayor created for not-for-profit housing construction.If hes elected, Lander said, any housing built on city-owned land will be 100 percent social housing, as opposed to a mix of market rate and affordable housing, like much of whats been built under Adams.While Landers land bank represents new thinking, there are ample instruments at our disposal already for boosting affordable housing construction, but not all those means may be possible during the second Trump Administration. So if New York City is to operate autonomously from Washington, D.C. and even Albany, creative reclamation strategies like those proposed by Lander may be critical these next few years. Zellnor Myries Plan: Rebuild NYCZellnor Myrie, a state senator who represents Central Brooklyn, has a housing plan, Rebuild NYC, that he says would deliver one million homes. Of that number, 700,000 will be new homes, and 300,000 will be existing, albeit renovated homes. Those 700,000 new homes will be made possible by office-to-residential conversions, sandwich rezonings in former industrial areas, and new development on NYCHA sites and in lower-density parts of the city.The number-one constituent complaint Ive received as a state senator, and what I have been hearing as a mayoral candidate, is that the city is just too expensive and that people cannot find a place to live, Myrie told AN. We have to build more in order to strike at the heart of this affordability crisis, and we can do that with the creation and preservation of one million homes over the next decade. Myrie also said its essential to build homes of all types, including market rate and affordable housing, which contrasts with Landers pledge of 100 percent social housing on public sites. More than 130,000 New Yorkers sleep either on the streets or in shelters every night, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, a New York City advocacy group. To tackle that problem, Myrie has proposed reallocating funds away from new shelter construction toward new, permanent supportive housing. Rebuild NYC also emphasizes renter protections, namely the need to pass the Housing Access Voucher Program; fully funding Right to Counsel for renters who face eviction; and appointing Rent Guidelines Board members.Another important component in Myries housing plan is what he calls building a Mega Midtown, which entails adding 85,000 new homes in Manhattans Central Business District. (Already, as a state legislator, Myrie increased the FAR cap with Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, which limits the amount of floor area that can be built on a zoning lot in New York City, allowing that to happen, he said.) Myrie said his administration would prioritize converting office space into housing, given Midtowns vacancy rate.Office-to-residential conversions are already underway in Midtown: Take for instance Genslers work at the old Pfizer World Headquarters on 42nd Street. With Rebuild NYC, more developers would be incentivized to follow suit. Rebuild NYC also mentions the plan for Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses by Related, Essence, PAU, ILA, and COOKFOX as a model that could scale across New York for upgrading NYCHA properties.Amalgamated Warbasse Houses in Coney Island, Brooklyn, another Herman Jessor Mitchell-Lama project (Zara Pfeifer)With Rebuild NYC, Myrie aims to build a total 95,000 new units at NYCHA sites across the city and upgrade an additional 150,000 existing NYCHA units, either using RAD/PACT (a program that converts federal Section 9 public housing into privately-operated Section 8 subsidized housing) or the Public Housing Preservation Trust, pending resident approval.I used to represent 23 NYCHA developments when I had Brownsville, and I walked those hallways. Ive been in those apartments. Ive dealt with NYCHA to expedite repairs, Myrie added. People have a lot to say about the current conditions but have little to say about a real solution to that problem. I think we have an opportunity now to generate revenue that is badly needed, but also to help with repair and revitalization, Myrie said. No NYCHA tenant would be displaced under our plan. No NYCHA resident would have to pay more than 30 percent of their income. That would not change. What would change is new public amenities and, in some instances, brand-new units and a revitalized neighborhood that they can all be proud to be a part of, which is what they truly deserve.Jessica Ramoss Plan: Green New Deal for Public HousingMayoral candidate Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens whose district includes Citi Field and the copious development underway there, does not support RAD/PACT, which has led to evictions by private management companies, Comptroller Landers office recently reported. Councilmember Marte is also critical of RAD/PACT, and hopes to see candidates push back against it like Ramos.I think candidates should challenge RAD/PACT and the Trust, Marte told AN. Human Rights Watch and the Comptrollers office have done independent analysis on this. A report released not long ago showed eviction is much higher in RAD/PACT buildings than anywhere else in our city, whether youre a Section 9 tenant, rent stabilized tenant, or market rate tenant. And that should be shocking.Marte also said he is disappointed in any candidate that supports RAD/PACT and in any candidate that sees whats happening at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses as a gold star example.Ramos described her platform as a Green New Deal for Public Housing, a program championed in Washington, D.C. by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one that, more recently, House Speaker Mike Johnson pledged to crush.Ramoss full affordable housing plan is outlined on her website: She advocates for providing payment assistance and affordable housing programs to working families, ADUs, office-to-residential conversions, supportive housing, community land corporations and land trusts, and leveraging federal and state resources for mixed-income development. She is an advocate for universal rent control.Ramos didnt list the amount of housing she is promising to build, unlike several of her opponents. Previously, Ramos proposed legislation in Albany to boost employment opportunities in the construction industry and tackle the housing crisis. Her Jobs and Housing Acts goal is to create a pilot program for affordable housing construction; its currently under review by the New York State Senate Finance Committee.Zohran Mamdanis Plan: Housing By and For New YorkAssemblymember Zohran Mamdanis district in Queens, which includes Astoria, is just west of Jessica Ramoss base. Although Ramos is running under a Green New Deal banner, Mamdani is the candidate who secured the Democratic Socialists of Americas endorsement.Mamdanis housing plan calls for constructing 200,000 new homes over the next 10 years for low-income households, seniors, and working families using $100 billion of city money. Of that number, New York City already has about $30 billion set aside in its Ten-Year Capital Plan budget; the additional $70 billion for affordable housing will be raised on the municipal bond market, Mamdani said, among other means.There are three methods that we will use to pay for this 10-year plan, he told AN. The first is municipal bond financing. The second is the activation of city-owned land and buildings, and the third is pooled rental assistance.Mamdani would do this in part by removing a major bottleneck: New York Citys volume cap for affordable housing bond financing. He would also advocate in Albany and Washington, D.C. for an increase in New York Citys public debt ceiling, something Lander has also pushed for. Additionally, Mamdanis plan calls for new affordable, publicly-controlled housing on NYCHAs City-owned land. It points to the new Inwood Library by Fogarty Finger and Andrew Berman Architect as a precedent for making good use of city-owned land.Mamdani said, what makes our campaign distinct is that we believe there is a clear and critical role for the public sector to play in constructing homes across New York City, and that role will deliver 200,000 permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes to New Yorkers who currently cannot afford to find anywhere to live on the market. Mamdanis thinking is rooted in history: New York City has been hamstrung when it comes to public debt financing since the 1970s, known colloquially as its Drop Dead years, when Washington, D.C. cut off federal funding, making New York much more reliant on the private sector to stay afloat, a moment succinctly described in Samuel Steins Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. For Mamdani, lifting New York Citys public debt ceiling is a way of regaining autonomy after years of austerity imposed at the state and federal level. This is how we can turn the page on fiscal policy in New York City, he said.With municipal bond financing, Mamdani continued, what it will take to ensure that we are using every single tool at our disposal is advocating in Albany and D.C. to lift the arbitrary bond caps that currently tie the citys hands and limit our ability to raise infrastructure and capital dollars. Mamdani said, the beauty of bonding is that it allows for you to embark on capital plans of this scale without the necessity of putting forward the entirety of the amount at the onset. He pointed to recent capital projects by the MTA as an example.Mamdani said lifting the public debt ceiling is essential if New York City is to enact our own political program, as opposed to succumbing to the whims of external political pressures, which has been the status quo for so long. What I mean by that is, if you take for example the OMB [Office of Management & Budget], so often the institutional impulse within OMB has been to say no to any program of ambition or scale. I think a lot of that comes from the same context of operating with the fiscal crisis as the framing in which everything has to be understood.Co-op City is situated on a sprawling 320-acre site in the north Bronx. (Zara Pfeifer)Last year, Mamdani joined state legislators in Albany in proposing a new state agency, the Social Housing Development Authority, that would deliver government-backed affordable housing free from private developers. Mamdani told AN he would continue to advocate for the Social Housing Development Authoritys creation as mayor. Mamdani has also proposed building city-owned grocery stores to help New Yorkers frustrated by inflation and rising food costs, and he has advocated for expanding New Yorks fare-free bus pilot program.So far, Mamdani is the only candidate committed to freezing rent for all 2.5 million rent-stabilized tenants in New York City. Under Adams, rent-stabilized apartments saw massive rent increases every year; Mamdani has pledged to stop that if hes put in charge of the mayor-controlled Rent Guidelines Board. Mamdani has also been critical of Governor Kathy Hochul and her close ties to the Real Estate Board of New Yorkthe joint proposal for a Social Housing Development Authority can perhaps be read as a rebuttal to the Hochul Administrations leadership, an entity thats relied heavily on the private sector to make ends meet. Lastly, another of Mamdanis standout proposals is his call for a Comprehensive City Plan that would give the public a firmer hand in guiding housing development. This, Mamdani said, will help remedy the legacy of racially discriminatory zoning and to proactively plan for the health and needs of the city, namely in the housing, transit, and education sectors. The city plan would prioritize increased zoning capacity, climate sustainability, eliminating parking minimums, and expanding rent stabilization in Albany.Scott Stringers The Robin Hood Housing PlanScott Stringer, another front-runner (along with Lander and Andrew Cuomo, should he decide to join the race), has a plan that revolves around creating Mitchell-Lama 2.0, an upgrade to the 1955 program that provided affordable rental and cooperative housing. Stringers housing platform is predicated on four pillars, one of which he calls his Robin Hood Housing Plan. The pillars are utilizing public land, holding negligent landlords accountable, providing loans for building neighborhood-focused housing projects, and revitalizing NYCHA.Stringer said he will increase tenant oversight of NYCHA properties and secure $40 billion in funding to upgrade NYCHA flats. He said the $40 billion will come from leveraging federal and state funding opportunities, though the appropriation strategy isnt concretely spelled out in his plan. He also didnt say whether or not he would lean on RAD/ PACT or the Preservation Trust for NYCHA upgrades. Unlike Lander, Myrie, and Mamdani, Stringer hasnt specified the amount of homes he aims to deliver, similar to Ramos. He said he hopes to build at least 50 percent affordable housing on city-owned land and that he would use eminent domain to seize properties owned by landlords who fail to meet basic safety and housing standards. The landlords would be compensated fairly, but then the flats would be transferred over to responsible developers with a proven track record of creating affordable housing.Lastly, Stringer said he would secure a $500 million revolving fund that would empower nonprofits and minority- and woman-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) to build affordable housing.Watch This SpaceThe candidates eying Gracie Mansion are indeed aligned on many issues, although their means may differ. For instance, Lander, Mamdani, Myrie, Ramos, and Stringer have each pledged, if elected, to close the landlord loopholea pay-to-play provision by Adams which lets property owners off the hook for meeting Local Law 97 clean energy goals.Will voters opt for a local, decentralized approach along the lines of what Stringer is offering, where a network of nongovernmental organizations and MWBEs work to resolve the affordability problem? Or will the electorate pursue a more statist approach, like what Mamdani, Ramos, and Lander propose? Or should New York City continue to let the free market run its course? Only time will tell, but its clear that architects and builders may be fielding more calls when the next administration gets to work in January 2026.