Housing affordability is a hot button issue in the 2025 New York City mayoral race—Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, Scott Stringer, Jessica Ramos, and Zellnor Myrie have all shared housing platforms these past few months, as reported by AN in February.  Andrew Cuomo, after announcing his candidacy March 1, shared his housing plan this weekend. The document, Addressing New York City’s Housing Crisis, was written by Cuomo policy advisor Paul Francis, The New York Times reported. The release was overshadowed, however, by reporting from Hell Gate, which said Cuomo’s team used Chat GPT to pen its platform. Cuomo’s opponents were quick to respond. Over the phone, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi, founder of Bulldog Strategies, told AN Chat GPT was used for citation purposes only, and not for writing the plan itself. “We wrote the paper, and yes, we used Chat GPT to get footnotes. This is no different from using Google.” The Plan? Cuomo’s housing plan says it prioritizes gentrification, homelessness, tax abatement programs for affordable housing, tenants protections, and office-to-residential conversions, among other things, but it’s noticeably scant on detail. He says the city needs to preserve and build 500,000 homes over the next 10 years, many of them affordable. Most of the document highlights Cuomo’s past work under Mayor David Dinkins, as Housing and Urban Development secretary during the Clinton administration, and as New York State governor.  The plan alludes to the need to fix NYCHA, but says—twice, verbatim—he will “specifically address his plans for NYCHA in a separate NYCHA Agenda to be released in the coming weeks.” He also opposes rezonings in “low-density neighborhoods,” suggesting he’ll fight new affordable housing in the outer-boroughs. Cuomo notes City of Yes is “an important but ultimately insufficient step towards addressing the housing shortage.”  Zohran Mamdani, an assemblymember from Queens also running for mayor, was vocal about Cuomo’s housing plan, and highlighted its grammatical errors. Mamdani told AN: “New Yorkers are facing a devastating housing crisis that is forcing lifelong residents to flee the city and Andrew Cuomo doesn’t have the decency to write his own housing platform. This plan is half-baked, riddled with typos, incoherent, and most importantly fails to address the astronomical cost-of-living here in New York City.” “Worse, Cuomo is too much of a coward to face the press or public and defend this shoddy agenda,” Mamdani continued. “New Yorkers deserve a mayor who does their homework and will treat the problems they face with the gravity and attention they deserve.” To Mamdani’s point, some platitudes that stood out include: “Market rate housing has a role in the market,” and “Both New York City and the State need to increase their capital commitments in order to make the economics of affordable housing are relatively simple [sic].” And: “New York City has many capital needs, but none is more important than the need for more affordable housing in New York City [sic].” Many paragraphs don’t add up: “Nevertheless, several candidates for mayor this year have either called directly for a rent increase or for other measures that would tilt the scale toward lower rent increases. This is a politically convenient posture, but to be in. Victory if landlords—small landlords in particular—are simply unable to maintain their buildings [sic].” Failed Legacy? “Andrew Cuomo phoned in his housing policy as governor so it’s no surprise he phoned in his housing policy when running for mayor,” former New York City comptroller and current mayoral candidate Scott Stringer told AN. “He was a major cause of the housing problems we’re now facing, and he can’t be trusted to clean up the mess he left. We deserve a mayor who is focused on building affordable housing for New York’s middle-class families, not someone who is going to outsource the job to a computer.” Zellnor Myrie, an assemblymember who represents Central Brooklyn, who recently released a housing report discussing how Cuomo’s past housing policies have negatively impacted Black New Yorkers, told AN: “It’s no surprise Andrew Cuomo can’t write an honest housing plan—because his failed legacy of skyrocketing rent and dwindling housing supply is nothing to brag about.” “Under Cuomo, housing prices rose nearly 80 percent and tens of thousands of Black New Yorkers were pushed out of the city,” Myrie added. “I’m running for Mayor to deliver one million homes—because we need bold, new leadership with plans to tackle the housing crisis Cuomo created. New Yorkers deserve better than the Status Cuomo.” In response to comments from mayoral candidates, Azzopardi highlighted Cuomo’s track record. “Governor Cuomo was Housing and Urban Development secretary under Bill Clinton. He authored a nationally-emulated homelessness fighting plan under Mayor Dinkins,” Azzopardi said. “As Governor, he built and preserved hundreds-of-thousands of affordable housing units in a $100 billion program. Also, as HUD secretary, he not only built affordable housing, he took over problematic housing authorities like in Chicago, and made them work again.” “New Yorkers aren’t stupid. They’re not going to fall for this,” Azzopardi added. “They’re not going to fall for petty attacks by other candidates that have no record of their own to run on. They know Andrew Cuomo is the candidate in this race that has the experience, and the recorded results to make New York City a more affordable and safer place for all.”