CM Brewer questions Comptroller on pension-funded housing investments

Okay, and just finally on housing, much discussion.

You have said that you're going to use some of the pension money to assist in the effort.

I didn't know where you are with that and just generally allocation for housing.

How are you feeling that we're going in the right direction or not?

Look, we've done so much good work on rezoning, City of Yes, and the charter amendments.

There's still work to do.

I know the council's all over that.

But to me, the big fight right now is the financing.

We have vacant properties all over the city where the land's ready to go, the zoning's set, the developer's set, it's all good, they're waiting for financing.

You see it probably in your district, lots that are waiting one year, two years, three years, four years, and it's often financing.

There's a long wait for low-income housing tax credit, et cetera.

So we're trying to solve that.

We've announced a plan to invest $4 billion of city pension funds in financing housing in New York City.

Deeply affordable housing, workforce housing, preservation, conversion of offices to residential.

This is going to impact tens of thousands of units, and this is going to be good for the pension fund.

We're not going to lower our investment criteria.

We never do.

We turn down deals all the time.

We're going to find that win-win where we get good returns, but provide financing that would have been missing in these deals.

I'm very, very excited about this plan.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Great.

Councilmember Murano, followed by Maloney.