Former Staten Island state senator to be part of NYC group focused on fair housing

New York’s Staten Island. Diane Savino, a former state senator from the North Shore, was named on Thursday to serve on Mayor Eric Adams’ new Charter Revision Commission. Fair housing in the five boroughs will be its main aim.

The 13-member group will examine the city’s governing instrument, the City Charter, in its entirety, but it will pay particular attention to strategies for addressing the housing problem in the five boroughs.

We’ve brought together this distinguished group of housing and affordability experts to examine how changes to our city’s charter can address the crisis we’re facing because housing proposals, land use plans, and the negotiations that accompany them are complicated and essential to keeping our city affordable, Adams said. We will do everything we can to keep providing housing for the people of New York.

Following the City Council’s adoption of his City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan, a significant rezoning project that will open the door for an estimated 82,000 new housing units spread across the five boroughs, the mayor made his statement.

The historically low 1.4% vacancy rate in the city, as reported by the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, has been cited by proponents of the idea. Since 1965, that survey has been carried out approximately every three years in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the 2023 poll, which was released earlier this year, the low vacancy rate has led to soaring rents and property prices as well as homelessness among the poorest New Yorkers.

“We know there is still more that we can and must do to tackle the cost of living in our city, even after the success of our City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal that will help us create 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years and invest $5 billion towards critical infrastructure updates and housing,” Adams said.

Savino was executive director of Adams’ former Charter Revision Commission, which compiled ballot propositions that New Yorkers voted on in November. He did not reply to a request for comment at the time of publishing.

The final vote on the proposed modifications by the Charter Revision Commission will take place in New York next year.

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