As New York City’s housing affordability crisis deepens and the 2025 mayoral race picks up momentum, Leah Goodrigde, a commissioner on the City Planning Commission, is calling for a shift away from market-reliant housing strategies and toward policies that directly address the needs of low-income and working-class residents.
In a wide-ranging interview with City Newsroom, Goodridge –who spent more than a decade as a tenants’ rights attorney– said she doesn’t agree with the current approach of prioritizing volume over equity.
“We build enough, and that way supply meets demand, and then the rent prices will come down,” she said of the thinking. “I think that it is irresponsible for a city government and for a mayor to take the very passive approach of, ‘I’m just going to rely on market theory,’ when you can do and have the authority to do a lot more than that,” she added.
Goodridge’s critique goes beyond economics. She sees the city’s planning philosophy –embodied in proposals like Adams’ “City of Yes” initiative– as emblematic of a broader shift toward prioritizing capital over community.
“So a playground or a park is seen as not valuable, because it’s not something that generates money in the way that a restaurant or a shop would,” she said.
Goodridge was one of the three commissioners voting against the “City of Yes,” which ultimately passed the Planning Commission in September, and later at the City Council. As a reason for her vote, she cited what she believes is the proposal’s failure to deliver deeply affordable housing.
“Only 15 percent of the completed projects during the Adams administration has literally been for very low, extremely low income,” she said. “Let’s say you’re an Uber driver. Let’s say you’re a home health aide, many people who were my clients,” she continued. “You can’t afford most of the affordable housing.”
Her stance may come at a personal cost. Goodridge acknowledged that opposing the mayor’s housing plan could affect her chances of reappointment to the commission, even though she’s an appointee of Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
“There are other commissioners who are mayoral appointees, who when they’re voting, they have to make a calculation of if they vote no on something that is the mayor’s plan,” she said.
Pressed on which mayoral candidate aligns most with her values, Goodridge named Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who despite pushing for building as much housing as possible, “wants to focus on affordable housing as well,” she said. Mamdani is also advocating for a rent freeze.
By contrast, she criticized former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent attempt to distance himself from the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), which he signed into law.
Goodridge also rejected the framing of rent stabilization as harmful to small landlords.
“Anyone will tell you that 99% of the landlords are like large companies. They’re not these like small Mom and Pop landlords,” she said.
Goodridge’s philosophy is deeply rooted in her personal background and professional history. She grew up in a Mitchell-Lama apartment in Brownsville, Brooklyn and later watched members of her family –many of them city workers– leave New York because they couldn’t afford to stay.
Twelve years as a tenants’ rights attorney gave her firsthand experience with the housing crisis. “You are running an ER, except the ER is like housing,” she said. “If you make a mistake, someone can get evicted.”
Madison Edward-Wright is an investigative journalist from Montreal. For City Newsroom, she covers local politics and takes particular interest in voting rights and government corruption.
Sharla Steinman is a bilingual journalist covering education in New York. She is originally from Los Angeles and a UCLA alum. She’s penned bylines in The New York Times and Uncloseted Media. You can reach out to her on X @Sharla_Steinman.
