To Fix a Housing Crisis, New York Leaders Seek to Revive a 1950s Idea
March 11, 2024 by As New York officials conceive new ways to encourage and develop affordable housing, they are going retro and gleaning from the past. Of the proposals by state Democrats, one of them is an iteration of Mitchell-Lama legislation from 1955, taking its name from the two state legislators who were its main sponsors — Senator MacNeil Mitchell, a Republican, and Assemblyman Alfred A. Lama, a Democrat. The $250 million proposal, called “Mitchell-Lama 2.0” would form a new state entity that could finance developments on state-owned land. The state would give developers cheap leases on state land, which would be exempted from taxes and from certain elements of the public review process. The state would also lend money to developers, to make building quick and inexpensive for companies.