Monday, November 2, 2026
Albany Handed One Developer a Tax Break. Tenants Had to Hire a Law Firm to Police It.
In May, Albany lawmakers wrote a bespoke extension of the expired 421a tax break so one project — Two Trees’ 1,200-unit River Ring, on the Williamsburg waterfront — could keep it, in exchange for keeping apartments rent-stabilized for at least 25 years. Now a class-action suit by law firm Newman Ferrara and the nonprofit Housing Rights Initiative alleges Two Trees illegally raised rents at a different building, 300 Ashland Place in Fort Greene, by charging the full “legal rent” instead of the lower “preferential rent” on seven apartments — a practice the complaint claims cost tenants more than $30 million over five years. Two Trees calls the suit “entirely without merit” and says it will vigorously defend itself; the allegations are unproven. What isn’t in dispute is who caught it: not the state’s own housing agency, but a tenant-rights nonprofit and a law firm. City Councilmember Crystal Hudson says the state housing agency isn’t enforcing the rules it wrote.
The takeaway — When Albany writes a custom subsidy for one developer, it owes the tenants an enforcer. Instead it outsourced the job to a nonprofit and a law firm. That’s rent regulation in practice: bespoke carve-outs, and a lawsuit for anyone who wants the rules followed.
New York Is Switching Off Its Unemployment System for Up to 12 Days. Hochul Calls It “Short-Term Pain.”
Starting at 5 p.m. today, New York’s unemployment system was scheduled to go dark — the Department of Labor says the shutdown will last nine to twelve days while it migrates to a new platform, a project that has cost about $188 million and has been underway since at least 2017. Last month, in the week ending Oct. 17, roughly 106,000 New Yorkers claimed $67.6 million in benefits; the state says no one will lose benefits and back payments will be available once the new system is live. Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon called it “the largest transition of [an unemployment insurance] system ever in the United States.” Governor Hochul’s pitch: “After a short-term pain, there’s going to be a long-term gain.” The department considered a phased rollout with several shorter outages. It picked one long one.
The takeaway — Nine to twelve days without a working benefits system is a rounding error in Albany and a missed rent payment everywhere else. “Short-term pain” is an easy thing to say when you’re not the one in pain — and nine figures and nearly a decade of work didn’t buy a plan that avoids turning the whole system off at once.
The City Banned a Trade and Promised to “Consider” Paying the People in It
The City Council voted 40 to 7, with two abstentions, to phase out Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages by June 2028 — Mayor Mamdani and Council Speaker Julie Menin backed it, following the June death of 18-year-old tourist Romanch Mahajan, for whom the bill is named. The bill requires a workforce transition plan by April 2027 and directs the mayor to “consider” compensating carriage owners for their business, license and equipment. Mamdani says the administration will pursue compensation — “We want it to be real and tangible” — but the union isn’t buying it: TWU Local 100’s Alexander Kemp calls the bill “nothing but a plan to draft a plan,” and TWU International president John Samuelsen says he intends to sue.
The takeaway — The government decided a trade shouldn’t exist, then decided someone else could work out what happens to the people in it. Owners, drivers and stablehands built a business; the reward is a promise to “consider.” A private employer that laid off a workforce this way would get a Council hearing, not a bill.