PODCAST: Former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen On The Politics Of Housing
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On this episode, we hear from Alicia Glen, who was the deputy mayor for housing and economic development under former Mayor Bill De Blasio and now runs MSquared, a real estate development and investment platform.
Glen sat down to talk about the simmering debate over housing policy in the New York legislature right now, including Gov. Kathy Hochul's push to force suburban municipalities to encourage new, dense development near transit stations.
“I cannot say enough about how strong a person Kathy Hochul is to even begin to take on what I call the 'suburban no-development, over-my-dead-body military-industrial complex,'” she said. “That's really tough for a first-term Democrat in parts of the state where those people aren't even pretending that they would embrace any sort of growth.”
She also discussed the proposed so-called Good Cause Eviction legislation, which has stoked deep fear in the real estate industry but become a policy focus for progressives in the legislature.
“It doesn't strike me as crazy that people who are in good standing in the United States of America and work hard, should be able to stay in their apartment if they've been good tenants,” she said. "It also doesn't strike me as unreasonable that you could limit to some extent, how much money they would be asked to pay to stay."
