New Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie capped off his whirlwind weekend Sunday with a visit to a Brooklyn apartment complex, where he vowed that affordable housing would be his top priority.
Heastie met Mayor de Blasio and tenants from the Ebbets Field Apartments in Flatbush, where he discussed the need to strengthen rent-stabilization regulations.
“As a Yankee fan from The Bronx, it’s strange to be standing here in Dodgerland,” Heastie joked. “This is going to be our number-one priority: to extend and strengthen rent regulations in the city and to partner with the mayor in his vision for affordable housing.”
According to the Mayor’s Office, more than 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City are at risk, and thousands of units pull out of regulation each year.
“In my State of the City [address], I said our number-one priority this year is going to be affordable housing, and that is not just [to] build new buildings, it is [to] preserve the affordability we have,” de Blasio said.
Heastie has been making the rounds since he became the Assembly’s new leader last week.