Jim Walden Unveils Plan to Solve Housing Crisis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2025
Media Contact: Sara Silver
(646) 705-3286
sara@jimfornyc.com
NEW YORK — Independent mayoral candidate Jim Walden on Thursday released a comprehensive plan to solve New York City’s housing crisis. The plan would add more than 50,000 units each year, and truly affordable ones, by creating a new form of units with rent set at 25% of each borough’s median income, and with rules enforced through private arbitrations, not housing court.
Lou Milo, Co-Chair of the Board of construction firm Milrose Consultants said, “NYC needs housing for all income brackets. Jim Walden’s plan is intelligent, inclusive, and real. A vibrant city needs housing to maintain and attract talented workers. The time for change is now.”
The Plan also creates a new system for landlord accountability, gives more power over development to local communities, and significantly reduces red tape to speed development. Walden’s 100-page plan is specific, detailed and identifies funding sources for all the plan components, unlike those of other candidates.
Jim Walden, Independent candidate for NYC Mayor said, “New Yorkers need a Mayor with bold vision, who knows housing and intends to be fully accountable for achieving results. With my plan, families, young workers and companies will no longer need to look elsewhere to find affordable housing.”
The Plan includes a major step to fight poverty, using part of the profit from new development to establish a fund for kids born into poverty, similar to an idea championed by hedge fund magnate Bill Ackman.
Walden’s plan would speed the development of new apartments by trading land for development, using tax incentives as needed. The Plan targets “Zombie” properties, vacant city-owned spaces, tracts of abandoned land, commercial office conversions, and foreclosed properties. It also fixes several problems with the current rent-stabilized system, by bringing warehoused apartments back online quickly, ending “inheritance” rules, and imposing means testing on inherited units.
The plan would let public housing developments occupy their full blocks by building over fenced-in lawns and parking lots, after securing the approval of NYCHA tenants, whom Walden successfully represented as a private lawyer to secure $250 million worth of urgent repairs. The City would cooperate with public housing communities to partner on a program to rebuild 7% of NYCHA properties each year, with a specific jobs plan to get them in better jobs with benefits, including as managing agents.
Walden’s plan uses mostly carrots (and a few sticks) to encourage the kind of bold development that New York City needs to restore vibrancy to the city where so many units sit vacant, while residents struggle to pay rent. Plan elements come from listening to tenants, real estate developers and brokers, housing experts and civil servants—all frustrated by laws that can be amended, regulations that can be smoothed, and approvals that can be speeded by consolidating disparate agencies.
As an independent, Walden is freed from the party loyalties that put politics over people and feed corruption, cronyism and patronage. His commitment to working with all sides has attracted so much support that his campaign this week qualified for $1.9 million in public matching funds.
“We just need to join together—City Hall, the City Council, and Albany—to give New Yorkers the power to solve this crisis once and for all,” Walden concluded. “I will not rest until that job is done, and I will return independence and integrity to City Hall.”
The plan includes provisions for housing populations with special needs, including the homeless and the mentally ill. It also creates a licensing system for larger landlords, so that the worst can lose their right to rent.
Below is a summary of the tools Walden plans to use:
1. Restore Developer Incentives that Worked: Change laws that stifle development, by partnering with Albany or challenging them in Court. Examples include: Law 485-x, which substituted for 421-A, meant to spur development and hiring, has done the opposite due to wage requirements that surpass union contracts. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which severely limits landlords’ ability to raise rent to cover capital improvements.
2. Build Ambitiously to Lower Rent Overall: NYC owns much more land and buildings than it needs. This plan makes it easier for the city to auction off what it doesn’t need among its 15,000 properties. It would consolidate city offices within the 22 million sq ft of buildings it owns — many in high-rent areas, to free up desirable space.
NYC would pre-approve designs for rental buildings to speed their construction and renovation.
3. To speed conversion of vacant commercial space to residential use, the City would allow residential units below commercial ones. Waive code requirements and modify air and light rules on certain projects. Allow flexible design rules for affordable units.
4. To increase the density of NYCHA public housing, the plan creates a pilot program to build out to the street, making full use of space now used for fenced-in lawns and parking lots. Win tenant support by letting residents see prototypes or use “build-first” model to move tenants into new buildings before prior ones demolished. Offer rent-to-own options for qualified NYCHA tenants.
5. Develop abandoned lots of more than 1,000 acres: These include amusement parks, island spaces and land requiring environmental abatement.
6. Turn long-vacant or “Zombie” buildings into rental housing, by using flexible rules by project to maximize affordable yield, with community input and preference to local developers. Tax long vacant properties to halt abuse of write-offs.
7. Foreclosed Property Program: Speed development of affordable housing in 6,000 properties foreclosed each year.
8. Targeted Upzoning to spur significant new rental developments in communities that need more housing, with community board approval.
9. Cut Red Tape: Create single agency with expertise, staffing and authority to approve projects. Goal is six months for small projects and 10 months for large ones. Partner with the Real Estate Board of New York to make this a private-public initiative.
Click here for the full plan.
About Jim Walden
Jim Walden learned early that success comes through resilience and hard work while growing up in working-class Levittown, Pennsylvania. Despite an abusive father who abandoned the family when Jim was 14, he graduated near the top of his class while distinguishing himself in debate. His two years in the U.S. Navy’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps earned him dozens of commendations, foreshadowing a lifetime of public service.
It wasn’t easy for Jim to get to college. He spent a year working multiple jobs—from drugstore clerk to fast-food worker—sleeping on a friend’s floor while saving for his education until a friend helped him find a college where he’d earn financial aid. At Hamilton College, he excelled academically, winning awards for public speaking and campus service, and played rugby. He went to Temple University law school on an academic scholarship and graduated first in his class. He secured a coveted clerkship with a federal appellate judge in Philadelphia, Anthony Joseph Scirica.
As a criminal prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, Jim quickly earned a reputation for innovative strategies that made him the go-to prosecutor for FBI and DEA agents, as well as NYPD officers. Focusing on organized crime, his investigations led to more than 100 convictions—including members of all five New York crime families and one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. He helped to solve 25 cold-case homicides. His groundbreaking work was featured in National Geographic’s “Inside the American Mob.”
Jim built one of New York City’s premier litigation boutiques over a decade, while maintaining an unwavering commitment to public service law. Across his 20+ year career in private practice, his “good government” work has touched many corners of city life:
- Fought for safer schools by forcing the Department of Education to protect bullied schoolkids
- Secured $250 million for emergency repairs and better living conditions for over 400,000 NYCHA residents
- Protected public spaces by stopping illegal parkland transfers in Manhattan and Brooklyn
- Defended voting rights by successfully challenging gerrymandered district maps
- Restored vital food assistance to impoverished New Yorkers
- Protected hundreds of thousands of city retirees from healthcare cuts
- Saved emergency care in Southern Brooklyn when SUNY wanted to close a critical hospital
While building this career over 30 years and running a thriving law practice, Jim has remained devoted to family and community. He and his wife raised three children in Brooklyn, while financially supporting his sister and her four children. His commitment to public service extends to philanthropic work across numerous issues, and service on an array of not-for-profit boards, demonstrating that success means lifting others as you rise. Jim’s story—from a challenging childhood to becoming one of New York’s most effective advocates for justice—embodies the spirit of our city: resilient, innovative, and deeply committed to helping others succeed.