>>216751275
Freezing rent makes it harder to accomplish the building part.
Also, he isn't actually going to end up building much more housing.
1. Its difficult to get any comprehensive zoning reform through city council, and zoning isn't the only bottleneck for market rate housing (though it is one). 'Inclusionary zoning' where developers have to set aside a certain number of apartments as below market rate is another bottle neck. Maintaining rent control makes it very difficult to get new housing build, even if new construction is exempted the real estate industry will expect future rent control which will be 'priced in' to the market value of the building. This devalues buildings which makes it difficult for developers to get it financed and built.
2. He has no actual plan to reduce the cost of building public housing. That would require taking on the unions, and he has an ideological loyalty to unions. Public sector unions in New York City are powerful and drive up the price for anything the city tries to get done. In Buffalo, the New York housing authority it recently spent over $583k per unit for public housing, its certainly more expensive in NYC.