The communist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, announced a plan to expropriate buildings from their owners and transfer them to new hands in a plan he has called "block by block" (in Spanish, manzana por manzana). The Democratic Party member assured that his program will involve the construction of 200,000 "new affordable housing units" in the city that taxpayers will have to finance with an approximate expenditure of $22 billion over the next five years. An additional 200,000 units will be converted into stabilized rental properties. However, the municipal chief did not detail how the expropriations of private property and their subsequent delivery to tenants will be legally carried out. One possible avenue is the Third Party Transfer (TPT) program of the city, a controversial mechanism that allows the government of New York to execute the mortgage of crisis buildings whose owners have fallen behind on tax payments and fines.
"Through our new citywide campaign, Fix the City, we will focus on the worst landlords in New York City. When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent property owners and managers. For buildings that have suffered chronic abandonment, we will work to transfer ownership to responsible managers, including community land trusts, nonprofit organizations, or even to the tenants themselves
Mamdani plans to use an unconstitutional program to confiscate
