By Janaki Chadha

A court hearing is looming between the city and the state over their shared responsibilities to help the more than 100,000 migrants who have moved to New York over for the past year. | Hans Pennink/AP Photo

The Legal Aid Society and attorneys for the Adams and Hochul administrations will meet this week for a court conference in an ongoing case around the city’s obligations to provide shelter to those in need.

The case could potentially have significant implications for the state. The judge could order the governor to do more to help the city uphold the right to shelter, which the mayor has struggled to do amid an influx of tens of thousands of migrants. And the case could additionally address questions on whether that mandate applies statewide.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has made clear she doesn’t think it does — which led to a split with Attorney General Tish James, who declined to represent Hochul due to the disagreement, POLITICO reported last week.

Other politicians including city Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams have agreed that the right to shelter should apply across New York.

The state being forced to take more responsibility to house migrants would ostensibly help address Mayor Eric Adams’ repeated calls that the crisis cannot and should not be handled by New York City alone. But he has declined to take a position on the issue, at least thus far.

“The courts are going to determine that,” Adams said when asked for his view at a press conference last week.

Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney and Adams ally, said he’s been trying to make the case to the mayor and his top aides that they should make an argument for a statewide right to shelter in court.

“It’s troubling that they haven’t moved boldly on this,” Siegel said. “The only thing I can think of is they don’t want to necessarily confront Governor Hochul, and I think that’s a mistake.”

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and other New Jersey politicians are protesting New York’s Congestion Pricing plan as unfair. | Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo

CONGESTION PRICING FIGHT CONTINUES — POLITICO’s Ry Rivard: New York drivers would have to pay roughly 50 cents more in new congestion pricing tolls for every $1 discount New Jersey drivers received, members of the board tasked with setting the tolls heard Thursday. The tolls, which are expected to cost between $9 and $23, are meant to raise billions of dollars for Metropolitan Transportation Authority construction projects and reduce traffic in parts of Manhattan.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and other New Jersey politicians are protesting New York’s congestion pricing plan as unfair. Murphy has sued the federal government and made other threats aimed at the tolling plan. Earlier in the day, the governor released a new letter requesting credits for New Jersey drivers who cross bridges and tunnels into Manhattan. But the numbers discussed at the second meeting of New York's Traffic Mobility Review Board did not help make New Jersey’s case to a board made up of New York business, labor and civic leaders — since the figures showed helping New Jerseyans would hurt New Yorkers.

ADAMS MOVES ON OFFICE CONVERSIONS — POLITICO’s Janaki Chadha: The Adams administration is moving ahead with a plan to jump start conversions of office buildings into housing after lawmakers in Albany failed to ease regulatory barriers or approve an incentive program earlier this year.

“We could not sit back and just lick our wounds, and say, ‘Woe is me,’” Mayor Eric Adams said at a midtown Manhattan press conference Thursday. “It’s unbelievable how much empty office space we have sitting idly by with ready and willing participants to develop the housing, and we are in the way.” “Well, it’s time to get out of the way so we can turn these office cubicles into nice living quarters,” the mayor said.

THE MAYOR’S INFRASTRUCTURE WISH LIST — THE CITY’s Greg David: “In hand: about $1 billion. Requested: $1.5 billion. Being pursued: Billions more in federal dollars, especially to rebuild the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and to create an electric vehicle fleet and charging ports throughout the city. With billions of dollars at stake, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams has launched an aggressive plan to capture as much as possible from the $1.2 trillion the 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act over the next decade. While a majority of the money is handed out according to pre-set formulas, the city must wrangle for about a quarter of the money that is allocated through competitive grants.”

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A luxury rental building rises high above other residential buildings in the East Harlem section of New York, on Feb. 3, 2015. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo

PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS BUY UP APARTMENTS — New York Times’ Mihir Zaveri and Wesley Parnell: “In New York City, debates over affordability often center on the proliferation of opulent high-rise developments. But in the boroughs, deep-pocketed investors are buying up hundreds of smaller buildings, prompting a new set of concerns in the city’s deepening housing crisis. Over the past few years, Private Equity Firms have quietly spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying apartments in neighborhoods like Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Ridgewood in Queens, property records show.

“Private equity firms — which typically invest money on behalf of pension funds, endowments or other large sources of wealth — focus on assets, like businesses or housing, that they can buy relatively cheaply but that have big profit potential.”

$21K TO RENT AN APARTMENT — The New York Post’s Brooke Kato and Mary K. Jacob: “Piper Phillips thought she won the treasure hunt for a coveted one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. Then she was hit with jaw-dropping additional costs totaling more than $10,000 — which would have brought her initial payout, including security and first month’s rent, to a whopping $21,507.50.

“The Midtown condo asked Phillips to cough up thousands in fees — not including the monthly rent — such as a $550 application fee, $1,500 administration fee, $1,500 “move-in” fee and a one-month broker’s commission.”

OUT-MIGRATION BACK TO PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS — Crain’s Jack Grieve: “Residents leaving New York City in favor of other parts of the U.S. have long outnumbered those coming in. That imbalance skyrocketed during the pandemic and remained in the red as urbanites across the country flocked to cheaper and less dense regions. Now, that uptick has slowed and the city's rate of out-migration is nearing a full recovery.

“That's according to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland analyzing urban migration data in the U.S. since 2010. The study predicts that New York's net migration will be fully back on course with prepandemic trends within the next three to nine months.”

— A judge denied NJ Transit’s attempt to block a strike vote.

— Building owners are waiting to see whether Gov. Hochul signs legislation tweaking the rent laws.

— Housing affordability is at its worst point in almost four decades.

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