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- [00:00]
Maria Torres Springer
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Santi
Hello, I'm Santa Ruiz and you're listening to Statecraft. I've been on a New York City kick recently and today I've got maybe the best possible guest to talk about it. Maria Torres Springer moved to New York City a week before 911 and then spent most of the following 20 some years serving in the city government, first as a top appointee in the Bloomberg administration, then under de Blasio, and eventually as second in command for Eric Adams. Her role as First Deputy Mayor, which in layman's terms is basically the COO of New York City. To put it lightly, Torres Springer has fans. In November of 2024, a local New York publication wrote a piece titled the Vibe at City hall is thank God for Maria Torres Springer. And in that piece, City and State New York quotes political figures from both sides of the aisle, from far left and center left, and Republicans in New York City calling Taurus Springer a phenomenal leader, a very classy, charismatic, knowledgeable individual, serial overachiever in a good way. Somebody else calls her a goody two shoes in a good way. Torres Springer is widely claimed as one of the most effective political operators in New York City governance. Over the summer I met Maria Torres Springer and we've kept in touch since today. Specifically, I wanted to get into two big topics. One is about process. What does it take to run City Hall? How have different mayors done it differently? The other topic is about outcomes. Torres Springer was one of the behind the scenes champions of City of Yes, the Eric Adams backed initiative to build 500,000 new housing units in the city over the next 10 years. I wanted to better understand City of Yes what she's most excited about, what didn't make the cut, and how it all came together politically. There are some specific topics we weren't able to get into in this conversation, like the corruption scandals dogging Mayor Eric Adams or the specific roadmap that likely next Mayor Zoran Mamdani has laid out for the city. But I think if you read between the lines in this conversation, you'll glean quite a bit of useful context for the next mayor. What works in New York governance, or what has worked in New York governance over the last 20 years and what are likely to be stumbling blocks for a new, ambitious administration. As a reminder, the full transcript for this conversation and the full transcript for more than 60 other interviews in this series are at www.statecraft.pub. all right, let's get into it. Maria Torres Springer, welcome to Statecraft.
- [02:36]
Maria Torres Springer
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
- [02:38]
Santi
I'm really, really glad to have you. You're headed into the nonprofit sector or headed back into the nonprofit sector after. Not exactly back to back, but working for three different New York City mayors, first for Bloomberg, then for de Blasio, and most recently for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. Are there a lot of people like you who have worked for at least three mayoralties? Is that common?
- [03:05]
Maria Torres Springer
I think it's fairly atypical at the senior level to have worked for three consecutive mayors. But the public sector workforce, 300,000 strong, there are many, many dedicated employees who have worked across different administrations. But I do feel wildly fortunate. Different times in the city's history, times of both growth and crisis, feel very fortunate to have been able to work in three different administrations, each trying to move the city forward, given the set of challenges the city has faced at any particular moment in time.
- [03:46]
Santi
Sure. I think people who are loosely familiar with New York City's political history will know those three mayors, Bloomberg, de Blasio and Adams didn't just have different policy outlooks in various ways. They're very different characters, very different personalities. And I think in New York City, that the personality of the mayor is a topic of much public discussion and debate. How they interact with different stakeholders in the city, whether they're more public or private, et cetera. I'm curious, just from your perspective, how the personalities of the three mayors that you've worked for shape how they govern and how their administrations work.
- [04:21]
Maria Torres Springer
Yeah. You know, they say, right, that it's the second hardest job in the United States. And I believe that the job of being mayor, if you think about it, you're not just managing that 300,000 person workforce, but you have. You're the CEO of a company that has eight and a half million shareholders, and they all voice very loudly how they feel about your performance. And you have a media environment where everything is under a lot of scrutiny. So it's not for the faint of heart. I started as a policy analyst in the Bloomberg administration, and over the course of 20 years, not continuously, but over 20 years, was able to work in three different agencies and at City hall, of course, until I was appointed first deputy mayor. And what I'd say is you have three individuals, all of them, all three of them, their love for New York City is irrefutable, their commitment to moving the city forward also irrefutable. And they had both different ideologies in different styles of governing. Just to pick out a few highlights from each, which I think describes what that meant. Therefore, to work in that administration under Mike Bloomberg, he had a very purposeful governing and management philosophy. He hired really well and delegated a lot of responsibility to agency heads and to deputy mayors. And what that meant for young staffers at the time was really being an environment where you. You saw some very good management techniques for how to manage a sprawling bureaucracy. They say that New York is ungovernable, but I think that administration did as much as it could to bring order to what can often be a pretty chaotic environment. The governing philosophy of Mayor Bill de Blasio, you can describe as he knew what his North Stars were. There were some very important initiatives and priorities like universal pre Kindergarten, his affordable housing plan. And because it was so clear what those priorities were, that allowed government to organize itself to the formation, therefore allowed for the quick and I think successful implementation of a lot of very ambitious initiatives. And then in Mayor Eric Adams administration, he very much prioritized being the type of mayor who was accessible to everyday New Yorkers and to create kind of a porousness so that those New Yorkers who may have been betrayed by government didn't have access to government. There was a way to ensure that their voices were heard. And so what that meant for us working in that administration is that we had to be focused on constituent services and making sure that we were thinking about how government needed to work better for the most number of people. So all very different, different philosophies about how to govern, different priorities. And what I'd say is, what I saw despite three different mayors, is that there is a workforce within city government that is incredibly focused on not just responding to shifts in the political winds, but turning vision and mayoral agendas into very practical results for New Yorkers. And those are the public servants that I am just so proud to have worked with over the course of two decades.
- [08:11]
Santi
Sure. I want to go back to that point about management. You mentioned that Bloomberg came in with a kind of very clear history of management and ideas about personnel management and hiring and delegation and all that. And I know that you and your certainly your time as first deputy mayor, a lot of the work that you spent time on was reviewing and coordinating City hall personnel and policies and programs and trying to figure out what's the right way to manage and to structure the innards of this massive administration. I'm curious, what did you learn from Mayor Bloomberg that you applied, whether it's kind of broad principles or the specific things that you learned about how City hall needs to run that you've got?
- [08:51]
Maria Torres Springer
I learned a lot from each of the mayors from the Bloomberg administration. The use of data, the importance of answering what is the best solution to this problem before you start trying to triangulate and solve for politics was a very early lesson that I learned, and I think a good and useful one. The need to build the right teams. I think the most important asset that any senior leader has in government is the team that he or she is leading. And if you create an environment where team members are empowered and they're trusted and they can not just execute programs, but really try to imagine how government can do its best work, then what you create in the end are these ride or die teams. I knew every day that my life essentially depended on the strength of the teams that I was working with. And those are early lessons that I learned from Bloomberg about how to. How to make sure that you assemble and nurture and empower the right people with the right expertise in the right formation, toward the right goals, at the right pace to get done what needs to get done.
- [10:19]
Santi
Can you get a little bit more specific there? I'm curious, you know, if. I think a lot of our audiences, people who are just entering the policy ecosystem and I think will be happy to jot down, okay, what do I need to do to make sure my team functions in practice? What have you done to make sure you have teams that really are operationally excellent?
- [10:36]
Maria Torres Springer
When you hire for particular positions, I find that it's important not just to ask, are they qualified for the job? Because I think what you'll find are, there are a number of people who have the right skill sets, the right background for a number of different positions, but in particular in government. I think you're also solving for a couple of other questions. The first question is, why are they interested in this business? And it can't just be because of a desire to give back. Really, those who I've seen really step up over time and be resilient, given the many challenges of government, are those who have a real sense of personal mission and a real sense of what they can accomplish, what they uniquely can accomplish in government. Sometimes that's because they have a particular lived experience. I'd like to think, in my case, I grew up with housing insecurity and I knew what it felt like for government to work or to not work, because we grew up with a Section 8 voucher and we really depended on it. And so that lived experience translated to, I think, a career in public service where I never forgot what was at stake, that this wasn't just a matter of highfalutin policy or jargon or a bunch of policy wonks trying to find solutions. It was actually a matter of life or death for the people who were trying to serve. So that's one. Hiring. Well, qualifications, sense of personal mission and in it for the right reasons.
- [12:12]
Santi
I want to keep going with this list, but just I'm curious, do you encounter, I mean, over the course of your hiring and managing, a lot of folks who want to work in city government but who don't have that specific sense of what they can do? They've got a generalized sense that it's a good thing to work for your city?
- [12:29]
Maria Torres Springer
I do. And that's okay. Especially for early career professionals. You may not come in saying, I want to fix this crisis, and here is the long list, here's my autobiography and why I'm uniquely positioned. But I test for a sincerity in why they want to be in government and an aptitude for solving problems in government. You get more responsibility as an early career professional than you probably should. And so those who take that responsibility seriously are those who say, I'm not going to squander this opportunity. I'm going to be the type of professional who is curious, who will stop at nothing to find the right set of solutions. And importantly, and this is prized in most work environments, but I think in particular in government, someone who works really well in teams, able to collaborate across different agencies, different expertise inside and outside of government under extraordinary time constraints. And whereas I mentioned before where a lot is on the line and so you may not come in with this entire story or this full picture of what you want to do, but most of the people who I have worked with, by the end of their tour in government, whether it's a short one or a long one, you develop not just that perspective, but that set of tools that really translates well into improving the lives of human beings, which is ultimately our job, of course.
- [14:21]
Santi
Sure. I've got a picture here in my notes. It's, I think, a pretty famous picture from the Bloomberg administration of the open floor plan that Bloomberg had in his office, which I think, my understanding, you can correct me here, but my understanding is that that was novel at the time. We're going to knock down the cubicles and we're going to have everybody can see each other and you can stand up and look out over the whole, the whole office. You were, you were in the Bloomberg administration at that point. Like, I guess I'm just curious, like, was that useful? Was he right to say, we're getting rid of the kind of the big Box, cubicle, model, and putting everybody in the bullpen together.
- [14:57]
Maria Torres Springer
Well, it was the first bullpen that I ever knew. They started my time in government in that administration. And if it's any indicator, that bullpen setup still exists, it persisted through the de Blasio administration and the Adams administration. Some of the conference rooms in the last two administrations were converted back into offices, but most of the City hall staff, they still sit in the bullpen. And it was novel at the time, maybe even radical, but had a lot of benefits. Some are probably pretty obvious. You're literally taking down the barriers that often exist between people, between roles, between teams, because so much of government is so siloed, you are collapsing the distance of communication in action. New York City government, it is really at a scale and pace that is somewhat unimaginable. I mean, when you think about what has to be done in any given day where there are 12,000 tons of trash, for example, that have to get picked up, a billion gallons of water that need to be supplied, you have 30,000 acres of parkland to be maintained. There's just so much going on at any given moment in New York City. And so anything that you can do, office format included, to create a better velocity of communication and action in government is really helpful. And then I think the third thing is just about transparency. You knew where everyone was. You could kind of overhear who was having an argument and how issues were getting resolved, from the first deputy mayor to policy analysts who just started the week before. And so I enjoyed it. In fact, when I was appointed as first deputy mayor, one of the things that I did was to create a. Because we had offices, but we had a rotating desk up in the bullpen. And so various deputy mayors would spend. Would spend time upstairs. And this wasn't just symbolic. It was a way to show that we prioritize accountability and transparency. And you create an environment that prizes execution and low drama versus palace intrigue.
- [17:27]
Santi
Yeah.
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Maria Torres Springer
And that's really the type of culture that every mayor should strive to create.
- [17:32]
Santi
I'm always curious about people's actual practical work process. And I guess I'm wondering for you and for the mayors that you've worked for in this environment in which everything happens incredibly fast, and at least in the. In the 21st century, it's been very much kind of like open office, open info sharing. When do people like you or the mayors you've worked for get time to sit and think? Like, when does the deep work happen or the, like, processing happen? And I guess I'm specifically Curious for you and then for the people you've worked with. When on earth do you, like, sit down and think for a second?
- [18:08]
Maria Torres Springer
That's a great question. Probably those moments didn't happen often enough or at the length that is necessary to do that type of deep processing. But I was very intentional about creating spaces for that. And there's a crush and heave to the work. And it's very easy for you to let the work happen to you. There's a crisis every day, there's a press story every minute, and meanwhile the deadlines continue. So being intentional about where you can sit and think, not just by yourself, but with other leaders. So as an example, one of the practices that I put in place when I was appointed in the Adams administration as deputy mayor was to bring back a practice that I saw in the Bloomberg administration and also during the de Blasio administration. There was a version of this where brought together on a monthly basis for lunch. Often there wasn't food. Sometimes there was all of the agency heads within my portfolio. And that might sound very basic on one hand, but it was a rare opportunity for leaders in the administration to come together to not just share what are the critical priorities of the month, but to hear from other leaders to tackle problems together, to syndicate their own, their strategic plans, which I made sure that each agency did have one. But you have to be very intentional here, because especially at the beginning of administration, you're trying to do three things all at once. You're running a government, you're changing a government, and you're building a government. And so you're constantly operating in those three gears. The other thing that I'll say is it was important to me to have a real process in the beginning of agenda setting. We have lots of blueprints on housing, on economic development, on workforce development, on climate that were established early on. This was an exercise not just in creating a glossy brochure that no one read, but in ensuring that we set some markers about what needed to happen with a particular policy domain or agency in order to not mistake activity in government, which is always quite feverish, to not mistake activity for direction.
- [20:41]
Santi
So what kinds of benchmarks did you set for yourselves?
- [20:44]
Maria Torres Springer
Sure. So a major one in housing, for instance, was to set a moonshot goal of 500,000 units of new homes over the course of the next decade and then back that up with a number of very detailed plans about how we were going to get there. For economic development, it was a matter not just of regaining the 1 million jobs that we lost during the pandemic, but also topping the total employment and private sector employment records that the city held before the pandemic occurred. And on workforce development, the same way, we had a goal of 30,000 apprenticeships, which was really a new model for workforce training in New York. And so each of these blueprints had a major overall goal and a number of more intermediate KPIs, key performance indicators that we wanted to track in order to ensure that we were making good progress. Because. Because the goals were meant to, in fact, be moonshots, which I distinguish from pipe dreams. They weren't foolishly derived, but they were ambitious enough where the hope was that it helped galvanize and inspire public servants and partners outside of government to do more and to do better for New Yorkers.
- [22:12]
Santi
Sure. We talked a little bit about Mayor Bloomberg. I'm curious, in the transition from him to the next mayor you worked for de Blasio, what changed about how City hall was managed? What was different?
- [22:27]
Maria Torres Springer
So there were, of course, different leaders after three terms in the Bloomberg administration, we had new leaders, new energy, new plans. The styles were different. I do recall that for Mayor de Blasio, in order to make sure that we had the right type of process for decision making, a lot of that process ran through what we call the decision memo matrix, where we had to be very clear about what exactly is we were trying to accomplish, what was the decision, who had to sign off, what were the budget implications. And that's one process. Every mayor has his or her own way of making decisions, but that's typical in a new admin, where the new principal has to really set some guardrails for how he or she will decide on matters small, medium, and large. And so it was a process of getting acclimated to a new way of making decisions, a new set of priorities and new people in these roles trying to solve the contemporary issues that the city was facing.
- [23:42]
Santi
Sure. I guess I'm curious. Obviously there are very different priorities from one political leader to another. But just as a. I got all these management questions for you because you're, you've thought about this stuff for, for a very long time. What do you think are the pros and cons of that decision memo matrix, as you called it, that was in place in the Dwasi administration. What did it help the City hall do better? What did it maybe, maybe trade off against?
- [24:09]
Maria Torres Springer
Sure. So it establishes, just because of what you had to write down, it creates a framework for what's important, what needs to be addressed, who needs to Sign off and before something is ready for a decision by the mayor. And so, to the extent that there were informal ways that other administrations may have come to decisions, that type of process just makes very clear what the different components are of a decision. And the drawback there, I think, are a couple of things. One is that our problems are so complicated and nuanced in New York. And there's sometimes there's something about putting it in a memo that almost flattens or simplifies it. And so it was important, therefore, to supplement with the type of discussion that needed to happen in real time. With people looking each other eye to eye to contend with really gnarly decisions. That you can't quite summarize in a particular memo. The other thing that I think every administration needs to think about is, does the process create structure but also bottlenecks? And so you could have. If at the end of the day, you were left with 200 decision memos that had to be read and vetted and resolved, but it slows down the process, then obviously that means there's room for tweaking and modification. So whether it's a second term of an Adams administration Or a new term for one of our other candidates, I think they really have to figure out what is the process and the flow that they need to make the right types of decisions. And to make sure that that process and that flow actually results in the equality of decision making and especially speed of decision making that is commensurate with the complexity of the job.
- [26:24]
Santi
Sure. Just to stay on this point a little longer, Are there specific steps that any of the mayors you've worked for, any of the administrations you've worked for, took on revamping the org chart or trying to improve efficiency that you just 100% completely say, yes, the next administration should copy paste that particular practice.
- [26:44]
Maria Torres Springer
I think there are principles that I have observed and learned over time that if anyone asked me, what does it mean to govern, what does it mean to structure city call, I would. I'm a broken record about.
- [26:57]
Santi
Let's hear.
- [26:58]
Maria Torres Springer
Number one is to make sure that the system is clear and simple and transparent. And that starts with reducing bureaucratic friction. You reduce bureaucratic friction by having an org chart that people can understand that don't have too many silos or portfolios, not because you don't think your senior leaders won't get along, but because it is just human nature. When you have many silos, those are competing priorities, competing personalities. And so anything you can do to only have to have the minimal Number of direct reports to the mayor. That allows for a lot of the trade offs and decision making that is just the job at City hall to happen more readily and more easily. So that's number one, lessen bureaucratic friction. Number two is really focusing on communication internally and externally. The major currency in a place like City hall is information and access to the mayor. So if you make those things scarce, then that results in confusion, games playing that you really don't want.
- [28:31]
Santi
What kind of games playing?
- [28:33]
Maria Torres Springer
I think everyone is therefore vying to get access. Everyone is therefore trading on information. And sometimes this information, it's not that it's secret, it's just it hasn't been communicated back, A decision is made and that just hasn't filtered back to the teams. So that type of discipline, of real feedback loops, of communicating big policy decisions, certainly before they're in the press, I think you'll be surprised at how important that is to ensure that the staff at City hall are always operating in a way where they, they trust their leaders and then they therefore act in trustworthy ways. And then I think the third is anything you can do to minimize drama. The public servants I've worked with, all they want to do is focus on the very hard work of government. And so the less intrigue, the less infighting, the less public spats, the less scandal that they have to contend with on a daily basis. Obviously that means they are more focused on the work. And so all of the ways to create a low drama culture where you show that what is prized as quiet execution and not intrigue will go a very, very long way.
- [30:02]
Santi
Okay, practically, how did you try and reduce the amount of drama in City Hall? What are the concrete tips there for dialing it down?
- [30:12]
Maria Torres Springer
Yeah, no, well, always operate honestly and transparently. I think having really solid plans, having those north stars, I can't tell you how important that was. And here's why there will always be any administration, whether it's natural or man made crises. And we had this mantra in my team that we have to walk a straight line through the initiatives that we set out to combat the housing crisis, to bring back jobs. That there, despite all of the distractions known or that will come our way, we have to walk a straight line. And that there was clarity about what the priorities were, where we are headed. What that meant is there was a day where there was a lot of stuff in the news. Of course it's human nature to pay attention for a second, but they knew what their day jobs were. And so that type of clarity Those types of places, playbooks of what needed to get done. Really important. But I think most importantly is doing everything that I could. And I was fortunate. I had a number of colleagues who were the were the same way. You have to model low drama behavior.
- [31:28]
Santi
Sure.
- [31:29]
Maria Torres Springer
Everything within City hall and government is contagious. You set the culture early on and it spreads and it embeds. And so as senior leaders, if what you want is a no nonsense low drama, this is a place of employment. We are here to make sure that people's tax dollars are spent wisely. And you do that day in and day out. And that's what you model. Then you have teams that do just that even during times of crisis and challenge. Sure.
- [32:08]
Santi
On that point about kind of culture flowing down from. From leadership. I'm curious about your time as commissioner of the Department of Small Business under Mayor de Blasio. He pretty famously was not especially friendly with the business community. I mean, he said, I've got an interview here from the Brian Lehrer Show. He said, mayor should not be too cozy with the business community. How did that attitude from the top effect how you ran the Department of Small Business?
- [32:35]
Maria Torres Springer
Well, here's what I'll say. The words that people use. And then there's the business of government. And when I think about the private sector or business, it's obviously also not monolithic. Right. There are major corporations which employ many, many New Yorkers. Of course, in New York there are small businesses where a lot of job growth obviously happens. And all of the types of firms in between, architects, builders in New York, other professionals. And everything that I did in small business services or the Economic Development Corporation or in housing. That doesn't happen with government just because of government alone. Every unit of housing that was built was built because it was a partnership between public and private. And certainly in the Economic Development Corporation when we were growing industries from life sciences to fashion that involved real private sector partnership as well. And in the Department of Small Business Services, the programs that we ran were all about what does it mean to help our mom and pop businesses and also more high growth companies hire more people, have a better experience dealing with government. And for too many of them, it was Kafka s. What I relied on more in each of these roles under the three different mayors is was less about. Here are the specific words. But really thinking about how do you use the superpowers of that agency to help New Yorkers who are either running a business employed by the small business? And that kept me and the teams focused on the Mission versus whatever might be the back and forth in the media more generically about the business community.
- [34:34]
Santi
Sure. Well, let me ask you about another initiative under current mayor Eric Adams that you spent a huge amount of effort on, the City of Yes. I mean, I'm probably oversimplifying by calling it a major rezoning effort, more than just rezoning, but I think that's a big part of it. Opening up a lot of land in the city for housing. I'd be curious to hear from you what in that whole massive body of work you're especially excited about and what didn't get into the final version of City yes that went through City council on a fairly close vote. Obviously a lot of it had to get trimmed down to meet the moment politically. I'm curious what you wish in retrospect could have been squeezed in there that might have to be left for the next round.
- [35:22]
Maria Torres Springer
Well, I am very proud of the work that we did through City of Yes. And to be clear, City of Yes was actually three different citywide tax amendments. One focused on our goals in carbon neutrality, the second one in economic development, and the third, the one that garnered the most headlines in those ways, the most difficult politically was the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. And I think that it is the most pro housing set of zoning reforms that this city has ever seen. And what it essentially does, to boil it down, is it enables a little bit more housing in every neighborhood of New York. And it does that by clearing out a lot of the barnacles in our zoning code, relaxing certain requirements. That gets us the type of building that we need. Because the reality is if they're over close to 60 community districts in New York, about 10 of them have. We've seen more housing production in those 10 than all of the 50 or so combined. So something is obviously amiss here. And the reforms that you mentioned, you know, they run the gamut from saying we'll add a little bit more density if you build more affordable housing. We will legalize accessory dwelling units. So the cottages, basements, garage conversions that we've seen in other places in the country. Right. Are quite helpful to boosting housing supply. Looking at the more modest housing, transit oriented and what we call town center. So these are two to five story apartment buildings, kind of the mainstay of so many neighborhoods. We just made it illegal to build them for a very long time. So re legalizing those, relaxing parking requirements, making it easier to convert and so much more. So in total, that's over 80,000 new units from our projections over the course of 15 years. But Santi, what I'm proud of the technical work there, and it is significant Herculean work by agencies. But I'd say that what I'm most proud of is that I think we turned a corner in our city on imagining how we can modernize the regulatory system, how we can do things that are politically hard. I've been in the housing business for close to two decades, but there was a real shift where we said, you know what? It is really not okay that there are more than 100,000, mostly women and children, sleeping in shelters. It's not okay that we have a historically low vacancy rate. It's not okay that more than 50% of renters are rent burdened. And the sobering statistics go on and on. But we also realized for the first time in a long time, I'd say that we didn't have to live this way, that we could do better. Hence, City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which. Which cleared the city council review, the local legislative body at the end of 2024. Now, you're right that there were modifications to certain proposals, whether it's parking or how we thought about ADUs to some extent. That was of course expected because this is a complicated political process and you have to have enough humility to say we didn't get every single proposal 100% right or it wasn't all perfect. But I think that there are two things that I think are important for moving forward. One is as we look at the implementation of City of Yes for Housing opportunity to leave open the room and the possibility and have the willingness to make amendments in the future, whether it's to where the nips and tucks were made, if they are not helpful to addressing housing. And also City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, as significant as it was, it was one piece of a larger strategy to confront the housing crisis. And all of those pieces from using public land more efficiently for housing, financing affordable housing production, revising our charter, as we are trying to do, to make it easier to build housing. All of those initiatives have to keep going with energy to make a real and enduring dent in the housing crisis that New Yorkers have been facing for too long.
- [40:18]
Santi
Sure. And I absolutely, I want to get to some of those other pieces of the housing story. I think people like me who come to the topic of housing sometimes just get stuck on zoning because zoning is, you know, for some reason, for people in their mid-20s who are policy wonks, that's like the most exciting one. And there's a lot of other stuff that you guys have worked on and that's policymakers care about. But I do want to just stay on this one. Just to push a little further on the zoning components of City of Yes. Obviously what you guys originally proposed is was a slightly more ambitious ambit than what was eventually passed, because that's politics. But I'm curious, are there things that you think if we could get another bite of that apple, what would we like to push for this or that zoning reform? What would that be that maybe didn't get through the first time?
- [41:01]
Maria Torres Springer
As we see the fruits of City of Yes, I would pay a lot of attention to whether or not we're seeing the building of accessory dwelling units as aggressively as we want to. And so there were modifications made there to where and how they can be built so that I would pay a lot of attention to. I'd also pay a lot of attention to how the parking, the new parking rules get implemented and where we are seeing housing being built or not, as a way to ask ourselves the question, is there more that we can and should do here? And then I'd also like to make sure that we're seeing type of growth, whether it's from office conversions or the Transit Oriented Development more generally. Frankly, on Transit Oriented Development, I think that as improvements are made to our mass transit system, we will see real building coming out of City of Yes. But I think there are also other opportunities outside of City of Yes. To better map where transit improvements are happening and think about what that means for rezonings. Because the goal, of course, is always to ensure that growth is happening where there is proximity to jobs and transit, where it can accommodate that growth. So I'm very excited, for instance, to see what we call the Manhattan Plan that we announced in the beginning of 2004 when I was still in government. Big aspirations there for building more in in Manhattan to see where that work leads us.
- [42:48]
Santi
Maria I'm curious about the politics of City of Yes, and I'll give my kind of, you know, garbled understanding of some of the layers and you tell me what else had to what other levers had to be pulled. Obviously, city council men and women have their own local constituencies and often, I think, as people who follow housing politics know, it's easier to advocate for more housing at higher levels than it is to advocate for more housing in very local levels. There's also Albany, the the state of New York has a lot of say in some of the regulations governing housing production here in the city. As you and this administration thought about getting City of Yes through the housing pieces. How did you think about putting together a coalition that could actually pass something that mattered?
- [43:36]
Maria Torres Springer
Yeah. One of the most, I think, transformative aspects of City of Yes was not just that it was a set of technical reforms, but it became a political, institutional, and in many ways even moral project for those of us who are involved. And when I say moral and institutional, there's been a real recognition, I think louder than I've seen in my time in government and in the housing space, that this really wasn't just about building homes, that this was actually a matter of who belonged in our city and whether we were going to create a city for generations to come or a city for the privileged few. And if so, if we were looking at this as not just a technical project, but a moral project, then that meant that we had to transcend our routine politics. And I was happy that we were able to. It doesn't mean that it was easy, but we did receive the support of the city Council and with enough votes to ensure that it passed. And they wanted to make sure that it wasn't just the zoning reform, that it was an entire package of investments which we were prepared to do all along. And so in addition to the zoning Reform, there was $5 billion committed to housing programs and infrastructure upgrades. A billion of that came from the governor of the state of New York and so Albany and the state legislature and the governor, critically important to this work, the state legislature, just some months before the City of Yes for Housing opportunity was approved, also passed in their session, reforms that made it possible to do conversions, to lift an artificial cap on density. So it's necessarily many levels of government working together because the policy mattered, because literally lives were on the line. And importantly, Santi, it wasn't just a bunch of well intentioned, very eager housers saying we need to do this. It was a very big tent. It was an exercise in coalition building from housing advocates to developers, to. To houses of worship, to labor. Very important that they were part of this, to cultural institutions, the business community, and many others in between, all saying the same thing, that we don't have to live this way, that we know what we can change in order to make a real dent in the housing crisis. And so that was a big achievement. And it has to continue in the years to come, because there's no silver bullet to this. As significant as City of Yes was, it alone cannot solve the housing crisis for sure.
- [46:49]
Santi
In the last couple weeks, as I was getting ready for this interview, I talked to a couple developers, one who does a lot of work here in New York. And one of the things that he praised was very interesting to me. He said that the New York Department of Buildings, when you as a developer submit your plans, you can submit them online, online portal, and Department of Buildings reviews them, gets you back the notes and the annotations. And we're not sure about this, but that all happens on the portal. And I was surprised that that was so novel. And you talked about how in Los Angeles, you have to roll up your big plans in a tube and you drive it over to the office and you give them the plans, and they eventually lay them out on the desk and, you know, annotate them, and then you got to go pick up your tube. In your experience, how important are those kinds of procedural tweaks? The process, which is not about zoning, it's not about what you're allowed to build in one place or not, but how we run that process, how much does that stuff matter? Or is it more of a cosmetic thing?
- [47:38]
Maria Torres Springer
And you know, it is not at all cosmetic. I think this is fundamental to fixing what a lot of people have called the plumbing of government. So whether it's the permitting for the building of housing or what it might mean for a restaurant to have all of its permits to start operating, too often that experience is Kafkaesque, where you have more than a dozen agencies not really talking to one another, and you literally have to make your way to each one. And throughout this entire time, you're losing time and you're losing money. That's not a good situation to be in in the housing space every day of delay where you can't occupy a unit that's a family that is staying another day in shelter. So the. The fixing of the plumbing, the automating of the systems, the digitizing of the processes is fundamental to fixing the process. And really, the work that I was focused on with many colleagues is to understand, to really map it out from the beginning, a kernel of an idea through the entire environmental review process, through the land use process we just talked about, then the permitting process, and to say, how long is it taking? Where are the bottlenecks? And have a system that works better for the constituent, the consumer, rather than a system that reflects the government org chart, which is just too often what happens. A lot of good progress there, tech enabled, but also a long way to go to make sure that we are reducing the procedural bloat that exists in too many of the ways government operates.
- [49:42]
Santi
I Love. Two specifics here I'd love. Is there one procedurally bloated process that you felt like you really manage to wrangle into something more reasonable for the people who have to run through the process? And then I'm curious, is there something that the next administration, whoever leads it, should really look at and tackle? And a bloated process that needs a lot of love?
- [50:03]
Maria Torres Springer
Sure. So just in the small business space, if a small business is trying to operate in New York, it has to interface with a dozen agencies. And in the previous process, you basically had to fill out who you were and all of the vitals of your business multiple times and a new form each time. And so what we have migrated to in New York is a unique identifier. A unique identifier so every agency in government knows who you are. Again, sounds simple, but the amount of time that a small business has to take just to get to the starting line of interfacing with government was just too long. And, you know, there's a lot of the lot, something that's been written. Right. About the time tax that we put on people and businesses. And so, you know, that is one way in the process of development. While there are wonderful, a lot of progress made, as you mentioned, with agencies like DoB, the reality is there are many, many other agencies who are involved and who have to sign off. And so there's dob, there's hpd, there is the fire department, and a number of others. And so the work ahead is to not just improve the individual systems of those agencies, but to really kind of ask the question, how can we build a better overall process for the owner, for the user, and not just automate current process, but get rid of steps in the process that no longer serve a use. And that's where you move beyond what's cosmetic to something that truly does save time and energy.
- [52:10]
Santi
I do want to get back to something you mentioned, which was the other pieces of New York housing policy that are not just about private development. Obviously, nycha, the New York City Housing Authority, is a massive. What's the right term here? Manager of housing. It's a.
- [52:25]
Maria Torres Springer
It's a landlord. That's right, yes. Operator. Landlord.
- [52:28]
Santi
So as first deputy mayor in this most recent administration, housing was your portfolio. So not just the city of. Yes. And the, you know, the zoning reforms, but managing nycha. And one of the things I wanted to ask you there was just. There's been a lot of public reporting over the last few years about the vacant units that NYCHA manages. And I Think this is an interesting, a different kind of housing challenge than encouraging more development. Right. It takes on average over a year to get tenants into a NYCHA apartment. And a chunk of that a few months is because NYCHA has to renovate a huge amount of apartments. A lot of these were built a very long time ago. And the federal government has pushed NYCHA to basically get rid of lead and all kinds of other issues there. But I'm curious, what are the other things that are making it take on average over a year to turn over an apartment in New York? Public housing.
- [53:17]
Maria Torres Springer
Sure. So you're right that when you think about the housing operation in New York, it's not just zoning and addressing housing supply. There are a number of really key agencies. Nycha, the largest public housing authority in North America. That's about 350 campuses or developments and I think last count, more than 170,000 units. Basically 1 in 17 New Yorkers, which might even be an undercount. So it's a massive operation and becomes even more challenging, not just because of its scale. And you mentioned the vacant unit challenge, but for everything that might go wrong at NYCHA or is in the headline for nycha, the easiest thing to do is to. Which I know is not what you're saying, but too often I've seen during my time in government is to say this is managerial incompetence, that there is someone, because of waste or fraud or incompetence who screwed something up. There are certainly examples of that. But really this is, I think, a deeper, harder story about governance and investment. And you mentioned some of the most important elements. It's an aging housing stock, of course. Course, NYCHA developments average about 50 years old. And so every unit requires the type of upgrade that deals with lead, sometimes deals with asbestos, electrical. Talk about plumbing that's like real plumbing that needs to be fixed. And what might look like delay is really the effort that's needed to fix a unit and make sure that a deeply deteriorated unit and to make sure that it's habitable. There's also structural underfunding. The last capital needs assessment for NYCHA totaled the needs in terms of capital repairs at about $80 billion. That is not coming in one big check from the federal government. So that requires the type of kind of financing where you braid together a lot of different revenue streams in order to rehab that that unit. But there are also realities in terms of the workforce, from civil service rules to union contracts that have to be considered. And also just the environment that NYCHA operates under. There is a federal monitor. Everything that goes wrong is in the front of the is in one of the tabloids. And so in that environment, the teams have to work with an extraordinary amount of care and discipline. So all of those factors, in my opinion, tell the actual story in nycha because it's tasked with caring for the nation's oldest housing building with thin resources and really a challenge that no other, that no private landlord has to deal with at that scale. This doesn't mean that it can't do better and can't do more. It should, but it's a matter of really diagnosing properly what is causing the failures in the system and then all levels of government coming together to fix those systems.
- [56:51]
Santi
That's a really comprehensive answer. And I absolutely take your point that the average NYCHA building is older and more full of asbestos and lead than the average privately managed building. A lot of these buildings are from the 70s or even earlier. If you were just going to give a laundry list to the next administration of here are the things in your control to make sure more people are moving into those houses. Since as you pointed out, every day that a family is waiting to move in is a huge cost and you yourself spent some, some of your childhood in public housing. What is in the next administration's control? What could it do to just really refocus the city on getting that number down?
- [57:30]
Maria Torres Springer
I think it starts with saying it's important. When I've spoken to different candidates, I'm also a broken record in saying that you have to identify the specific problems. You can have big goals, but also think about those issues that people and families and also to the average New Yorker make no sense at all. It probably is infuriating, confounding that there are vacant units anywhere in New York, given our housing crisis. Right. So and say you want to fix them, make a list. And they may not be the only problems to fix within an agency, but you're clear about what you're going to measure and focus on and then get to the work of fixing the underlying issues that are causing that problem. Because you know what the underlying causes are affecting other parts of the operations, not just vacant units, whether it's how fast to complete work orders in NYCHA and other symptoms of these challenges. And so go about it methodically. What's the funding situation? What is needed in order to make the type of investment? Because it all can't come from government. Do you have the right models that involve different parties, including the private sector, to stretch the public dollar? Are you thinking as carefully and strategically as you need to about the rules, work rules, civil service rules, because that's the environment. It's not going to go away. And you have to understand where are areas where you can make changes that are feasible and will be as impactful as possible, where the juice will be worth the squeeze. And then finally, how do you hold yourself accountable for it? How do you set a goal for the clearing of those units, the time to occupy, whether it's a NYCHA unit or a unit that's that is available because HPD financed it and is in the lottery. And be clear about what your goal is and tell New Yorkers how you did in that particular year towards that goal.
- [59:45]
Santi
That's great. I want to ask you about an equivalent issue in the private sector. There was a program called Unlocking Doors which pledged at first up to $25,000 and then later pledged up to $50,000 for landlords if they would renovate low cost apartments and get them back on the market. And only one landlord applied in the first iteration of that program and didn't end up and following through. And is a property manager quoted in the Gothamist saying he'd rather take money from the mob because the process to get reimbursed from the city was so onerous, you just couldn't rely on it. There's some other, you know, technical complaints as well. Now I know going way back in New York's history, back to the 80s and 90s and kind of these real cash crunch times, one of the things that the city had to do was really slow walk, paying contractors in all kinds of ways. And during that kind of financial crisis in the city, this was like a huge gripe that you couldn't trust New York to pay you. I'm curious in your experience, whether in this Unlocking Doors program or just generally, how do you manage paying the city, paying contractors? I think there's like a perception, at least in some corners that you really don't want to be waiting for, waiting to be paid by the city of New York.
- [61:01]
Maria Torres Springer
Sure. So, you know, that's an interesting program that you mentioned. It I think had very laudable goals of being the type of program where with some funding you could unlock units that otherwise were laying vacant in the private market. And uptake, from what I understand or read recently, has not been particularly strong. And Sandhi, that's a perfect example of like, okay, this program has not met its original aspirations. And is it because it's taken too long to make the payments? Once someone is signed up or is it that there's something about. It's just it's terms and something more basic that is just not as attractive. Because if it's not as attractive, if the economics don't work, then an owner certainly not going to go through the paperwork pain right of waiting for those payments to come through. So I think that's the analysis that needs to be done so that the program gets modified. And what I hope however doesn't happen, because here's where I think it becomes hard for the work of public servants is when someone takes a risk on a program, you know, one that hasn't happened before. Some of those programs are not going to be successful. That's just the. That's inherent right in trying to solve novel problems with novel solutions. Too often when something doesn't work, it's called the failure. Then it, it becomes a matter of public servants. The tone is too accusatory that they don't take the next risk. And that's a shame because if it's only programs that we know where all the dies have been. It can, it will absolutely work. Then you are not incentivizing the type of. Of innovation that's needed in government.
- [62:56]
Santi
Let me just interject before you continue on payments because I do. I should clarify for, for listeners, I. I think you're totally right that the issues with unlocking doors had a lot to do at least in the. You know what people said about that program with the terms rather than it's not the case. A lot of people went through and they didn't get paid. That was a worry that came up in reporting. But I think the practical reason people said they were not entering that program was what you described was that the terms were not just did not make sense financially or economically. So I just want to make sure that we have that on the record for listeners. But do you want to hear your point on payments?
- [63:29]
Maria Torres Springer
Got it. Sure. No payments. I think the way we pay our contractors and vendors and we should be clear that this is all manner of organizations, not for profit organizations, small women and minority owned businesses to large corporations. That system is a product of a lot of rules and regulations and other safeguards that are there to safeguard against waste and fraud. So these are good reasons why we create these systems. But over time what that means is that it takes too long and that the types of steps that one has to go through in order to get paid. It's hard for any organization. It's certainly very hard for a not for profit and for a Small business. So that's where the plumbing really, really needs to get fixed. And I think there has been really good work that has happened in government to better automate those systems. To ask whether we need all of the approvals that are currently embedded in the process, is there a way where government where we can think about reordering some of the steps to make it more conducive? And we should remind your viewers, this isn't just the mayor's office. The process of paying requires many different organizations outside of even the mayoralty. And so all of that has to get broken down and rewired. It's probably the least glamorous, least sexy work in government is to fix procurement. But it's so critical because we spend a lot of how we run government through partners who depend on that payment to keep going and to keep delivering what we ask them to.
- [65:33]
Santi
For sure. Maria, there's so much else I could ask you about. And for people who are listening to this, I'll put a bunch of links in the show notes so you can see Maria's done a lot of work. I mean, we could spend a whole episode on the Ferry Forward project about your work on New York Fairies. But in the time that we have left, I want to look ahead and ask you just about agnostic of whoever wins the mayoral election, what you see is on the horizon for New York. And I'll flag a couple of the things that I'm especially interested in and ask you to respond here. I think, as you well know, New York City lost something like 18% of its under 5 population. Its under 5 population is almost 20% smaller than it was at the very beginning of the pandemic. And in 2024, there was some really great population growth and a lot of good signs for New York on a lot of these metrics. People coming back to the city, job growth increasing. But broadly, when you think about the big hit that New York took from COVID I guess I'd be curious for, you know, return to work in downtown for families leaving. What do mayors, you know, plural, over the next decade or so have to be prioritizing if they want to undo some of those losses?
- [66:46]
Maria Torres Springer
I think it starts with the belief that as mayor, your job is not to just manage decline. And that means not taking for granted what makes New York City so amazing. We've been the global hub of commerce and culture, right? That doesn't mean it will always be that way. We've been the type of place that welcomes people from all over the world. Because there's an opportunity. I mean, I came here as soon as I could. I didn't grow up here. I didn't know anyone.
- [67:26]
Santi
You and me both. I also came here as soon as I could.
- [67:28]
Maria Torres Springer
Right. As soon as I possibly could. And somehow, you know, I became the second in command in city government after a lot of hard work. But that's the type of city that we live in, and you can't take that for granted. So what does that mean? What that means is over the course of the next two decades, New York City will see other crises, natural and man made. And every mayor's job is to not just ensure that the city comes out of that particular crisis or crawls out of that crisis, but takes a great leap forward. So really, Santi, it's an exercise in optimism. It's an exercise in vision. And where the rubber will meet, the road is taking that optimism and that vision and making sure that the execution of it meets a particular moment. Whether it's. You'd mention a couple of demographics in terms of what this means for population and for families in New York. That is. It's a matter of housing, for sure. And not just the number of housing that the affordability of housing, but the type of housing that we create in different parts of the city. But I think it's more than just the homes. It's about the life that you are expected to lead. You know, I raised my two daughters here in New York, and it wasn't just about housing stability. That they had access to really great parks and that we could afford child care, that there are cultural institutions here that are unmatched anywhere, that it could be a safe place for them to grow up. So it's a matter both of affordability and a matter of, we call it quality of life, but I think it should be more aspirational than that. It should be a vision for the city and for raising families and for growing your business that is faithful to the fact that, you know, Lady Liberty is still in our harbor. That must mean something for this generation of New Yorkers and future ones. And that's what I spent my entire career focused on. And every quiet transformation or really loud transformation in this city has been, you know, led by public servants working in concert with civic actors and business actors outside. And I hope that's a tradition that continues.
- [70:12]
Santi
Great. Take this where you want to take it. But I'm curious for your thoughts on the future job market in New York City. I'm just looking at some statistics here about this year that only about 5,000 jobs have been created in the city this year to date, which is the lowest number since 1995. And then more broadly, if you go back to 2020, since 2020, healthcare as a sector has added a huge amount of jobs, like 250,000. And a lot of those are folks or home health aides through programs that the city and the state support. Those in some ways are dependent on Medicaid, which, you know, there may or may not be cuts there. I'm curious, what should the next mayor, or again, the next couple mayors really prioritize if they want to see New York boom as a jobs market and continue to be the center of professional.
- [71:04]
Maria Torres Springer
Opportunity that has been so over the last two decades? I was in government critical moments where the prognosis right after the crisis is that New York is dead, the jobs are leaving, that this is it, this is finally it. Whether it was after 9, 11, after the great Recession, during the pandemic, right? And in each of those moments, New York stepped up and proved the critics wrong. That doesn't. Didn't happen by accident. It's because we have an extraordinary constellation of public and private actors who are really invested in this city and want to make sure that it continues to thrive. So I'll answer the question. What should the next mayor or next set of mayors focus on to keep this standing strong? I think on one hand, you have to be agnostic of sectors. And what I mean by that is, you know, government's not. It's not always that great at saying this is the next booming sector because that's not its superpower. But you know, what it can do and what it needs to do and what it has done and is make sure that the foundations of this city for investment, for job growth continue to be strong. And that is public safety. That is quality of life more and more. So it's infrastructure, transit, and now housing. Right. Because businesses make decisions based on talent, where talent is. And so those foundations have to continue to be strong. Nevertheless, and despite what I said about not picking sectors, I think it's also important to continue to diversify the city's economy. So after the Great Recession, what that meant was a focus on tech and entrepreneurship. I think we're seeing some real green shoots, whether it is in life sciences or in AI, as subsectors. And so those are subsectors, emerging sectors that can be nourished, while our legacy sectors, we tend to, because they are the engines of job growth. But I'll end this point on what is also the Responsibility and the opportunity in government isn't to just make sure that the job numbers are up or certain sectors are strong. It's to ensure that more New Yorkers have access to those particular jobs. And that's where the public workforce system is really critical, so that as growth happens, it happens in ways where the benefits accrue to as many New Yorkers as possible.
- [74:04]
Santi
Last question for you, Maria, and it's been a pleasure. Thanks for so much of your time. For folks like me or for people who are listening to this episode and who want to better understand either how New York City itself works or how governance works in general, what reading list would you give them? What's on the Maria syllabus? Better understand the city and governing the city.
- [74:27]
Maria Torres Springer
That's a good question. You mean aside from the mayor's management report that comes out?
- [74:33]
Santi
Well, I'm assuming they've read it already. Everyone listening to this has read the mayor's management report.
- [74:37]
Maria Torres Springer
Okay. You'll disseminate a quiz to your listeners.
- [74:40]
Santi
That's right.
- [74:41]
Maria Torres Springer
No, I found that you can triangulate the truth with a few different sources, you know, starting with what comes from, from government because it has to tell its own story. And I think what might be wonky that comes out of agencies or even the mayor's vantage report that it's, there's a ton of content and information and so that's a piece of it. There is, of course, and I see more and more in the media, you know, publications like Vital City, for example, that they're trying to tell more the story of, of governing versus in some other publications that unfortunately it's just the news of the day or where the conflict is.
- [75:29]
Santi
What publications are you thinking of?
- [75:31]
Maria Torres Springer
I feel like it would be gauche to name them, but some of our, some of the tabloids, which for reasons that are, I think mostly due to the kind of economics of journalism these days, make it hard to tell the longer form story about what it means to govern or what went into a program that worked or what was really wrong with a program that doesn't seem to work. So that that requires, I guess, a little bit more forensic work from New Yorkers, a little bit more kind of excavation, which I know is people don't have time to do. But that's also a critical part of it. You also, it's not just what you read. It's I think, the places that you're in and being more involved civically because whether that's a community board, a public hearing, or other spaces that get you with to be in conversation with New Yorkers and public servants wherever they are on a particular issue. I don't think anything surpasses that really, in terms of grappling with the issues. And so, for example, New Yorkers have a decision to make this fall in terms of ballot initiatives, changes to our city's charter. There are important questions that will be on everyone's ballot about housing and a number of proposals that would speed the time, streamline the process for building housing in this city. And I think it is really important for New Yorkers to get educated about those ballot initiatives, which they can do by looking at the chartrevision Commission website, by reading up in other publications about what these ballot initiatives are and being in conversation with their neighbors and with those who are involved with the charter commission revision about what is at stake here. And that I think will be well worth their time because everyone, in my opinion, has a real role to play here to help address the housing crisis.
- [77:45]
Santi
Maria, that's a great place for me to leave it on. Thank you again for such a lovely conversation.
- [77:50]
Maria Torres Springer
Thank you so much for having.
- [77:57]
Santi
Sam.