ALBANY — With just over three months to go before she leaves office, Mayor Kathy Sheehan has prioritized overturning the disastrous law that was designed to make Albany more affordable but threatens the opposite.
The mayor recently wrote a letter to the Common Council urging members to support repealing a 2023 measure that increased the percentage of units required to be set aside as affordable in new developments. As Sheehan notes, the law effectively shut down the construction of privately built, market-rate housing in the city, which will eventually make Albany more expensive, if it hasn’t already.
“When a city builds fewer homes than the number of people who need them, rents go up,” Sheehan said in a separate letter addressed to city residents. “That’s basic supply and demand.”…