Mamdani must embrace Eric Adams’ spirit of ‘Build, baby, build’

If he wants to actually deliver on his “affordability” agenda when it comes to housing, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will need to embrace Mayor Eric Adams’ “City of Yes” legacy — which centers on unleashing the private sector to build on a scale the public sector can’t.

One good sign: On Election Day, Mamdani publicly announced he was voting for the pro-development ballot propositions that Adams promoted, infuriating the City Council.

They passed (with The Post’s vigorous support), killing the council’s power to veto projects that individual members oppose and otherwise fast-tracking affordable-housing development across the city.

But the new mayor’s team will need to use the revised process to foster private construction; his campaign plans for new housing won’t work, even though affordable rents matter a lot more to making the city more livable than free buses or even free day care.

Ironically, the mayor-elect’s rent-freeze vow won’t help most of his voters, who don’t live in rent-stabilized units; what they need is a big increase in housing supply to bring down market rents.

Mamdani ran on a scheme where the city borrows $100 billion to build 200,000 new rent-stabilized, means-tested housing units.

In other words, he wants to more than double the size of NYCHA, which is failing just as public-housing projects across the country have failed: All hope to save NYCHA’s existing housing stock turns on bringing in private management, under programs initiated under President Barack Obama.

In reality, the city won’t win the right to blow so far past its debt limits, and has zero institutional competence to build on this scale; just look at the haplessly pricey building done by the School Construction Authority.

Anyway, most Zoh fans won’t want to live in public projects, no matter how new and shiny.

So delivering affordability comes down to following on Adams’ gains by further reducing or eliminating barriers to building.

Rezone big-time in the city; speed up the glacial permitting process.

Talk to state lawmakers and regulators about ending or at least easing labor mandates that push up costs; look at making lawsuits less of a drain.

And if the mayor’s serious about revising the property-tax code, he needs to look at the punitive rates on new housing construction: They’re a key reason no developer will build anything except high-end “luxury” housing unless bribed with serious tax forgiveness.

Open the doors to construction for middle-income people, not just the poor: Studies have proven that increasing housing inventory at any price point opens up units for lower-income households as people “move on up” and out.

To make New York more affordable, Mamdani will have to put results ahead of his Democratic Socialist preconceptions: He needs to grow if his city’s to grow.

Channel your inner classic New Yorker, sir: Let’s everyone spit on our hands and get to work building a better future for the whole city.