The leading candidate for New York City mayor promised to build affordable housing.
“Government has to get out of its own way and let New Yorkers get to work,” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, to cheers from the audience of union members, elected officials and journalists at his March 2 campaign launch at the New York City District Council of Carpenters’ building on Hudson Street. “Let’s build thousands of units, and create thousands of new jobs, and let’s do it now!”
Then he said something to make real estate developers tense.
“They’re going to be union jobs, of course.”
His host that day, the carpenters union, has brought the fight to some of the most heated policy debates on housing in recent years, at times taking on a role once occupied by the Building and Construction Trades Council as public-facing antagonist to the Real Estate Board of New York.
Throwing the punches was its political director, Kevin Elkins. During the two-year search for a 421a property tax break replacement, Elkins pushed for higher wage floors and blamed REBNY for holding up a housing deal. (Developers argue that union-level wage requirements on multifamily housing result in fewer units being built.)
Then, in late February, Elkins joined Cuomo’s campaign. What, some wondered, is he doing there?
Based on fundraising totals, Cuomo has real estate in his corner, but the former governor has long counted both organized labor and real estate among his top donors and coalition of supporters. Construction unions and industry players have together contributed about 40 percent of his nearly $10 million super PAC, Fix the City, even though there’s not much he could do to update rent stabilization rules or tweak 485x incentives. Nor is the consummate politician likely to fawn over developers and property managers because of their contributions, or out of remorse for denting their businesses by signing the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
And though it may be similarly remote that Cuomo will kowtow to union interests, it raises alarms that he hired one of the biggest thorns in real estate’s side.
If there was one person who “would antagonize the vast majority of the industry,” a developer told Politico after the Cuomo campaign hired him, “it would probably be Kevin Elkins.”
But even if Elkins isn’t there to irritate real estate players from an official post in a new Cuomo administration, his connection to the would-be mayor of New York City could lift his union’s stature further — giving real estate a beefier opponent.
Birth of a nemesis
The settlement for a federal racketeering case placed the carpenters union under court supervision in 1994. The goal was to root out mob influence on leaders and members, yet problems continued for decades, with accusations resurfacing in 2009 that union leaders had taken contractor bribes in exchange for paying members cash wages without benefits.
The court has gradually allowed the union to shift various oversight from its court-appointed monitor to its in-house inspector general, and if the next year goes well, the union expects to govern itself.
Elkins was not yet in kindergarten on Staten Island when the union’s court supervision started. He got into politics in 2009, working for U.S. Representative Michael McMahon’s campaign. He went on to serve as executive director of the Staten Island Democrats from 2011 until 2014. He worked as Staten Island borough director in the city Comptroller’s office, serving under then-Comptroller Scott Stringer for three years, at one point leaving to do communications for McMahon, who ran successfully for Staten Island District Attorney after leaving Congress. He was campaign manager turned staffer for Congress member Max Rose, a Democrat who represented Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn until he lost his seat in 2020 to Nicole Malliotakis.
In 2021, the carpenters union tapped Elkins as its new political director. Within a year, the union said he’d helped “the carpenters union’s political stock rise,” by overseeing the “first-ever member-led endorsement” process. The union endorsed Mayor Eric Adams and a slate of City Council members who mostly won.
“Elkins is ‘very talented, and he’s obviously very quotable.’”
The union has made “strategic investments” in its politics department to “ensure our members’ voices are heard loud and clear,” Paul Capurso, its executive secretary-treasurer, said. “Kevin and the political team have been a big part of that success,” he said in a statement. “But let’s be clear — the real power of the carpenters comes from our members showing up every day, building this city with skill, grit and pride.”
At the same time, the state legislature was beginning to figure out the replacement for 421a, a property tax break provided to developers of multifamily housing set to expire in 2022. Under Elkins, the carpenters union jumped into the debate, pushing for wage increases.
The previous time the tax break was up for discussion, the Building and Construction Trades Council had taken the public lead for the construction industry.
Elkins developed an outspoken advocacy strategy that included calling out the real estate industry on social media, in TV hits and in these pages.
“REBNY turned around and offered garbage,” Elkins told The Real Deal in 2023. “They’ve rejected every compromise we’ve put forward.”
“With or without REBNY, we, the unions, will start solving the housing crisis,” he said on NY 1 in April 2024. “How come the union trades and Mayor Adams can figure out how to build affordable housing with no tax break, no wage reductions, but the smartest minds in real estate can’t?” he continued. “If they can’t crack that code, but we can, maybe we shouldn’t be asking real estate’s advice in the first place.”
“When’s the last time @REBNY won a legislative fight? I’m being sincere,” Elkins posted on X in November, after the passage of the Fairness in Apartment in Rental Expenses Act, a measure that requires landlords to pay the commissions of the rental brokers they hire and which the carpenters supported.
Friends and foes admire his tactics.
“There are times where Kevin can be a little brash or direct, but I think that has made him effective,” Vincent Albanese, executive director of the New York State Laborers’ Political Action Fund, said.
Former Republican Council member Joe Borelli, who has known Elkins for nearly 20 years but was often on the opposite side of Elkins in Staten Island races, calls him “pug-nosed and tough.”
“Some people can find that abrasive, but he’s also very direct and will look for common ground,” Borelli said. “I’m saying that as someone who has nearly come to physical blows with him.” (This was over the placement of lawn signs during the 2007 City Council election.)
REBNY President Jim Whelan would say only that he thinks Elkins is “very talented, and he’s obviously very quotable.”
Coming to Cuomo
Elkins declined to speak for this story, and it’s unclear exactly what led to his joining the Cuomo campaign or where to look for his fingerprints in proposed policies. The carpenters union’s PAC has given $150,000 to Cuomo’s PAC.
“Kevin is a smart guy who fights hard for his people and those are qualities in high demand on a campaign,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, said.
Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, saw the union of Elkins and Cuomo as a natural fit. “[Cuomo’s] already shown his hand, and that he is very supportive of Building Trades unions,” he said. “The fact that he wants someone on the campaign who does see things through the eyes of labor organizations, shows who he is.”
In April, Cuomo released a housing plan that pledged to build and preserve 500,000 homes in the city over the next 10 years.
The plan — which got most of its press for using ChatGPT and having a lot of typos — mentions supporting the “creation of good-paying union jobs in connection with the major construction projects financed by the plan” though it doesn’t spell out union labor requirements.
City of Yes, which the City Council passed last year, made zoning changes that should increase housing production. But the carpenters union didn’t take a position on the policy, citing the lack of labor standards baked into the zoning changes.
“A housing plan is at best incomplete if it doesn’t talk about the construction workers involved in building all that housing,” Elkins wrote on X in December 2024. “I’ve written policy platforms. It’s not that hard to throw a paragraph together on labor standards — even just to pander.”
The plan also acknowledges that 485x might not be enough of an incentive to build as much housing as the city needs, but blames tariffs, high interest rates and other economic headwinds, rather than the construction wage requirements. In that sense, it nods to the wants of both real estate and labor, without fully committing to deliver two policies that are top of mind.
“The fact that he wants someone on the campaign who does see things through the eyes of labor organizations, shows who he is.”
“I think that Andrew Cuomo, when he was governor, very much ran a housing agenda that was about balancing the interest groups of labor and real estate,” Cea Weaver, director of the NYS Tenant Bloc, said. “It’s not that surprising to me.”
When he was governor, Cuomo left it up to the real estate industry and construction unions to hash out a deal on 421a when it expired in 2016, despite publicly supporting prevailing wages. In 2019, he declined to veto changes to the state rent law, despite pleas from landlords. Having a union leader on his campaign, or raising millions from the real estate industry, doesn’t guarantee what side Mayor Cuomo will take on an issue.
“There’s a sense that people will still have to campaign and push and lobby,” one person with knowledge of how interest groups are thinking about the situation said. “It’s a tense, complicated dynamic because it is Andrew Cuomo.”
At Cuomo’s launch event in March, Elkins uncharacteristically did not want to speak to reporters. He’s on leave from the carpenters union while he works for Cuomo’s campaign, and his social media activity has turned to the mayoral race. The tone is the same, though: He taunts the other candidates (even his former boss, Stringer).
After news broke that the Justice Department is investigating claims that Cuomo lied to Congress about decisions made during the pandemic, he reposted an ad declaring: “If Donald Trump doesn’t want Andrew Cuomo as Mayor, you do.” He added his own comparison of Mayor Eric Adams having federal corruption charges against him dropped in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with the Trump administration: “.@NYCMayor “Pwetty pwetty pwease don’t arrest me. I’ll do whatever.” (Adams has insisted that no such quid pro quo exists.)
A delicate balance
New York state officials trying to win elections on housing policy have to court competing factions: Private developers who want to build; tenant advocates who want to keep rents low; housing activists who want more units affordable to more people; and unions who want work that pays well. Alliances periodically shift. Clashes can hold up housing policy and could influence how Cuomo’s housing plan fares if he becomes mayor.
It’s obvious what Cuomo offers to the private sector, besides not being a socialist. In many ways, he has picked up where Adams left off, striking a similar tough-on-crime approach that resonates with the industry. Theoretically, he could go to bat for real estate in Albany on 485x tweaks, like the wage floors, though doing so would alienate construction unions. REBNY has said the wage requirements will result in fewer units of housing being built, and all 2,600 projects that developers plan to build with 485x avoid the wage floor, according to filings made through May 1. The mayor controls appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board, which could shift dynamics more in landlords’ favor. At the same time, Cuomo has said that he doesn’t support more zoning changes in low-density districts, at least until the effects of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity have been absorbed.
The union’s wants are varied and not always aligned with one set of politics or another.
“We support policies — and projects — that put our members to work. And we back candidates with a proven record of delivering on those priorities,” Capurso, executive secretary-treasurer of the carpenters union, said in a statement.
He dismissed the idea that endorsing Cuomo would preclude the union from backing certain legislation and that endorsements have “nothing to do with what legislation we support.”
Though New York’s progressives are outside the Cuomo coalition, the carpenters union has aligned itself with progressives on a number of issues, including good cause eviction and a Democratic Socialists of America-led campaign to create a social housing authority, a state-run entity that would build and renovate housing.
“We’re on different sides of this election but have been grateful for his past support in organizing labor in support of tenants’ rights,” Tenant Bloc’s Weaver said.
In May, Capurso said the union does not support changes being considered by the city’s Charter Revision Commission that could weaken member deference, the practice of the City Council to vote on land use actions based on however the local Council member plans to vote.
In an op-ed, he called member deference “the last lines of defense New Yorkers have against profit-first developers who treat our city like a Monopoly board.” The practice also gives City Council members more leverage to demand concessions from developers as a condition of approving a project, including pledges to hire all-union labor.
Industry sources have questioned the union’s posture on such issues, which put them at odds with pro-housing groups and efforts to make it easier to build more housing.
“The basic question is: If Kevin’s effectiveness is going to be measured by putting union carpenters to work, are they going to have to change their approach?” one source said. “Because it doesn’t seem to be working.”
Campaign and beyond
It is unclear if Elkins will return to the union or work for the new administration if Cuomo wins. If he does go back to the carpenters, he will be doing so with a stronger connection to the new mayor and at a moment when the union is potentially entering a new chapter of self-governance and bulking up potential partnerships.
Last year, the Adams administration announced an agreement with construction union pension funds, including the carpenters, to launch a $400 million fund to build workforce housing. The construction unions, along with developer Cirrus Real Estate, pledged an initial $100 million. Resorts World New York City, which is vying for a state casino license, announced in May that it would join the effort, promising to build up to 50,000 units of workforce housing. Cirrus is also potentially going to co-develop the remaining housing at the megadevelopment in Brooklyn known as Pacific Park.
Cuomo signaled in his housing plan that he supports the arrangement with Cirrus and hopes to expand upon it.
As for balancing the interests between real estate and construction labor, BCTC President LaBarbera said that the next administration can build on the common ground between the two.
“We want to build, REBNY wants to build. We have that in common,” he said. “I think that Andrew, if he becomes mayor, could further those discussions.”
