Council presses HPD on FY26 cuts, vacancies and preservation capacity

Council finance leaders and housing committee chairs opened the City Council’s fiscal 2026 executive budget hearing by pressing the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to explain how its executive plan would meet the city’s housing needs while showing staffing shortfalls and shifts in funding priorities.

Council Member Justin Brannan and Council Member Pierina Sanchez framed the hearing by pointing to HPD’s executive budget of about $1.6 billion and a staffing shortfall that officials say undercuts the agency’s ability to preserve and build affordable housing.

Acting HPD Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said the agency is carrying out “neighborhood by neighborhood” work across the five boroughs, highlighting recent efforts to relaunch a Neighborhood Pillars program, advance supportive housing and overhaul the Housing Connect application system. Tigani told the committees HPD’s work is “not theoretical” and described programs meant to reduce paperwork, improve marketing and open lotteries for affordable units.

Council members repeatedly raised the shortfall in the executive budget (about $90 million less than the earlier preliminary plan), and the agency’s reliance on federal grants. Tigani and deputy officials said roughly 69% of HPD’s expense budget is federal funding, driven by Section 8 rental subsidies and Community Development Block Grant activity, and that city capital makes up most of their capital commitment. Tigani said the city and HPD are monitoring federal appropriations closely and are engaged with congressional offices.

Staffing and vacancies drew sustained attention. HPD officials said project-management lines are constrained: the Office of Development has a budgeted project-management headcount of roughly 113 project manager positions with around 82 staffed and about 30 vacancies (a roughly 27% vacancy rate in that category). Tigani described a mix of strategies — 1-for-1 hiring exceptions for critical positions, grant-funded hires, temporary capacity accelerator programs and outside legal and transaction support — to keep projects moving while recruiting permanent staff. He also said FY26 includes funding for roughly 30 new heads reimbursed by capital to speed transaction work.

Council members pressed for clarity on how long it takes to move projects through HPD, and HPD staff described a pipeline that can range from months to years. Tigani and other deputies attributed delays to several factors: complex finance stacks that use layered federal, state and city subsidies; construction cost escalation and capital-market uncertainty; regulatory and zoning steps that can require variances or discretionary approvals; and coordination across agencies such as DOB and DEP. They described steps to shorten timelines including new term sheets for preservation and new construction, a “community partnerships for affordable renovation” pilot with CDFIs to prepackage loan-ready projects, and reorganizing legal capacity focused on preservation.

Council leaders asked HPD to return with more detail on vacancy breakdowns by unit type and to supply a timeline for filling project-management vacancies. Tigani said HPD would follow up with more granular headcount and pipeline data and that several hiring postings had just been issued.

Why it matters: Council members said the numbers show a mismatch between stated priorities and spending at a moment they called a housing crisis, stressing that vacancies in HPD’s workforce slow both preservation and production and that federal funding volatility raises risk for programs tied to grants.

Looking ahead: Council members asked HPD for follow-up data on vacancy and hiring timelines, the funding split between federal and city sources, and a roll-out timeline for preservation term sheets and Housing Connect reforms.