Zohran Mamdani talked housing policy in the White House, and appointed a transition committee that runs the gamut of housing philosophies.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announcing members of his transition team on Monday. (X/ZohranKMamdani)

It might be the first time the word “ULURP” was uttered in the Oval Office.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani went to Washington last week to meet with President Donald Trump. During a surprisingly warm encounter, Mamdani said that he and the president discussed New York’s land use review process (the Uniform Land Use Review Process, or ULURP).

“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me,” said President Trump in a joint address with Mamdani from the Resolute Desk. “He wants to see housing being built. He wants to see rents coming down. All things that I agree with.”

“We may disagree on how we get there,” he added.

The idea of building more housing in New York City as a way to address the rising cost of shelter has captured many of New York’s elected leaders, Mamdani included. It’s part of the reason he ultimately supported ballot measures earlier this month that changed the ULURP process to make it easier to build. 

The mayor-elect told the New York Times in June that his stance on “the role of the private market in housing construction,” has changed over the years. 

“I clearly recognize now that there is a very important role to be played, and one that city government must facilitate through the increasing of density around mass transit hubs, the ending of the requirement to build parking lots, as well as the need to upzone neighborhoods that have historically not contributed to affordable housing production—namely, wealthier neighborhoods,” Mamdani told the paper.

On Monday, he appointed a diverse coalition of officials to assist with developing a housing policy as he transitions into Gracie Mansion. It included YIMBY voices like Open New York’s President Annemarie Gray, New York State Tenant Bloc leader Cea Weaver, and real estate interests like Real Estate Board of New York President Jed Walentas.

Mamdani’s housing transition team.

“I joined this because Zohran is committed to the all-of-the-above approach to the housing crisis,” said Gray in a press conference Monday. “One that protects current tenants while also building the homes future families need.”

The group reflects Mamdani’s sweeping and ambitious housing plans. He’s called for unlocking private market development with zoning reform, having the city finance 200,000 affordable units, and cracking down on bad landlords.

Weaver, in an interview with City Limits earlier this month, expressed her excitement about an election that invigorated public servants clamoring to work with the new mayor—his “resume portal” has seen more than 70,000 applications—and turned out the most voters in a mayoral election since 1969.

“My hope is that this fresh energy of civic engagement, participation, and volunteerism that led to the victory in this election will spin over into the collective project of governing the city,” said Weaver.

Here’s what else happened in housing this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Take a tour of “The Hole,” a neighborhood on the edge of Brooklyn and Queens that’s being eyed for major redevelopment.

New York State is still waiting on federal funds to open applications for HEAP, which helps low-income households pay their winter hearing bills. In the meantime, see if you qualify for another state program that offers utility discounts.

“An estimated 158,214 households are eligible for SCRIE or DRIE—but only 67,132 are currently enrolled. That means nearly 57.6 percent of tenants who could be protected may still face avoidable rent hikes in the months ahead.”

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

Attorney General Letitia James is suing over the Trump administration’s new rules for a federal homelessness program called Continuum of Care, changes that local officials say would jeopardize housing for thousands of New Yorkers, the New York Times reports.

AG James is also asking NYCHA delay its plan to demolish and rebuild the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses until the start of the new year, as some residents who need to relocate to make way for the work don’t want to move, Gothamist reports.

A City Council bill wants to bring back SROs, according to 6sqft.

Con Edison is canceling its plans to add e-battery charging stations at NYCHA developments, Streetsblog reports.

The 70 NYCHA employees charged last year in a wide-ranging bribery case have now all been convicted, ABC News reports.

The post Mamdani’s Transition Team, And What Else Happened This Week In Housing appeared first on City Limits.

By The Associated Press

A lot of snow, rain and cold weather await travelers for the rest of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with winter storm warnings posted Friday across the northern part of the country and more snow falling over the Great Lakes region.

Storm warnings and advisories extended from Montana to New York, the National Weather Service said. Snow was expected to start Friday and last well into the weekend in some areas with Iowa and Illinois getting the brunt of it. Six inches to a foot of snow is expected in much of west-central Illinois Friday night through Saturday night.

So far, forecast conditions do not meet blizzard warning criteria, meteorologists said — winds of at least 35 mph, visibilities of less than a quarter mile and lasting more than three hours.

A storm that already brought snow to parts of the northern Plains states and the Great Lakes region continued Friday. Snowfall totals of at least a foot were expected by the end of the storm, particularly downwind of Lake Superior across the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan and downwind of lakes Erie and Ontario, the weather service said. Areas of central New York state could see a foot of snow.

Snow squalls Friday bringing quick bursts of heavy snow and dangerous, whiteout conditions for driving were possible across the interior Northeast, the weather service said.

In the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies, a combination of snow and rain was expected Friday. By Saturday, the snow will taper off for the Rockies and northern Plains, but continue on to the Midwest.

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To the south, storms — some of them heavy — are in the forecast, with some flash flooding possible Saturday in the western Gulf Coast.

Temperatures were well below average in the eastern and central parts of the country, with highs Friday expected in the 20s degrees F and 30s degrees F in the Midwest, the 30s and 40s in New England and Mid-Atlantic areas, and the 40s and 50s in the Southeast.

The snowy weather on Thanksgiving brought a number of vehicle crashes in western Michigan.

By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A man arrested by French police earlier this week is thought to be the fourth member of the team that stole France’s crown jewels in a brazen heist from the Louvre Museum, the Paris prosecutor said Friday, meaning that the entire gang is now believed to be in custody.

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Prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office is heading the investigation, said the 39-year-old man has a criminal record, with six previous convictions.

He has now been handed preliminary charges of robbery by an organized gang, punishable by 15 years imprisonment, and criminal conspiracy, which can carry a 10-year sentence if he is convicted for his suspected role in the stunning Oct. 19 theft at the world’s most-visited museum. The robbery gang’s haul of loot was worth an estimated 88 million euros ($102 million) — a monetary value that didn’t include their huge historical value to France.

The prosecutor’s statement didn’t say what role, exactly, the man is thought to have played in the daylight heist, carried out with angle grinders, a freight lift and subterfuge, with robbers dressed as workers in bright vests.

The robbery is believed to have been the work of a four-person team — with two people breaking into the museum’s Apollo Gallery where the jewels were displayed and then being whisked away on motorbikes by two associates who waited outside.

The haul hasn’t been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.

The robbery has focused attention on security at the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum.

The thieves took less than eight minutes to force their way into the museum and leave, using a freight lift to reach the building’s window. Footage from museum cameras showed that the two who broke into the ornate Apollo Gallery used grinders to cut into jewelry display cases.

The emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum.

By MARI YAMAGUCHI and AYAKA MCGILL, Associated Press

NINOSHIMA, Japan (AP) — Baumkuchen originated in Germany but has become a wildly popular sweet in Japan, where a prisoner of war on a small western island started making the treat that has thrived in its new homeland.

Today, the confectionery known as “tree cake” because of the resemblance to a trunk with rings is considered a symbol of longevity and prosperity in Japan, where Baumkuchen festivals are regularly held.

Staff make Baumkuchen, a German layered cake, during a workshop of Juchheim Ninoshima Welcome Center and Outdoor Activity Camp Monday, July 7, 2025, at Ninoshima island in Hiroshima, western Japan. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Japanese adaptations, including those using maccha and sweet potatoes, are popular gifts at weddings and birthdays. Baumkuchen is sold in gift boxes at luxury department stores and individually wrapped, smaller versions can be found at convenience stores.

The sweet’s early years, however, are associated with a catastrophic earthquake and two world wars.

A vendor sorts articles at a baumkuchen store on its opening day in Tokyo, Friday, July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

Making Baumkuchen is one of most popular activities on Ninoshima, just a 20-minute ferry ride from Hiroshima. But visitors also must learn the sleepy island’s role in Japan’s wartime history, according to Kazuaki Otani, head of the Juccheim Ninoshima Welcome Center.

At the outdoor center built over the site of a prisoner of war camp, amateur bakers pour batter on a bamboo pole and roast the mixture over a charcoal fire. As the surface turns light brown, a new layer is poured, creating brown rings as the cake grows thicker and the sweet smell wafts through the picnic area.

This undated photo shows Karl Juchheim, the German who introduced Baumkuchen to Japan. (Juchheim via AP)

This is how a German confectioner named Karl Juchheim baked Baumkuchen while he was imprisoned on the island more than 100 years ago.

During Japan’s militarist expansion period beginning in the late 1890s, Ninoshima served as a military quarantine station as nearby Hiroshima developed into a major military hub. About 4,700 mostly German civilians and servicemembers were kept at 16 camps across Japan during World War I. The German prisoners at Ninoshima were given “a certain degree of freedom” and allowed to cook, Otani said.

Juchheim was running a bakery in Qingdao, China, then a German territory, when he was captured by the Japanese in 1915. He arrived on Ninoshima in 1917 with some 500 German POWs and is believed to have tested his Baumkuchen recipe there, Otani said.

Staff and participants try out baked Baumkuchen, a German layered cake, during a workshop of Juchheim Ninoshima Welcome Center and Outdoor Activity Camp Monday, July 7, 2025, at Ninoshima island in Hiroshima, western Japan. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

When the war ended in 1918, Juchheim and about 200 fellow POWs stayed in Japan. In March 1919, Juchheim’s Baumkuchen commercially debuted in Japan at the Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition. His handmade cake was hugely popular and attracted a big crowd of Japanese visitors, historical documents show.

The confectioner opened a pastry shop in Yokohama, near Tokyo, in 1922. The 1923 Great Kanto quake destroyed the business and forced Juchheim to move his family to the western port city of Kobe, where he opened a coffee shop serving Baumkuchen. That store was leveled by U.S. firebombings on Kobe two months before the end of World War II.

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Yet he remained and grew the business in Kobe, where Juchheim Co., Ltd., still operates as one of Japan’s top confectioners with the help of his wife Elise and devoted Japanese staff.

The atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later killed more than 210,000 by the end of that year. In the aftermath, about 10,000 severely injured victims were shipped from Hiroshima to Ninoshima for treatment and temporary shelter. Most died there and many of their remains have yet to be found, experts say.

Juchheim died of illness at a Kobe hotel on Aug. 14, 1945, the day before Japan announced its surrender.

“His baking was an expression of his wish for peace,” Otani said. “By sharing with visitors what things were like back then, I hope it gives people an opportunity to reflect on peace.”