Each Friday, City Limits rounds up the latest news on housing, land use and homelessness. Catch up on what you might have missed here.

Workers at the Urban Justice Center and New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) launched a strike in Manhattan’s Foley Square Tuesday. More than a dozen local politicians showed out to support the employees. (Tareq Saghie/City Limits)

Welcome to “What Happened This Week in NYC Housing?” where we compile the latest local news about housing, land use and homelessness.

Know of a story we should include in next Friday’s roundup? Email us.

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Nonprofit legal providers at the Urban Justice Center and the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG)—including housing attorneys who represent low income tenants—went on strike this week over wages, caseloads and other issues. They face a more worker-friendly political landscape than they did in the last strike of this magnitude, which took place under the Giuliani administration in 1994.

The Trump administration’s plan to exclude undocumented children from Head Start programs, which support low-income and homeless families, will almost certainly have an impact on services in New York City, though providers are unsure of the scale, as they’ve never had to track participants’ immigration status before.

Independent mayoral candidate Jim Walden lays out his housing plan for City Limits’ readers, including a proposal to set affordable housing rents at 25 percent of each borough’s median income.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

Mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo says he wants to repeal the state’s Urstadt Law, which gives Albany control over New York City’s rent regulations (though he never sought to do so during his time as governor), Gothamist reports.

A look at the TikTok strategy of Kenny Burgos, head one of the city’s main landlord groups, via Hell Gate.

The city released long-awaited rules for homeowners looking to build backyard and basement units, according to Crain’s (subscription required.)

The number of building permits filed by developers jumped 43 percent in the second quarter of the year, City & State reports.

City Hall mounted its first legal defense this week against a lawsuit challenging the mayor’s City of Yes for Housing plan, according to the Queens Eagle.

The post What Happened This Week in NYC Housing? July 18, 2025 appeared first on City Limits.

By MELISSA GOLDIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Missouri congressman Billy Long will be ceremonially sworn in as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service on Friday, taking over a beleaguered agency that he once sought to abolish and that has since been beset with steep staffing cuts and leadership turnover.

Long won confirmation in a 53-44 Senate vote last month despite concerns from Democrats about his connection to a tax credit scheme and campaign contributions he received after then President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for the top IRS job in December.

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Long’s commissionership comes after months of acting leaders and massive staffing cuts that have threatened to derail next year’s tax filing season. Tens of thousands of workers have voluntarily retired or been laid off as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy through the Department of Government Efficiency.

“In my first 90 days I plan to ask you, my employee partners, to help me develop a new culture here,” Long wrote in a message to IRS employees. “I’m big on culture, and I’m anxious to develop one that makes your lives and the taxpayers’ lives better.”

While in Congress, where he served from 2011 to 2023, the Republican sponsored legislation to get rid of the IRS. A former auctioneer and real estate broker, Long has no background in tax administration. He also hosted a radio talk show from 1999 to 2006 “on which the IRS was always a hot topic,” according to his biography on the agency’s website.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News in February that Trump’s “goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” referring to tariffs imposed on other countries. The president has also floated the idea of getting rid of the federal income tax and using tariffs to make up the difference.

The nearly 900-page tax and spending bill Trump signed earlier this month contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. They include new tax deductions on tips, overtime and auto loans, as well as scores of business-related cuts.

Long has toed the Trump party line for years. In 2022, during an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, he released a 30-second ad that falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” from Trump — claims the president frequently touts himself.

During his Senate bid, Long worked with a firm that distributed fraudulent, pandemic-era employee retention tax credits. He appeared before the Senate Finance Committee in May and denied any wrongdoing related to his involvement in the scheme.

Democrats have called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to other alleged tax loopholes. They have also written to Long and his associated firms detailing concerns with what they call unusually timed contributions made to Long’s defunct 2022 Senate campaign committee shortly after Trump nominated him.

Long is not the only Trump appointee to support dismantling an agency he was assigned to manage.

Linda McMahon, the current education secretary, has repeatedly said she is trying to put herself out of a job by closing the federal department and transferring its work to the states. FBI Director Kash Patel has proposed radical overhauls to the 117-year-old agency. And Rick Perry, Trump’s energy secretary during his first term, called for abolishing the Energy Department during his bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, Associated Press Business Writer

HOUSTON (AP) — Chevron has scored a critical ruling in Paris that has given it the go-ahead for a $53 billion acquisition of Hess and access to one of the biggest oil finds of the decade.

Chevron said Friday that it completed its acquisition of Hess shortly after the ruling from the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. Exxon had challenged Chevron’s bid for Hess, one of three companies with access to the massive Stabroek Block oil field off the coast of Guyana.

Guyana is a country of 791,000 people that is poised to become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer, placing it ahead of Qatar, the United States, Mexico and Norway. It has become a major producer in recent years.

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Oil giants Exxon Mobil, China’s CNOOC, and Hess squared off in a heated competition for highly lucrative oil fields in northern South America.

With Chevron getting the green light on Friday, it is now one of the major players in the Stabroek.

“We disagree with the ICC panel’s interpretation but respect the arbitration and dispute resolution process,” Exxon Mobil said in a statement on Friday.

Chevron announced its deal for Hess in October 2023, less than two weeks after Exxon Mobil said that it would acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for about $60 billion.

Chevron said at the time that the acquisition of Hess would add a major oil field in Guyana as well as shale properties in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota.

“Given the significant value we’ve created in the development of the Guyana resource, we believed we had a clear duty to our investors to consider our preemption rights to protect the value we created through our innovation and hard work at a time when no one knew just how successful this venture would become,” Exxon Mobil said Friday. “We welcome Chevron to the venture and look forward to continued industry-leading performance and value creation in Guyana for all parties involved.”

By TERESA CEROJANO and MATT OTT, Associated Press

Markets on Wall Street quietly hovered at record levels before the bell Friday with most of the attention on the latest corporate earnings reports and dealmaking.

Futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq all ticked up less than 0.1% before the bell.

A day earlier, the S&P 500 topped its all-time high set a week ago and the Nasdaq composite added to its own record set the day before.

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Shares of Norfolk Southern jumped 4% on reports that it is in merger talks with Union Pacific to create the largest railroad in North America that would connect the East and West Coasts. The merger discussions began during the first quarter of this year, according to an AP source. Union Pacific shares ticked up 0.5%.

Shares of Chevron and Hess both got a boost on reports that their $53 billion merger was proceeding after Exxon Mobil’s arbitration challenge was rejected in Paris. Exxon Mobil’s had asserted that it had a contractual right to make an offer for Hess’ Guyana assets.

Chevron announced its deal for Hess in October 2023, less than two weeks after Exxon Mobil said that it would acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for about $60 billion.

Netflix dipped 1.6% overnight even after it beat Wall Street’s profit and revenue targets and raised its outlook. The guidance increase may have been lower than some investors were looking for, pushing them to collect profits on a stock that is up more than 40% this year.

Coming later Friday morning is the latest consumer sentiment report from the University of Michigan.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX and Paris’s CAC 40 were both unchanged, while Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.1%.

In Asian trading Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.2% lower at 39,819.11 as traders stayed on the sidelines ahead of an election for the upper house of parliament on Sunday that could wipe out the ruling coalition’s upper house majority.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 1.2% to 24,825.66, while the Shanghai Composite index advanced 0.5% to 3,534.48.

Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 1.2%, helped by a 2.2% gain for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. On Thursday, TSMC reported its net income soared nearly 61% in the last quarter from a year earlier.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.4% to 8,757.20, and the Kospi in South Korea shed 0.1% to 3,188.07. India’s Sensex lost 0.6%.

“Asia’s riding the global rally wave, AI fever refuses to break, and even the Fed is making soothing noises,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management wrote in a commentary. “But underneath all the sunshine is a market running hot, with volatility on sale and positioning still cautious.”

In energy markets, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 73 cents to $66.96 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 69 cents to $70.21 per barrel. The U.S. dollar dipped to 148.50 Japanese yen from 148.61 yen. The euro rose to $1.1646 from $1.1596.