Four Democratic candidates running to represent Greenwich Village, Gramercy and the East Village campaigned for the student vote at a forum hosted by the NYU College Democrats last Thursday. The candidates, all up for City Council’s District 2 representative, spoke about their goals to improve housing accessibility and affordability in an effort to make the neighborhoods more accommodating to students.
Harvey Epstein, Allie Ryan, Andrea Gordillo and Sarah Batchu addressed around two dozen students at the Kimmel Center for University Life, detailing their prospective plans for lower Manhattan three months ahead of the primary election. Event organizers said the final Democratic candidate, Anthony Weiner, was not invited to attend the panel, as to not “provide him with a platform given his status as a registered sex offender.”
NYU Democrats President Saha Guerrero and Vice President Tasha Savas opened the forum by asking the candidates how they plan to navigate their missions in the wake of the Trump administration if they are elected. Each speaker detailed how they would use civil procedures to combat right-wing policies.
“It’s a moment to step up and to use civil disobedience to use the legal system, to use our advocacy, in a way that’s powerfully sending a message that we will not cooperate with the Trump administration’s decisions,” Batchu said at the forum. “The most vulnerable among us cannot always step up and do those things, so we have to be working in solidarity.”
After the candidates’ initial statements, Guerrero opened the floor to the audience. In interviews with WSN, all of the panelists agreed that New York City prices for commodities such as housing and groceries are too high and unaffordable for residents in the area, and should be one of the top concerns for students.
Gordillo, a Gallatin alum and chairperson of Manhattan Community Board 3, told WSN that she doesn’t want students to experience the same substandard living conditions that she faced when she first moved to the city.
“The affordability crisis is super important, not just to our survival, but essential to preserving the culture and the landscape that makes New York worth living in,” Gordillo said. “So when we address the affordability crisis, we also address preserving and expanding our cultural richness, our diversity and our future.”
Batchu, who has directed several nonprofits in New York City, also said that students often have a hard time finding affordable apartments after they move off-campus. She said she would work to prioritize land use through rezoning initiatives, such as planting grocery stories in close proximity to housing developments to make necessities accessible and affordable. Batchu also said that she will help draft policies to oppose the Trump administration’s recent executive orders targeting sanctuary cities, homeless people and the LGBTQ+ community.
Candidates also discussed the Repeal Egregious Property Accumulation and Invest it Right Act, an initiative to revoke property tax exemptions given to private universities –– such as NYU and Columbia University, the two largest real-estate owners in the city –– and reroute funding to public schools. The act, which was proposed by New York state Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and has seen consolidated support from student organizations, was also endorsed by the panel of candidates.
While most speakers supported congestion pricing, citing environmental concerns, Ryan opposed the tolls for drivers entering lower Manhattan, referencing working-class people who commute to the area for work. In November, NYU Langone Health also wrote a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul requesting a lower congestion pricing tax for patients and health care workers of the hospital.
“Congestion pricing is not the be-all and end-all, but it does increase the cost of living for small businesses,” Ryan said at the forum. “When you talk to small businesses, they’ll tell you that they’re getting surcharged right now, which will be passed on to us consumers.”
In an interview with WSN, Ryan said that she has heavily supported passing the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which allows currently struggling storefronts to negotiate their rent. She added that with the congestion pricing in effect, it is essential to create more jobs below 60th Street to avoid going outside the zone.
Epstein, a current state assemblymember, also discussed support for small businesses, citing previous efforts he had made to safeguard art institutes on the Lower East Side and noting other local concerns about possibilities of eviction. He advocated heavily for more robust mental health resources, such as affordable therapy and inpatient treatment.
“We all walk the streets, we go to the park, we see what’s happening,” Epstein told WSN. “And we need a plan to get in front of this.”
The NYU College Democrats plan to officially endorse one of the candidates over the next few weeks once members of the club anonymously vote on their preference. The group most recently endorsed Keith Powers for Manhattan Borough President and is also set to endorse a mayoral candidate in the next few weeks.
Contact Amelia Hernandez Gioia at [email protected].
