The mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, plans to announce on Friday that he has chosen Leila Bozorg, a longtime government employee and champion of development, to be his deputy mayor for housing and planning, leaning on a well-known insider to advance some of the core pieces of his progressive agenda.
Mr. Mamdani also plans to name Julie Su, a former secretary of labor under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to be his deputy mayor for economic justice.
Ms. Su has been widely viewed as an ally to labor unions, and during her time in the Labor Department, she pushed to protect workers from Covid-19 and to strengthen protections for workers in the gig economy.
Ms. Bozorg, who is currently the executive director of housing under Mayor Eric Adams, will have one of the most high-profile positions in the new administration. She is expected to take on a set of daunting problems, including an affordability crisis, the worst in the city in decades, and a stubborn housing shortage.
She will also likely play a key role in helping Mr. Mamdani deliver on his bold campaign promises, which include freezing rents on more than 900,000 rent-regulated apartments and building 200,000 affordable homes.
Her appointment is yet another sign that Mr. Mamdani is leaning on established figures to run the city. It is also a sign that he is serious about unleashing private development, too, despite fears of many real estate executives that Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, will seek to rein in the private housing industry.
During her time in City Hall, Ms. Bozorg served as secretary on a special commission created by Mr. Adams that aimed to tackle the housing shortage by making it easier and faster for developers to build homes.
Before that, Ms. Bozorg sat on the City Planning Commission, debating and approving new developments. She helped run a nonprofit, NYC Kids RISE, that prepared public school students for jobs and college. She also spent six years in a variety of positions at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Before that, during a four-year stint at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama, Ms. Bozorg worked on a program to raise money for public housing by shifting management to private developers.
That same program has been used extensively in New York City by Mr. Adams and former Mayor Bill de Blasio, though it remains contentious.
Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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