Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York announced on Friday two of the deputies he had chosen to advance some of the most important pieces of his progressive agenda, naming Leila Bozorg, a longtime government employee, as deputy mayor for housing and planning, and Julie Su, a former acting labor secretary, as the city’s first ever deputy mayor for economic justice.
In choosing Ms. Bozorg, Mr. Mamdani tapped a well-known insider and champion of development who is currently the executive director of housing under Mayor Eric Adams.
And by picking Ms. Su, who was acting secretary of labor under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., he selected a proponent of workers’ rights who is a major ally to labor unions.
“I am eager to measure our success by one simple metric: How many forgotten New Yorkers feel themselves now represented in City Hall, and how many people across the city feel their lives measurably improved by those fortunate enough to serve them,” Mr. Mamdani said Friday as he made the announcement, speaking at a garage on Staten Island that will become the site of a new affordable housing development.
Ms. Bozorg 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 the city’s worst affordability crisis in decades and a stubborn housing shortage.
“When you can’t afford a home — so many of our neighbors cannot — you cannot fathom a life of dignity and security,” Ms. Bozorg said on Friday. “Everything depends on stable housing.”
Ms. Bozorg will work to help 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, 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.
And 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.
Mr. Adams and former Mayor Bill de Blasio have put several of the city’s public housing developments through the program, though it remains contentious among some housing advocates who worry that it erodes protections for tenants.
Ms. Su will focus on protections for the city’s workers and consumers, and will oversee agencies like the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the Taxi & Limousine Commission and the Department of Cultural Affairs.
“In the richest city in the richest country in the world, no one should be treated as disposable,” Ms. Su said on Friday. “Dignity on the job is not a privilege but a right, justice is not abstract but it is felt in a paycheck you can live on, a schedule that you can build a life around, a workplace where your voice matters and a city that has your back.”
Ms. Su said she would approach her position broadly. In her role overseeing the Cultural Affairs Department, for example, she plans to work to ensure people can afford to take part in the “things that make New York beautiful and lovely and fun,” she said. The “World Cup czar” announced by Mr. Mamdani earlier this year will report to Ms. Su.
In 2023, Mr. Biden nominated Ms. Su, who was serving as deputy secretary of labor, to be labor secretary. Though she served in the position in an acting capacity through the end of Mr. Biden’s term, her confirmation stalled in the Senate amid resistance from Republicans and conservative Democrats who viewed her as too supportive of unions.
As a labor official, Ms. Su pushed to protect workers from Covid-19 and strengthen protections for workers in the gig economy. She also helped to negotiate labor agreements for health care workers, flight attendants and others, pushed to safeguard pensions for workers and retirees, and moved to protect workers from silica dust and extreme heat, Mr. Mamdani’s team said.
Before joining the federal government, Ms. Su served as California’s labor secretary under Gov. Gavin Newsom. In that role, she faced criticism for a raft of problems at the state’s Employment Development Department that came to a head during the pandemic.
The agency, which is responsible for sending unemployment checks, was unprepared to handle a surge in demand from people who had lost their jobs during the pandemic, and many checks were delayed. The state later found that more than $10 billion in payments had been made on claims that could have been fraudulent, including some that were filed under the names of people who were in prison.
Ms. Su and Ms. Bozorg are the latest appointments made by Mr. Mamdani as his Jan. 1 inauguration draws nearer. He has also named his first deputy mayor and budget director, among others.
But even as he gears up to take office, the outgoing mayor, Mr. Adams, is making moves that could make Mr. Mamdani’s agenda more difficult to achieve.
On Thursday, Mr. Adams announced that he had appointed or reappointed four people to the Rent Guidelines Board, the panel that votes every year on rent increases for the city’s nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments. One of Mr. Mamdani’s key campaign promises was to get the board to freeze rents for those units.
Now, a majority of the panel has been appointed by Mr. Adams, who opposes a freeze. Mr. Mamdani may have trouble replacing the new appointees with those more amenable to the move; he can push members out for cause, but they must be given a hearing and can challenge their removal in court.
Still, Mr. Mamdani said on Friday that he remained committed to a rent freeze.
“There’s no number of late appointments that will change that,” he said.
Dana Rubinstein and Laurel Rosenhall contributed reporting.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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