Veteran housing adviser to Mayor Adams leaving for advocacy job amid NYC affordability crisis

A senior housing adviser to Mayor Adams who has been around since the de Blasio administration is stepping down to take over the helm of a nonprofit advocacy group — the latest in a recent string of high-profile city government departures, the Daily News has learned.

Annemarie Gray, who serves as a senior City Hall adviser on land use, will have her last day this Wednesday, she said in an interview. Next month, Gray said she’s taking over as executive director of Open New York, a prominent affordable-housing advocacy group.

Having served in a variety of housing-focused public sector capacities for nearly a decade, Gray said entering the advocacy sphere is “the best use of my energy.” She also did not shy away from affirming that an aspect of her new job will be to hold her old boss’ feet to the fire.

“[Adams] has put a lot of intentions out there that are totally in the right direction. It’s early, and I’m really excited to push to keep all elected officials across the board accountable,” said Gray, who served in the same senior land use post under former Mayor Bill de Blasio during his final year in office.

Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer, who has supervised Gray since Adams’ inauguration, praised her “for helping us get off the ground during these first nine months of our administration.”

“Annemarie is as passionate about housing policy as she is an expert,” Torres-Springer said. “She understands that New York’s housing crisis is very real and that we need to level the type of civic advocacy and action to match the urgency of the moment.”

One of only a few City Hall officials held on from the de Blasio days, Gray’s exit comes on the heels of two other municipal government veterans calling it quits.

Roberto Perez, director of Adams’ intergovernmental affairs office, is heading for the door later this month to join a tech firm after serving in a variety of senior roles under de Blasio, as first reported by Politico.

Greg Russ, meantime, announced last week that he’s stepping down as the embattled New York City Housing Authority’s chief executive amid fallout from the agency’s handling of a recent arsenic scare at an East Village project. Russ, who will stay on as chair of NYCHA’s board, was appointed CEO by de Blasio in 2019.

Gray, who played a major role in the de Blasio era rezonings of Manhattan’s SoHo and Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhoods, is leaving public service as the city’s affordable housing crisis continues to deepen.

The median monthly rent in Manhattan was $4,150 in July — 29% higher than the same period in 2021, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. The homelessness crisis is also worsening, in part because of a recent influx of Latin American migrants, with more than 55,000 people sleeping in shelters on a typical night, according to city data.

The root of the housing crisis lies in New York’s slow clip of building new affordable apartments, Gray said. According to Adams’ first mayoral management report released last week, only 16,042 affordable housing units were in the pipeline to be built or preserved in the 2022 fiscal year, a nearly 50% drop as compared with the 2021 fiscal year.

Still, Gray said she’s cautiously optimistic about the future of housing in the city.

“A coalition is starting to grow that building more housing shouldn’t be controversial,” she said.