Vanessa Aronson (District 4 City Council candidate) – Meet the Candidates 2025!

The Murray Hill Neighborhood Association reached out to all the candidates running for office in 2025 that intersect our neighborhood (Mayor, Manhattan Borough President, City Council District 2, and City Council District 4, etc.) with questions sourced directly from our members via our Ask the Candidates questionnaire. See the candidate’s answers below.

How you would improve our streets and quality of life?

Quality of life in our city begins with feeling safe, supported, and proud of the neighborhoods we call home. I’ve heard from residents across the district about a growing range of safety concerns, particularly around e-bikes, scooters, and mopeds. From riders weaving through bike lanes to mopeds illegally using sidewalks, pedestrians are feeling increasingly vulnerable. As a parent, I understand that fear firsthand. I feel it when I’m pushing our baby’s stroller while holding my 4-year-old’s hand just to get across the street.

That’s why I’m proud to report real progress. With the help of Assembly Member Alex Bores, we passed legislation requiring mopeds, motorbikes, and e-scooters to be registered at the point of sale, a major step toward addressing the crisis of unlicensed vehicles endangering our streets.
But safety also means accountability. Many delivery companies force workers to meet unrealistic time targets, encouraging unsafe riding and putting lives at risk. These corporations are profiting while pushing responsibility onto the workers. We need stronger oversight — to protect both public safety and delivery workers’ rights.

We also deserve to take pride in the condition of our streets. While we’ve seen some progress, including a reduction in the rat population, we have more work to do. Funding for sanitation will be a top priority for my office. That includes increasing public waste bins, restoring and expanding environmentally friendly services like recycling and composting, and reinvesting in the basic services that keep our neighborhoods healthy and livable.

We must also ensure that businesses are doing their part. Improperly stored commercial waste invites rodents and undermines street cleanliness. I’ll work productively with local businesses and ensure that sanitation laws are enforced fairly, and that owners have the tools and information they need to stay in compliance.

I will also work to ensure our tree pits and green spaces are protected, including through the encouragement of proper leashing and dog-walking procedures that prevent animal waste from entering these spaces and degrading our plants.

Just as clean streets are essential, so is accessibility. This is not just a quality of life issue, it’s a matter of equity. Everyone deserves to move through our city safely and with dignity, regardless of age or ability. That’s why I’ll work to ensure that every curb cut in District 4 is smooth, even, and properly drained, and that unnecessary, intrusive, and unsightly scaffolding is removed promptly to keep sidewalks clear and passable. No one should have to dodge obstacles just to get to school, work, or the grocery store.

Meanwhile, the launch of New York’s congestion pricing program, the first of its kind in the U.S., has sparked valid concerns, especially from residents who live within the congestion zone. While the program is controlled by the state, I believe strongly in fighting for fairness. Cities like London offer exemptions for local residents, and I’ll advocate for similar carve-outs here. I’ll also push to make sure disability exemptions are easy to apply for and processed quickly.

While encouraging more people to use public transit, we need to make sure it’s up to the task. That means service that is reliable, safe, and accessible for everyone, including those in wheelchairs or scooters, parents with strollers, and older adults using walkers or carts.

At the heart of all of this, from street safety and sanitation to transportation and accessibility, is a simple but powerful goal: to make New York a city that reflects our shared values. A city where everyone, in every neighborhood, can walk with confidence, breathe clean air, navigate public space with ease, and feel proud of the place they call home.

How are you going to handle the illegal migrant situation that has escalated into NYC?

New York City mismanaged the response to the migrant crisis because the City didn’t engage with expert partners domestically and internationally who have dealt with this issue before and instead spent large amounts of city funding in an inefficient and ineffective manner. We also experienced a lack of necessary federal assistance due to a breakdown in the relationship between the mayor and the previous administration.

It’s important to note that we’re actually dealing with multiple immigration crises at the same time. We’re dealing with malevolent action from anti-immigrant governors bussing undocumented migrants to our city against their own will, a backlog of asylum seekers who are here legally but stuck in limbo and traditional undocumented migrants, the majority of whom have overstayed a visa. Given the lack of resources, visa overstays often do not represent an intentional illegal act.

My experience as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, including years working overseas and adjudicating immigrant visas, gives me a deep understanding of our immigration system and the challenges people face when seeking safety, opportunity, or a better life. I’ve seen firsthand how migration policies are formed, implemented, and too often mismanaged. That experience equips me to navigate the complexities of the current migrant crisis in New York City with both compassion and practical know-how. I understand the bureaucratic hurdles, the legal frameworks, and the international context and I’ll use that knowledge to push for solutions that are humane, effective, and grounded in reality.

How can housing become more affordable and not just for low income candidates?

We are in the midst of an affordability and housing crisis. As a member of Community Board 8, I sat on the Land Use and Zoning Committees. I experienced first hand the important and grueling ULURP process and know what it is like to critically examine housing proposals.

There are five core strategies I will prioritize on the Council.

1. Protect current stock of affordable housing

Reports show that NYC affordable housing saw a net loss of over 150,000 units, over 75% since 2019. In 2023 alone, there was an estimated net loss of over 4,000 rent-stabilized units. Units are being deregulated, often illegally.

We must protect the affordable housing stock we have. We cannot accept a decline in the percentage of affordable units as street homelessness increases. Affordable housing is key to creating a just and safe city.

2. Hold HPD and DOB accountable for enforcing affordable housing requirements.

Agreements to develop new affordable housing units are great, but they’re worthless if they aren’t enforced. We’ve seen numerous instances where development with permitted FAR increases under Mandatory Inclusionary Housing didn’t follow through and complete the promised affordable housing, especially when affordable housing was permitted to be off-site. Oversight is essential to tackling the housing challenge and the only way we can that ensure that the new Universal Affordability Preference program will succeed.

3. Convert commercial to residential, wherever possible

The current office vacancy rate in Midtown is 20 percent. Many of these empty spaces must be repurposed as residential housing as we seek to optimize our current spaces alongside the creation of new housing. We can build up to 85,000 new mixed-income units in Midtown Manhattan by increasing allowable density on sites where residential towers are already permitted.

4. Prioritize age in place housing for seniors

We need to ensure that seniors have access to rental assistance programs as well as accessibility upgrades and in-home care. We must ensure that they are protected against harassment and know their rights under the right to counsel law. We must build vibrant communities where seniors can age-in-place in the neighborhoods they built and sustained.

5. Build modern middle class housing

City of Yes is a start to the larger project of ensuring the middle-class can thrive in our city. But City of Yes, on its own, is only estimated to result in about 5,000 new units per year across the whole city. That’s not going to be enough, especially in District 4 where we’ve seen plenty of development, but not enough new housing to show for it.

We must be vigilant in ensuring new construction meets affordability targets. For example, what we have seen, including right across the street from my apartment, are tenements with affordable housing being torn down so that towers with a relatively small number of enormous apartments can be built, meaning that even when developers participate in mandatory inclusionary housing and comply with their legal obligations, we end up with fewer affordable units than we had before. This isn’t acceptable, and it isn’t going to help solve the crisis.

As your Council member I will work with all stakeholders to ensure that new projects, especially ones seeking variances or other regulatory exceptions, will meaningfully increase – not decrease – the stock of middle-class and affordable housing.

How would you address homelessness and mental illness in NYC?

We need a comprehensive, long-term approach to finding permanent housing solutions for low-income New Yorkers and bolstering access to mental health services to prevent recurrent street homelessness and stop this crisis in its tracks. I support housing first policies and a homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing without preconditions to people experiencing homelessness, has been found to be a cost-efficient and effective solution for reducing homelessness when implemented in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, and Japan.

We know that approximately 2,500 individuals experiencing homelessness and spending nights on the streets or subways regularly interact with City services. This can be through either one of the City agencies, the healthcare system, law enforcement, or a nonprofit contracted to deliver homelessness services. However, because of outdated technology and bureaucracy, none of these systems have databases that “talk” to each other. This means that law enforcement, EMTs, and outreach workers often engage with individuals without any context—like knowing whether someone has severe mental illness, is enrolled in supportive housing, or has a social worker assigned. The City should improve coordination and care by enabling aspects of these disconnected systems to interact with one another – with privacy protections and controlled access – to make these critical interventions safer and more effective and meaningfully improve outcomes for people on the streets.

Regarding accessible mental health treatment, we need to first prioritize keeping in place the beds and facilities we have now. I will continue to fight to try to stop the closure of Mount Sinai Beth Israel and advocate that the City find a way to replace the 153 inpatient beds for behavioral health and substance addiction that will be lost in the event of its closure. We also need to invest in additional long-term inpatient care for people with severe mental illness. I support Borough President Mark Levine’s call to expand the Transition to Home program designed for recently or chronically homeless patients experiencing serious mental illness who would benefit from patient-centered care at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center (MPC), a secure facility on Randall’s Island. Currently the program only consists of 50 beds despite the facility having the space to accommodate over 4,000 patients. I also support his plan to recruit and retain psychiatric care staff in New York City through the creation of a student loan forgiveness program for doctors, nurses, and therapists who commit to working at least three years in mental health care at NYC Health+Hospitals facilities.

How would you support the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association?

As your City Council Member, I will be an active and reliable partner to the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association. I’ll show up, listen, and work alongside MHNA to improve quality of life for all residents. I will work to deliver cleaner, safer streets; protecting the neighborhood’s historic character from overdevelopment; securing funding for beautification and sustainability projects; and ensuring real enforcement against sanitation and traffic violations. I’ll fight for infrastructure improvements like better lighting, repaired sidewalks, and protected tree pits and make sure Murray Hill’s voice is heard loud and clear at City Hall.

Bio

Vanessa Aronson is a dynamic leader and dedicated public servant running for the open D4 NYC Council seat. Vanessa has spent her career advocating for our city’s most pressing issues, from public education and organized labor to animal welfare and grassroots public engagement.

Currently, Vanessa serves as the Senior Director of Strategy at the ASPCA, where she works to protect animals and strengthen our communities. She previously ran in 2017 and is thrilled to be stepping up once again to serve our district. Before entering politics, Vanessa was a NYC public school teacher, deeply committed to students, families, and our community. Prior to that, she spent a decade as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, representing our country on the global stage. While at the UN, she negotiated multi-million dollar agreements that provided food assistance to 795 million people—a testament to her ability to deliver real results.

Vanessa is an experienced organizer and mobilizer in NYC Democratic politics. As President of the Lexington Democratic Club, she grew membership by 400% and continues to recruit and empower new voices in the political process. She’s proudly endorsed by the Working Families Party, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, and the Lexington Democratic Club. Additionally, she serves as a New York County Judicial Delegate and Democratic Committee member, roles that ensure our judiciary and local politics reflect community needs.

Her commitment to service extends beyond politics—she’s also a former Community Board 8 member and previously co-chaired the Tikkun Olam (“social justice”) Committee at Park Avenue Synagogue. Vanessa’s academic credentials include degrees from UChicago and Harvard. Vanessa lives on the Upper East Side with her husband, Reid, and their two children.

https://vanessafornyc.com