NYC Mayor Mamdani's housing proposal to President Trump would cover Amtrak rail yard in Queens and build on top of it

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani discussed his meeting with President Trump about housing in greater detail Friday. 

Mamdani's trip to the White House had all the makings of the social media videos he likes to make. He wore a dark hat and mask to hide his identity on the plane to Washington, and brought along some ego-boosting props to help in his quest. And he played to the president's love of doing something no one else has done. 

"It was a productive meeting in the sense that, after our first meeting in the Oval Office, one of the topics of conversation that we focused on was housing. Housing not only because it was the foremost, and continues to be, the foremost crisis in New York City, but also because it's a place of immense interest in this moment, across the political spectrum," Mamdani said. "And I knew that leaving that meeting, it was my responsibility to return with tangible proposals for what a partnership could look like in building exactly that in New York City."

The unanswered question is, will the president bite? 

Details of Mamdani's proposal to President Trump

Mamdani said he's been working with his team to figure out ways to bring federal partnership back to New York City to tackle housing needs on a large scale. The proposal they came up with would involve building the largest rail deck in the world over Amtrak's Sunnyside Yard in Queens, and then building 12,000 units of housing on top of that. 

The project was last proposed by the de Blasio administration but never came into fruition.

Such a proposal would only be possible with federal partnership, and would require $21 billion in federal aid. It's a dream that other mayors have been unable to realize. 

"And so we put forward a proposal to build more housing in a single project than the city has seen since 1973. More housing than you would get combining Hudson Yards and Battery Park City together. And not just housing, but also parks, also child care, also hospitals - an entire new neighborhood," Mamdani said. 

Mamdani pulled out all the stops to win the president's support. He played to his love of doing the unique, and brought a mockup of a Daily News front page that clearly pleased the president, who can be seen broadly grinning as he happily holds up the headline "Trump to City: Let's Build."

"I was heartened by the fact that the president was interested in this proposal," Mamdani said.

So far, that's all the mayor has gotten out of the meeting. The president didn't hold a press conference with the mayor like he did after their first White House meeting, and the White House didn't respond to requests for comment from CBS News New York. 

The mayor said Mr. Trump "was interested in this proposal and I anticipate it will be the subject of conversations to continue." 

"It is going to be a long process," Mamdani said. "The reason to focus on this one specifically is in a city where we know that land is so precious and so finite, here lies an opportunity to create more of it, by creating the largest rail deck the world has ever seen. And then on top of that rail deck, building more housing than we've seen since the construction of co-op houses and Co-op City."

Mamdani said he anticipates it "won't be the last" meeting on the topic he'll have with the president.

A timeline for the housing project remains unclear. Mamdani said at this point, he's having conversations with a number of local leaders and labor organizers and is hopeful to keep the momentum going.

"It's a massive, massive undertaking"

Carlo Scissura, who served on the first Sunnyside Rail Yards Task Force, applauded the mayor's political acumen. 

"He understood how to get to the president," Scissura said. 

Scissura said the project could be a game-changer for the city. 

"Look, it's 12,000 units of housing. It's job growth for the next 15, 20 years. It's monumental. Think about this, Marcia. We all love Hudson Yards. This is seven times bigger than Hudson Yards. It's bigger than Battery Park City. It's bigger than Atlantic Yards, right? It's a massive, massive undertaking," Scissura said. 

A 100-year project?

Not everyone is ready to sign on. City Councilmember Julie Won, who represents the area, points out that the last feasibility study found it would take 100 years to complete. 

"The facts of the case are everyone needs to know that one, this is a 100-year projected project. That is what was presented to us from the de Blasio administration formerly under Sunnyside Yards master plan. Two, the original projection of the cost was $14 billion and now we're asking for $21 billion. Somehow it's almost doubled in cost yet the units of housing has gone down to now 12,000 units," Won said. 

She added, "If we're trying to meet a goal, as the mayor put for ourselves, of 200,000 units by 2029, we can't wait 100 years for 12,000."

Won also wants to know if there will be any other benefits to the community, like a new rail yard connecting to New Jersey which was once promised, or a bullet train to Washington. 

A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul told CBS News New York that any initiative that can deliver 12,000 new homes is "good news." 

"Sunnyside Yard's untapped potential as New York City's next great community is even more immense now than it was a decade ago, when the city first proposed such a redevelopment plan. As we struggle still in 2026 to address our city's unprecedented housing crisis, it would be a dereliction of duty to not strive toward building thousands of affordable homes, schools, parks, healthcare facilities and more — like a new arena specifically for the New York Liberty — atop Sunnyside Yard," Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said. 

On the ICE raids

The mayor said the two also discussed the detention of Columbia University student Ellie Aghayeva. 

"I shared my concerns as part of my longstanding belief that ICE raids are not only cruel, they also do nothing to advance the cause of public safety, and I care very deeply about public safety in our city," Mamdani said. "I shared with the president that I thought that these continued detentions, as well as cases of those who are out of detention but face the prospect of having to be forced back into detention, do nothing to advance that cause, and I asked for those cases to be dropped."