In one of his final significant acts as mayor, Eric Adams vetoed a raft of City Council  bills on Wednesday — including a set of controversial housing measures, a bill that would issue thousands more street-vending licenses and another raising wages for building security guards.

Adams vetoed 19 bills in total, mere hours before he is set to leave office and turn the City Hall keys over to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. It will be up to the next City Council and presumptive Speaker Julie Menin to decide whether to override Adams’ vetoes — a strong possibility, as all but one of the rejected bills were approved by the two-thirds margin needed for an override.

The only bill that lacked veto-proof support was the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, a policy reviled by the real estate industry that would give certain nonprofits and community groups first dibs to bid on distressed apartment buildings when they go up for sale. COPA, a longtime priority of tenant advocates, passed by a vote of 31-10, with Menin abstaining along with some other moderate Democrats.

“I am vetoing these bills because they run directly counter to my North Star of lifting up working-class New Yorkers,” Adams said in a statement. “These bills will worsen our affordable housing crisis with new, unfunded mandates and red tape, undermine our small businesses with an untested new licensing regime for street vendors, create entirely new bureaucratic processes when existing structures are more than up to the task, and violate state laws governing our labor and law enforcement systems.”

The vetoed bills include:

• Introduction 431-B , which would grant 10,500 more general-vending licenses and 11,000 more food-vending licenses. Although Adams’ administration previously said it was open to lifting those caps, the mayor’s office claimed Wednesday that the bill would impact the city’s “socioeconomic infrastructure” and potentially violate the State Environmental Quality Review Act, although it offered no evidence for that claim.
• Introduction 570-B,  which would create a city land bank to purchase tax liens, shifting away from the city’s current tax-lien sale system. Adams’ office called the land bank a “political body” and said the move could jeopardize property-tax enforcement.
• Introduction 958 , which would require 4% of newly built city-funded housing units to be for homeownership, rather than rentals. Adams’ office said this would add $85 million in annual costs to the city’s housing capital budget.
• Introduction 1433-A , which would require 25% of rental units in city-funded affordable projects to have two bedrooms and 15% to have three bedrooms. Adams said this would add $75 million in costs
• Introduction 1443-A , which would require 50% of city-funded housing units to be set aside for low-income households
• Introduction 1391-A , which would require the city to set a minimum wage for building security guards. Adams’ office said this violates state law that bars localities from setting their own minimum wages, echoing a claim from business groups.

Adams did not veto another contested  bill, known as the Construction Justice Act, which would set a $40 combined wage-and-benefits minimum for construction workers on city-funded housing projects.

Outgoing Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has defended the legislation and emphasized that the bills were crafted with input from Mayor Adams’ administration. In a statement Wednesday, Speaker Adams said the vetoes “put special interests above greater affordability and opportunity for hardworking New Yorkers, and public safety.”

Menin has not committed to scheduling an override vote but criticized the outgoing mayor’s approach in a statement.

“Rather than working collaboratively with the council, the Adams administration has too often sidelined the legislative process,” Menin said. “The council will consider next steps on these vetoes to uphold our legislative priorities that focus on a wide range of topics, from justice for survivors of gender-motivated violence to tax lien reform to affordable housing.”

But several real estate groups praised Adams’ vetoes of the housing-related bills. Jim Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said the vetoes “will prevent further harm to the city’s housing market.”

“Collectively, the impacts of this legislative package would have been the production of even less housing at an even higher cost, all while New York City is experiencing a historic housing supply crisis,” Whelan said.