Ever since the 421-a tax credit expired in 2016, Governor Cuomo, the real estate industry and construction unions have been trying to work out either an extension of the credit that would make all three sides happy. After reaching that deal in November, a press release from Cuomo's office says that the bill is going in front of the state legislature today.
The press release from the governor's office does away with the 421-a name altogether, and instead calls his tax break "Affordable New York." As discussed in the November deal, any developer building a residential apartment with more than 300 units in certain sections of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn can be eligible for a 35-year property tax abatement if they set aside a certain percentage of affordable apartments that stay affordable for 40 years.
In order to bring construction unions into the fold, buildings getting the tax abatement will have to set wages for construction workers at an average of $60/hour on projects that are built in Manhattan south of 96th Street and $45/hour for buildings one mile from the East River in community boards 1 and 2 and in Brooklyn and Queens. Cuomo's press release also touted the expanded income eligibility requirements included in Affordable New York, which the governor's office explained back in November broke down as such:
10 percent of apartments designated for renters earning 40 percent of area median income—New York City's median income is $52,700, but the federal housing formula requires incorporating incomes for the suburbs too, which brings the area median income, or AMI, to $90,600—10 percent reserved for people making 60 percent of the AMI, and 5 percent making 120 percent AMI.
On John Catsimatidis's radio show earlier today, Cuomo claimed that Affordable New York would create 2,500 units of affordable housing every year, and spur the construction of 9,000 units total per year. "It's actually, in my opinion, a better program than the old 421-a," Cuomo told Catsimatidis.
When the deal for the program previously known as 421-a was reached in November, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development called it "unprecedented and unjustifiable on any fiscal or programmatic grounds—all at the expense of New York City taxpayers."
