Blog
The ANHD Blog raises the profile of our issues, and educates our member groups, city decision makers, and the general public on our core issue areas. The ANHD Blog offers sharp, timely and effective commentary on key public policy issues, as well as our work and the work of our member groups.
All of our blogs are sorted based on the issues, projects, special tags, and dates they are associated with, and you can use the dropdowns below to filter through our blogs based on these tags. Additionally, you can do a general search through our blog, using the search bar the right. If you can’t find what you are looking for, email comms@anhd.org.
Blog
November 10, 2016
Words failed many of us Wednesday morning when we woke up to the reality that a nativist, misogynist, racist demagogue had won the Presidency of the United States. I know that we will each be processing this shocking news as individuals, families, organizations, communities, and as a city.
Blog
November 10, 2016
The big-real estate developers lobbying group, REBNY, announced a proposed new deal today to bring back the controversial 421a Developers Tax Exemption. As ANHD pointed out in a blog last week, the proposal is unconscionable on its face because it will give developers an additional 10-year exemption, on top of an already grossly excessive 25-year proposed exemption, creating a tax break that is unprecedented and unjustifiable on any fiscal or programmatic grounds - all at the expense of New York City taxpayers.
Blog
November 4, 2016
The controversial 421a tax exemption for developers – now popularly known as the Trump Tax Break – is back in the news with reports of a possible pre-Election Day deal that would mortgage New York City’s budget for decades to come. As a recent article in Politico New York reports, decision-makers are not only conferring to bring the 421a Trump Tax Break back, but they are also considering making the tax break even more costly by extending the term of the exemption.
Blog
November 3, 2016
On the one-year anniversary of Mayor de Blasio’s unveiling of the Industrial Action Plan, various critical components of the 10-Point Vision remain unfulfilled. While aspects of the plan have moved forward, others have either seen little progress or gone a different direction than the original intent. Ultimately, the purpose of the plan is to ensure that New Yorkers can continue to tap into economic opportunity and mobility.
Blog
November 2, 2016
After 30 years of waiting, many of New York City’s street vendors may finally be able to operate legally. United for Small Business NYC (USBnyc), a working group convened by ANHD, supports lifting the caps on permits for street vendors. Permits for street vendors have been capped at 3,000 since the early 1980s, frozen since the Koch Administration.
Blog
November 1, 2016
The New York City-issued identification program – “IDNYC” – is a powerful tool meant to bring all New York City residents into the service mainstream, and is an important statement of our shared municipal citizenship. The card, first issued in 2015, was designed to provide a free government-issued identification card to the many New Yorkers who typically lack access to such identification, including undocumented immigrants and homeless populations.
Blog
October 21, 2016
Almost one year ago, the Administration and the City Council, with the support of many of us in the economic development community, announced the Industrial Action Plan, a ten-point roadmap for strengthening the industrial and manufacturing sector, a growing source of middle-class jobs and entrepreneurial opportunity for New Yorkers in all five boroughs.
Blog
October 7, 2016
The 421a Developers' Tax Exemption is the most important and most expensive New York City tax incentive that most people have never heard of, and has been an underlying fact of real estate development for the past 40 years. Something surprising happened this past January when the tax exemption was temporarily suspended, an unexpected causality of the struggle between big real estate and construction trades unions.
Blog
September 30, 2016
Last night, hundreds of tenants, workers, business owners, and other local community members packed the Department of City Planning (DCP) scoping hearing for the Jerome Avenue Rezoning. Following a rally and march where community members chanted, “Fight, fight, fight, housing is a right” and “Who’s Bronx? Our Bronx,” members of the Bronx Coalition for a Community Vision streamed into the auditorium at Bronx Community College.
Blog
September 27, 2016
Dear New York Times Real Estate Section, Your front-page article this weekend, with the headline "Finding Washington Heights" and gauzy illustration of a beatific white woman framed in a sea of darker faces, went too far.