Wednesday, August 8, 2007

City, state reach developer tax break agreement

New York City officials and state legislators have reached an agreement to overhaul a popular tax break for apartment building developers. The aim of the revision is to encourage the construction of tens of thousands of apartments for New Yorkers of limited means.

Bill Aims to Spur Housing for the Poor in New York

The revamping of the tax-break program, known as 421-a, seemed to be in jeopardy earlier this summer after the Legislature passed a version of the city’s overhaul plan that city officials said was so far from what they had intended that they would ask Governor Spitzer to veto it if the Legislature did not agree to modifications.

Yesterday, Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, chairman of the Housing Committee, and city housing officials said they had reached a compromise under which Mr. Spitzer would be asked to sign the bill based on the promise that the Legislature will modify it when it reconvenes this fall.

The planned change reflects a compromise between city officials’ desire to encourage the construction of some moderate-income as well as low-income housing and Mr. Lopez’s insistence that it be used exclusively to help low-income people and not to subsidize gentrification.


Photo from NY Times

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

No victory here. Just another excuse to add to a faltering grid - only instead of luxory housing, you have 'affordable' housing.

Overdevelopment, a slogan and tier for every pocketbook.

How can anyone be happy on this?

Anonymous said...

Wonderful, igore services falling apart to devise another scheme to put more people into the city.