From the Daily News:New York's real estate developers want a stimulus package of their own.
Construction projects around town are stalled because of the real estate crash, as investors yank their money out of anything speculative. Plans languish on the drawing board, concrete pits are empty and hardhats are looking for work.
So the Real Estate Board of New York is talking to city and state leaders about jump-starting the market by reopening a once-lucrative tax break known as 421-a.
The old 421-a, launched in the bad old days of 1970s' New York when building new homes seemed insane, gave builders tax breaks for new construction - though developers in central Manhattan had to agree to subsidize affordable homes elsewhere. It stayed in place through boom and bust until affordable-housing advocates and taxpayer watchdogs finally pushed through reforms with a big nudge from Assembly Housing Chairman Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn).
The new version requires developers to build affordable housing on-site and limits breaks to just a portion of the apartments' value - which is why developers rushed to lay down foundations before it took effect last July 1.
In the month before that date, builders applied for permits for 17,128 new apartments. The next month, they sought just 2,102.
As Gowanus Lounge warned back in 2007:
"The tax break both provides an unnecessary giveaway of taxpayer money to developers and affluent buyers, it can serve as a taxpayer-financed tool to promote displacement. Residents in some neighborhoods are, in effect, contributing their taxes to the buildings that will force them out and the affluent buyers who won't have to pay property taxes for years to come. "
21 comments:
"Residents in some neighborhoods are, in effect, contributing their taxes to the buildings that will force them out and the affluent buyers who won't have to pay property taxes for years to come. "
Sounds perfectly Republican to me.
Some people ignore reality in thinking that Republicans represent their values...in fact they manipulate fears and prejudices while doing underhanded deals such as this to favor those they -really- represent.
If you live in -any- outer borough you should be very concerned about this legislation, it simply sweeps the poor and their problems out the service entrance and into your neighborhoods....permanently saddling those areas with "issues" -and relieving the wealthy from facing the inequities they have helped to foster.
Thast a joke to give developers tax breaks they dont pay they bills thats how they make money Most big NYC developer are having liens dropped on their property and are in court because they wont pay.
Tax break - give me a break they have already made millions off the back of labor.
Thanks again Pratt Center.
Now how about a study on illegal conversions - yuou know, something useful.
You whores.
Yeah, thanks Pratt Center.
Now how about fixing that last commenter's brain so he knows what he's talking about.
What were you talking about, anyway?
Pratt Center is front and center for prodevelopment 'studies.'
I am glad this makes you uncomfortable.
When we start seeing them do public studies to profile developer abuses we will lay off.
Until then we will bash them time and again.
Do us all a favor and read the article before you comment, Foundationless and other bozos. The guy from Pratt unequivocally denounces 421-a abuse by luxury condo developers.
Your "bashing" of the institutions of higher learning in this city don't make me uncomfortable so much as ashamed that somehow you and I are both known by the same biological nomenclature. As a dittohead and hater of proper education, you would more properly fall into a devolved species - homo ignorans.
A word from you knuckle-dragging drooling Neanderthal just across the Danube with 20,000 barbarians in full battle-array:
arrayhttp://prattcenter.net/planyc2030.php
The word ‘infrastructure’ occurs three times and generally in the context of facility locations. Is this the best we can do?
http://prattcenter.net/queens_for_affordable_housing.php
The affordable housing canard: is this where Pratt shows up in someone’s community with people from other communities and suggests 1000 of ‘units’ of housing?
Would you do this on the East Side or the West Side or Brooklyn Heights: after all these areas are getting less diverse and less affordable?
http://prattcenter.net/willets_point.php
Ah, Willets Point. Again, what was your position on this mess?
And finally we have this little nugget, a true gem that perhaps will crystallize best why the future will not consider this the "Golden Age" of Community Preservation.
It is something that could have been uttered by the Oracle of Delphi in clarity and timeliness.
"We say yes to accommodate growth but we also say, make sure we share prosperity instead of concentrating it"
- Brad Lander, Director of the Pratt Center for Community Development
What in the hell does this mean and why is this the most pressing issue in preservation?
Certainly calling yourself a place of 'Community Development' sends a message.
"Sounds Republican to me"
Democrats control the city and state. Although occasionally a republican mayor or governor will be elected, in the history of our great state and city, control has been in the hands of the democrats.
Anonymous Sarah said...
"Sounds Republican to me"
Democrats control the city and state. Although occasionally a republican mayor or governor will be elected, in the history of our great state and city, control has been in the hands of the democrats.
Really?....Would you then like to favor us with an explanation as to why the mostly Democratic NYC downstate has had to go hat-in-hand to upstate Rep's on the chance that they might be willing to return some of the tax dollars we send up there to prop their fiefdoms.
Oh, and then there is rent stabilization and various business regulations that Republicans have stymied and weakened over the years.
Do tell,,,how the Democrats have run New York State?
Democrats have controlled the Assembly for 30 years. In that time you had Carey, Cuomo, Spitzer and Paterson. With Pataki as the sole Republican. Also, although the Republicans have controlled the majority of the Senate during that time many upstate and long Island Democrats switched parties to be in the power of the majority, but did not always agree on key issues. The reason downstate had to go hat in hand had to do with weak democratic influences in upstate and LI. To prove my point now that they control all three branches those issues you mentioned will not change much.
GOP - the party that wrecked America
F-U-C-K Y-O-U !!!
Foundationless: "We say yes to accommodate growth but we also say, make sure we share prosperity instead of concentrating it"
- Brad Lander, Director of the Pratt Center for Community Development
What in the hell does this mean and why is this the most pressing issue in preservation?
See, that's the problem... you have serious trouble parsing even the most simple English sentences. No wonder you have reading comprehension issues elsewhere.
Now if only we could explain your fixation with "preservation" when there are other issues at hand, namely 421-a. Let's not get distracted here. You may as well argue that this article somehow proves Pratt is against the manufacture of straight razors in inner-ring suburbs... that would make as much sense as anything else you've typed.
Sorry, but in dodging the issue and attacking me I win pure and simple.
You are served notice that Pratt, Hunter, NYU, and Columbia et al will be hit time and again for being handmaidens to the developers.
All those things that are covered on this blog you ignore. All those laws that have been on the books for generations on preservation that are being trampled, you ignore.
And finally, as to your group of middle class white kids coming into my community with outsiders plumping for thousands of new people poor immigrant people without any discussion of infrastructure - and not doing this in lilly white rich areas - all I can say about Pratt is one word:
Assholes.
Foundationless: "You are served notice that Pratt, Hunter, NYU, and Columbia et al will be hit time and again for being handmaidens to the developers."
Oooh... I'm sure they're all shaking in their boots. With your cool style, bulletproof logic, and indisputable proof, you are certain to emerge victorious time and time again.
Foundationless: "All those things that are covered on this blog you ignore. All those laws that have been on the books for generations on preservation that are being trampled, you ignore."
Snore. This blog covers things?
Do you even know who you're talking to, much less what you're supposedly talking about?
Foundationless: "And finally, as to your group of middle class white kids coming into my community with outsiders blah blah blah."
If you had a single brain cell firing in that ashcan you call a head, you'd have moved out of this hellhole city long ago. Stop your whining. Live and let live. Developers rule!
Foundationless: "Assholes."
Brill.
What do you expect me to say? What CAN I say?
You won't listen to any point of view that isn't your own, and even if I agreed with you I suspect you'd still be frothing at the mouth. Go eat a couple of cookies and drink a glass of warm milk, and maybe your mommy will come to tuck you in.
Oh, and by the way Foundationless. You're the one dodging the issue. This post is clearly tagged 421-a.
My dear friend you would not be here toe to toe argueing blow to blow if this was not important.
Who reads blogs? You do.
And finally to close this arguement, I believe that even you have sensed a change in the breeze.
The winds have shifted so subtly.
Its a different world. You have every right to be disquiet.
Welcome to Crapland.
Anonymous looks to be everything Foundation claims.
A great advocate for Pratt don't you think?
Foundationless: "And finally to close this arguement [sic], I believe that even you have sensed a change in the breeze. The winds have shifted so subtly. Its a different world. You have every right to be disquiet. Welcome to Crapland."
As soliloquy, mediocre. As a closing argument, absolute nonsense. That was just concrete enough, with the breeze and the wind and the "different world," to suggest *meaning*.
But I don't detect any argument. Unless you call trying to turn a thread about 421-a into an anti-education rant an "argument."
Snakeskin: "Anonymous looks to be everything Foundation claims. A great advocate for Pratt don't you think?"
I'm not advocating for Pratt, or FOR anyone else in this case. I'm advocating AGAINST Foundationless' irrelevant comments and Know-Nothing sentiments.
I'm not advocating for Pratt, or FOR anyone else in this case.
(we have moved on sonny)
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