In her State of the State plan, the governor pitched “a different kind of abatement program” to replace 421-a, which critics see as a developer-friendly policy that siphons nearly $2 billion per year from the municipal property tax pool.
Hochul, who became the state’s first female governor after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in 2021, has worked hard to distance herself from her predecessor, and from what she has described as a toxic working culture in the Capitol.
The project would create about 664 housing units, two commercial towers and a new park in place of vehicle lots and low-rise buildings in an area that city officials have been eyeing for years for potential economic and real estate development.
Home prices in the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood began to tick up before then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to rezone 190 blocks in 2014. But affordable housing advocates and local residents say the rezoning, approved in 2016, only drove more speculators to scoop up homes, jack up prices and push out existing residents.
“From the vantage point of future decades, his many flaws and huge mistakes—all so apparent to us who have watched his day-to-day mayoralty—are unlikely to be as visible as the major decisions he made which, in many cases, were pretty sound and made the city a better place.”
While developers will seriously benefit from a chance to build market-rate apartments in one of the city’s most coveted zip codes, the de Blasio administration says the new construction will also create about 900 apartments deemed affordable under the mayor’s signature Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) policy.
New York City’s incoming mayor will soon inherit a decades-long homelessness crisis insufficiently addressed, and at times worsened, by his past three predecessors. So what will Eric Adams do differently?
Tune into a virtual conversation Wednesday at 10 a.m., where New Yorkers will share their personal stories of navigating the homeless shelter system, and discuss how the city can better help families secure permanent housing. The panel is hosted by Trinity Church of Wall Street and the Family Homelessness Coalition; City Limits’ Editor Jeanmarie Evelly will moderate.
Lawmakers are expected to vote on the rezoning later this week. A 22-item “Points of Agreement” package includes pledges to develop more affordable housing outside the rezoning area—on city-owned land at 388 Hudson St. and an NYPD parking lot at 324 East 5th St.—and outlines new rules for the neighborhoods’ unique artist residences.
“The solution to homelessness is housing,” one stakeholder said. “But the city agency charged with solving homelessness has no jurisdiction over housing, so we are setting them an impossible task.”
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