Social housing proponents don’t want 421a

Electeds support office-toapartment unit conversions

by Naeisha Rose Associate Editor

Elected officials have been scrambling to come up with solutions to provide affordable housing to renters while keeping them from being ousted from their homes throughout New York City since the end of the eviction moratorium last year.

As of late, there has been a proposal to renew 421a, a provision that will give developers a tax break if they include affordable units in mixed-use developments that are underway; hearings have commenced discussing converting old office buildings into apartments by changing zoning laws and providing tax incentives to builders; and rallies have been held to ensure that tenants don’t get evicted without good cause.

In 2022, more than 100,000 families received eviction notices, and 17,908 were from Queens, reported ABC7, using data from state court filings.

To alleviate the housing crisis Gov. Hochul proposed an extension on 421a from 2026 to 2030 for ongoing developments to encourage builders to create 100,000 inexpensive homes.

Hochul said that the New York dream should be attainable for all who call the state their home in a press conference last month.

“This year we have to work together to increase the housing supply,” Hochul said. “The whole objective is for families to stay in New York.”

Some Democratic lawmakers — not all — have stated they would not support 421a unless there was support for the Good Cause Eviction bill, legislation that was introduced to prevent landlords from evicting people without justification, according to multiple reports.

As reported earlier by the Chronicle, both state Sens. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Woodhaven) and Toby Ann Stavisky (D-Flushing) would like to support 421a without it being tied to the Good Cause Eviction bill. However, the latter also wants carve outs to accommodate people who have a co-op or condo and both are wary of developers possibly taking advantage of the tax break. Nearly $2 billion in tax revenue was lost via the abatement, according to the reports. In addition, Addabbo does not support the Good Cause Eviction bill.

Assemblymen Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria) and Khaleel Anderson (D-South Ozone Park) are more aligned in their opposition to 421a and support for the Good Cause Eviction bill.

“I do not support 421a,” Mamdani told the Chronicle. “It fails to build enough affordable housing and whatever it does create it does so at exorbitant cost to taxpayers.”

The average 421a unit costs $1.4 million to build and 75 percent of New Yorkers don’t make enough to get those apartments, Mamdani said, using figures from a 2022 city comptroller report.

“The problem with 421a is a problem that you can see within the governor’s entire housing plan,” Mamdani said. “It heavily depends on and leans on private developers. Private development without tenant protection does nothing to resolve the crisis of displacement that we see in my district and across New York City.”

To truly help New Yorkers, Mamdani believes there needs to be social housing.

“What I mean by that is housing that does not depend on the market, but is rather created, funded and needs a mechanism like 421a to build affordable housing, but similar to Mamdani he thinks homes should be created through the state.

“The state is in this weird state where it feels like it needs private developers to build essentially public housing,” Anderson told the Chronicle. “It works when funded and tended to correctly.” or human rights violation — but prove it — you cannot!” controlled by the state — democratically done,” he said. “The reason for that is if you have a basic human right as housing regulated by the market you are allowing for the prospect of New Yorkers being priced out one of their bedrocks for their lives, a home.”

The abatement is a failure because it failed to produce the necessary housing to help people throughout the city, according to Anderson.

Yorkers,” Meeks said in a statement.

Mamdani said that he supports the Good Cause Eviction bill because it mitigates the impact of speculation.

“It ensures tenant protections for New Yorkers living in market-rate units,” he added. “Right now, no such thing exists.”

If corporate taxes in the Empire State were at parity with neighboring states with higher rates the revenue could be put toward social housing, he said.

“There is money on the table and it costs money to build and maintain housing that will not be dictated by the fluctuations of the market,” said the assemblyman.

“The big question is, do we want to do this? I think it is something we should be standing behind in Albany.”

Anderson said that he understands that the state believes it

“We need a program to build real and truly affordable housing,” Anderson said. “We had a program in the city of and the state of New York that allowed people to purchase shares in a cooperation, to purchase condos and to own something down here with 30 percent of their income even as a transit or civil service bluecollar worker.”

Anderson believes it is time to return to the Mitchell-Lama program but in a different form.

Enacted in 1955, Mitchell-Lama homes were city- and state-supervised developments for low-to-middle-income families, according to the city Housing & Preservation Development agency.

Anderson is an advocate for the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, another form of Mitchell-Lama that would give low-income renters priority collective buying rights to an apartment complex if their landlord puts it up for sale.

“The tenants can purchase that building and rehabilitate it with some resources,” said Anderson, who supports the repeal of 421a. “A nonprofit can also purchase that building and rehabilitate it.”

The assemblyman is fully behind the Good Cause Eviction bill because he does not believe people should be displaced because of their race, or weight or if they file complaints if there is no hot water.

“Right now, the law says that you can,” Anderson explained. “What I described sounds like a civil rights

Another housing initiative that the South Ozone Park official is a proponent of is the 5 Borough Housing Movement, which would convert existing commercial buildings in Manhattan below 96th Street for residential use, it would provide tax incentives to developers to include permanently affordable apartments and lift the cap on how many units can be in an apartment complex. Local government would also determine where higher density could be.

“I support the concept of commercial property rentals,” Anderson said. “If the property is just sitting there, we’ve got to figure out what to do with it.”

Some critics of the movement have concerns about overcrowding in schools, stresses to transit and developers taking advantage of the tax break and zoning changes.

Anderson said that he intends to look into the minutiae of the proposal because he does not want another 421a tax revenue loss with little development to show for it.

“We need a mechanism where developers show us why they deserve a tax break in order to get it in real-time,” he added.

Similar to U.S. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-Jamaica), Anderson believes that the creation of new housing in Manhattan provides relief for the people of Queens.

“In the outer boroughs, we don’t have as many business corridors as Manhattan does to provide additional space for housing to exist,” the assemblyman added. “We should also look upstate because there are a lot of depopulated areas there.”

Meeks said that Manhattan must produce its fair share of housing.

Most of the affordable units built from 2017 to 2022 were located outside Manhattan, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office.

“We can’t afford to miss opportunities to address the housing supply crisis that so deeply impacts my Queens constituents and all New

The initiative is estimated to create housing for 40,000 families, according to Councilman Rafael Salamanca Jr. (D-Bronx), chairman of the Committee on Land Use.

“The state would have to create tax incentives,” Salamanca told the Chronicle. “On the city side, it is more complicated. There are building code regulations that need to be adhered to.”

There needs to be a certain amount of sunlight and windows, according to Salamanca. There would also have to be a new HVAC system and staircases of a certain size.

“There are a lot of small details for this to go forward,” Salamanca said. “The property owner would also need capital to convert the building.”

Developers would also have to apply to the Buildings Department for any exceptions to city code and they would have to be in compliance with the new ones.

“The department would have to tell us what needs to be changed and we would have to change the law,” he explained. “As for the cap, the governor is speaking to the state Senate and the Assembly to change that law.”

With any zoning change, an environmental impact study would have to be conducted to determine the needs of an area such as schools, food pantries and hospitals.

According to the councilman, to prevent developers from taking advantage of the zone changes, HPD and the Department of City Planning will have oversight. Q

Correction

The March 2 story “An existential threat from Albany” misidentified which community board the Rev. Carlene Thorbs chairs. It is CB 12. Due to an editing error, her first name also was misspelled. Also, a civic activist was misidentified in a photo caption. It was Henry Euler. We regret the errors. Q