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Housing Community Welcomes New Commissioners
The NYHC Advisory Board held a reception on March 30th for the two new housing commissioners: HPD’s Maria Torres-Springer and HCR’s RuthAnne Visnauskas. After the Commissioners presented updates on their respective agencies’ work to address housing needs in New York City and throughout the state, the board engaged in a discussion of regulatory fixes that […] Read More -
Billions of state housing dollars could be unfrozen in new budget
“We are tired of excuses,” said Rachel Fee, head of advocacy group New York Housing Conference, which held a press conference Thursday with other organizations. “We want action, and we want solutions.” Read More -
NYHC Introduces Tax-Exempt Housing Bonds Infographic
Tax-Exempt Housing Bonds, under possible threat in federal tax reform, finance 40% of affordable housing new construction. At a marginal expense to the federal government, housing bonds are a low-cost financing tool that puts into a motion a huge multiplier effect that produces jobs and bolsters our country’s rental and owner-occupied housing stock. Click the […] Read More -
Trump to Cities: Drop Dead
As the Trump Administration proposes massive cuts to everything from housing programs to environmental enforcement, it doesn’t specify exactly where reductions will come from with some exceptions, such us the complete elimination of what’s called the Community Development Block Grant. “[CDBG] does serve a wide range of community needs, but to say it’s not targeted isn’t […] Read More -
NYHC Publishes Analysis of NYS Housing Budgets
This week, the 1-house bills came out of Albany from the Senate and Assembly. The Senate’s IDC and Democratic Conference also released their own budget proposals. NYHC was hopeful that the MOU stalemate would be averted in the budget process as we have endured a year of inaction on what is now $2.5 billion in […] Read More -
NYHC Outlines White House’s Proposed $6.2 Billion Cut to HUD Budget
President Trump’s FY 2018 Budget Blueprint plan was released today which will increase defense funding by $54 billion by cutting non-defense discretionary spending. A more detailed plan is expected to be released later this spring. The blueprint includes severe cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) of 13.2 percent decrease from the 2017 […] Read More -
Income-Averaging Tweak to LIHTC Policy Could Make a Big Difference for Developers
“Most of the housing in the tax credit program gets created just below 60 percent,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of New York Housing Conference (NYHC), an affordable housing nonprofit that supports income averaging. The proposal, she argues, would provide deeper affordability for projects in the LIHTC program by having higher earners “cross-subsidize” lower income […] Read More -
Budget Cuts Proposed By President Trump Would Exacerbate New York’s Affordable Housing and Homeless Crisis
While full details of President’s Trump’s budget request aren’t expected to be available for a couple of weeks, in last night’s address to Congress, the President proposed an historic increase to military spending. White House officials have promised a $54 billion increase to defense spending, which will come at the expense of affordable housing and […] Read More -
New 421-a “Affordable Housing NY Program” Legislation
The 421-a real estate tax abatement which has been suspended since January 2016 has been rebranded as the “Affordable Housing NY Program” in legislation announced on Sunday by Governor Cuomo. The 421-a tax abatement had been previously restructured in June 2015 to provide 3 options for affordable rental housing developed which were to work in […] Read More -
Repairs for City Housing Project in Jeopardy Due to PABC Delay
“What I’ve heard is that the tax credit pricing is only committed to through December 31, and what we’re hearing in a lot of affordable housing projects is, because of tax reform at the federal level, a lot of investors aren’t willing to hold their pricing,” Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing […] Read More