New York Affordable Housing Tax Incentive Targets Suburbs

A program proposed in New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s state budget would incentivize affordable housing construction in suburbs and small towns, reports Eddie Small in Crain’s New York. “The proposal would give developers a tax abatement in exchange for making 20% of the homes in their buildings with at least 20 residential units affordable to people making no more than 100% of the area median income.” 

As Small points out, the program would only apply to municipalities with populations of less than 1 million. “In other words, it would apply everywhere in the state that is not New York City.” This is in part because New York suburbs have seen slower growth in their housing stock than the Big Apple. “The city permitted 28 new housing units per 1,000 residents from 2012-2021, while the Mid-Hudson region permitted 22, the Lower Hudson region permitted 13, and Long Island permitted seven.” 

The program is one of several in the proposed budget aimed at boosting housing production in the state to meet the governor’s goal of building 800,000 new homes, known as the New York Housing Compact. The compact also supports rezoning areas near transit for denser housing and requires downstate counties to increase their housing supply by 3 percent every three years. The governor is also proposing an extension of the 421-a program, which provided tax abatement for developers in exchange for limiting rents and expired last month, for existing applications.