The Daily Dirt: The next big housing bill

One housing fight down. More to go.

Elected officials, union leaders and some housing groups gathered on Tuesday to celebrate the passage of a housing package. If you somehow missed it, it’s packed with proposals that have been debated for years.

As we unpack these measures, another major housing proposal is on the horizon: the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity.

The City of Yes text amendment is another massive document (nearly 800 pages!) filled with zoning changes to encourage housing construction. Many of the proposals depended on the state’s replacing the property tax break 421a, which it did with 485x.

Critically, the state also lifted the cap on the city’s residential floor-area ratio, paving the way for residential districts in the text amendment that allow FAR of 15 and 18. It will be interesting to see, if the new districts are approved, how often developers use them to convert office buildings into housing or instead tear down buildings to build new housing.   

One component of the text amendment I’m watching closely is the proposal to lift parking mandates on new construction. The public review process has not started for the text amendment, so debate over this aspect of the proposal has not quite begun, but I expect it to be among the most controversial. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams told WNYC in 2022 that lack of parking remained one of the biggest issues in her district and other districts in Queens. Whether pushback from these and other parts of the city leads to changes to the proposal remains to be seen. 

What we’re thinking about: Why didn’t the state housing voucher program make it into the budget? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com. 

A thing we’ve learned: G-Max Management is pinning its hopes on a statement made by Justice Clarence Thomas when the Supreme Court rejected two challenges to the state’s rent law this year. The city landlord has filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its case, pointing to Thomas’ statement that the court should take up an “appropriate future case,” if it  addresses “whether specific New York City regulations prevent petitioners from evicting actual tenants for particular reasons.” The petition states that the case serves as the “ideal vehicle” for challenging the state’s rent law because it is “based on a substantially different record, targeting only a specific set of amendments to New York’s regulatory regime.” Worth noting: Randy Mastro, whom the mayor is trying to hire as corporation counsel, is one of G-Max’s attorneys. 

Elsewhere in New York…

—  Just kidding! Ousted former Congress member George Santos, who was running as an independent, has suspended his campaign for another seat representing Long Island, Gothamist reports. That seat is held by Rep. Nick LaLota, who was a vocal supporter of expelling Santos. “Although Nick and I don’t have the same voting record and I remain critical of his abysmal record, I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the House to Dems,” Santos wrote on social media platform X. 

— The first witness for the government in its criminal case against Donald Trump was former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, the New York Times reports. Pecker described how he helped Trump’s 2016 presidential run, agreeing in a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower to be the “eyes and ears” of the campaign.

Residential: The priciest residential sale on Tuesday was a four-story townhouse at 178 Garfield Place for $5.9 million. The Park Slope residence, which Jenna Lyons of J. Crew fame previously sold to a Depeche Mode band member, is 4,424 square feet. Jeremy V. Stein and Jennifer Henson of Sotheby’s International Realty were the listing agents.

Commercial: The largest commercial sale of the day was at 6389-6393 Broadway in the Bronx for $9.2 million. Jeffrey Loewy, the president of the property management company, Atl Van Cortlandt LLC, was the seller of the developmental property formerly known as the Van Cortlandt Motel. The New York City School Construction Authority was the buyer. Giancarlo Cugini & Karl Brumback of JLL represented both sides.

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was a $14.9 million townhouse on the Upper East Side at 163 East 82nd Street. The 7,000 square-foot home spans six floors. The Modlin Group has the listing. — Joseph Jungermann