Bronx condo complex gets tax break in budget bill

A Bronx condominium complex constructed by the Beechwood Organization snagged millions in tax benefits thanks to a last-minute bill added to the state’s $138 billion budget.

The deal for Harbor Pointe at Shorehaven Condominiums, located at 101 Soundview Avenue in the Bronx, will benefit the property’s 204 owners and was engineered by state Senate co-leader Jeff Klein, whose district includes the area.

Bronx Assemblyman Marcos Crespo told the Post that the de Blasio administration signed off on the deal, though the same piece of legislation stalled in the Assembly during the Bloomberg administration, which argued that the bill would cost taxpayers $17 million. The mayor’s office did not return emails from the Post seeking comment.

“By providing a retroactive benefit outside the normal confines of the section 421-a program, this bill would undermine the financial stability of the City of New York by incentivizing individual property owners to seek legislation to expand or enrich their as-of-right tax benefits,” Joseph Garba, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s director of state legislative affairs, wrote in June 2013.

A spokesperson for Michael Dubb, Long Island-based Beechwood’s president, told the Post that the developer himself won’t benefit from the legislation, and said the 204 owners “should be treated like their neighbors,” many of whom “are first-time, working-class home buyers.”

Officials told the Post that owners who purchased their condominium properties back in 2009 would not be eligible for retroactive tax benefits. [NYP] — Julie Strickland