NYU’s Furman Center floats new tax abatement for affordable housing

Study finds 27 percent drop in low-income affordable units since 2002

East New York
East New York homes and Furman Center's Mark Willis

New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has suggested exploring the creation of a new tax abatement program meant to preserve affordable housing supply in the city.

A study by the Furman Center found that the number of apartments affordable to low-income New Yorkers has fallen 27 percent since 2002 – a loss of nearly 240,000 units. The report also noted that around 97,000 of those apartments received no city subsidies, a point used to suggest the possibility of a new tax incentive to preserve the affordability of the city’s existing housing stock, according to Capital New York.

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The degree to which a landlord would benefit from such an abatement would depend on the neighborhood their property is located it. The faster a neighborhood’s rent growth, the less beneficial such a program would be for landlords.

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently proposed an end to the current 421a tax break if the state legislature is unable to agree on reforms to the program later this month. [Capital NY]Rey Mashayekhi