New York City homeowners are slated to see their property taxes increase sharply next year, and owners of condominium and co-op apartments will likely be hit hardest, according to the Bloomberg Administration’s preliminary assessment roll, released Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported that taxes on condos are expected to increase by 9.6 percent, or an average of $490, while co-op taxes would rise by 7.5 percent, or $384. Single-family homeowners will see a 2.8 percent, or $107, tax hike. In Manhattan, that means average tax increases of $970 to $11,348 for condos and $594 to $9,351 for co-ops. [more]

From left: Gene Spiegelman of Cushman & Wakefield, Peter Braus of landlord Sierra Realty

The Real Estate Board of New York is in its 10th year of publishing a bi-annual retail report covering Manhattan, and commercial firm Cushman & Wakefield has been putting out its own comprehensive report for years, yet the industry remains far less transparent than its commercial twin, office leasing, insiders say.

REBNY is expected to release its survey of 16 retail corridors and seven neighborhoods in Manhattan next week, a report first published in the fall of 2000 to combat what it considered inaccuracies in market data in news stories.

Last month, Cushman came out with its first-quarter 2010 detailed report on seven Manhattan corridors, and other firms such as CB Richard Ellis and CoStar Group, put out their own quarterly data.

While these reports provide general asking rent data, they pale in comparison to office reports which provide figures on effective rents, leasing volume and other details. [more]

The city’s Department of City Planning is proposing charging a steep
increase in filing fees that would add nearly $200,000 to an
application for some of the largest projects filed in the five
boroughs, documents show. The base fees for projects 2.5 million square feet or greater that
require both land use and environmental reviews would rise by $183,275,
or 62 percent, to at least $474,225, according to figures from the
Department of City Planning calendar published Friday. The hikes are part of wider increases in the city’s vetting processes
that are used to manage development. The jumps in the Uniform Land Use
Review Procedure, or ULURP, and the City Environmental Quality Review,
were first proposed by the Department of City Planning at the City
Planning Commission May 4 meeting and are scheduled to be discussed at
a public hearing June 17. The rules could be implemented as early as
August following a vote by the commission, an agency spokesperson said. [more]

The city is tracking potentially troubled rent-stabilized apartment buildings with an eye toward influencing how they are transferred following a foreclosure, said Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Rafael Cestero. A preliminary analysis undertaken for the first time by HPD would classify many recently purchased rent-stabilized apartment buildings as over-leveraged. The city wants to keep track of the buildings because financially distressed buildings can bring down the quality of life for tenants and entire neighborhoods, Cestero said in City Council testimony yesterday at a hearing on private equity ownership of rental apartment buildings. “Buildings that fall into foreclosure or that transfer ownership multiple times also have had the potential to see significant physical distress, which is obviously not good for tenants,” he said. [more]