The real estate lobby is descending on Albany today.
The main issues on the Real Estate Board of New York’s agenda include the renewal of a development subsidy program, reigning in the strengthening of rent control laws and the renewal of an initiative that cleans up contaminated sites, according to Capital New York.
“The agenda is pretty clear,” REBNY President Steven Spinola told Capital. “We need an affordable housing program, which means an extension of 421a in some form. There’s going to be extension of rent regulations, we need to start talking about that. We need to do what we didn’t last year, and that’s extend the brownfields program.”
Spinola was scheduled to meet with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s staff on Wednesday.
While tenant advocates have recently been fighting to abolish the 421a tax abatement program, Spinola told the website that Mayor Bill de Blasio will need some form of the program to create 80,000 new affordable housing units within a decade.
The state’s Association for Affordable Housing is also attending mini-lobby day, the website reported. The affordable housing advocates will push for legislators to use proceeds from bank settlements to create housing for the poor and the homeless, according to the website. [Capital NY] — Claire Moses