The Daily Dirt: The next housing budget fight

The state reached a housing deal. The city has its own housing ambitions. Will the city budget get in the way?

City subsidies fund only a portion of the housing units built each year in the city, but the New York Housing Conference is worried that drops in that funding will prevent builders from fully tapping into federal money. Low Income Housing Tax Credits are often paired with city subsidies.

In a policy brief Monday, the group states that the mayor’s executive budget could lead to a 32 percent drop in the number of subsidized units funded through Department of Housing Preservation and Development programs.

The report describes cuts that would lead to a 52 percent decrease in the number of new affordable housing units funded through the city in fiscal year 2025, compared to fiscal year 2024. But City Hall told Crain’s that the difference in funding is not a cut but a shift of unspent funds from the previous year to fiscal year 2024, bloating the 2024 number, and that HPD will be able to continue funding projects apace.

In any case, the New York Housing Conference is recommending that $1 billion be added to HPD’s capital budget in 2025 to maintain historical levels of housing production and advance the agency’s pipeline backlog. Of that, the group estimates that $812.7 million is needed to maintain current production levels and leverage federal funding.

Separately, the City Council’s shrunken Progressive Caucus is pushing for an additional $2.5 billion to be dedicated over the next five years to Neighborhood Pillars and Open Door, two programs that respectively finance housing rehabs and new shared-equity co-ops.

Meanwhile, dispatches on the property tax break 485x are starting to come in from individual developers. The responses so far range from “meh” to “we’re not building with this.” The Real Estate Board of New York has predicted that fewer units of housing will be built under this program than its predecessor.

It remains to be seen if the other changes in the state budget and the mayor’s City of Yes for Housing Opportunity will be able to fill in these gaps.  

The City Council is slated to hold an executive budget hearing Tuesday on housing and buildings.

What we’re thinking about: If Josh Zegen’s Madison Realty Capital takes over Aby Rosen’s Gowanus project site, will Zegen build or look to sell the land? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com.

A thing we’ve learned: The Order of the Third Bird is a somewhat secretive group of individuals that organize meetings where they “converge, flash-mob style, at museums, stare intensely at a work of art for half an hour, and vanish,” according to the New Yorker. New York is apparently home to various volées, the word to describe local chapters of the group.

Elsewhere in New York…

— Police are still trying to figure out who punched actor Steve Buscemi on Wednesday, NBC New York reports. Buscemi was in Kips Bay, leaning on a wall and texting when a stranger punched him in the face, police say. Buscemi was treated for bruising, swelling and bleeding on his left eye.

— Officials in Beacon, New York, are considering rezoning the last under-developed section of the five-square-mile city, the Times Union reports. Mayor Lee Kyriacou appointed an 11-person committee to draft ideas for redeveloping Fishkill Avenue, which connects the city northeast to the village of Fishkill.

— It is not your imagination that everyone around you (and maybe even you) cannot stop sneezing. Pollen counts vary daily, but to give you an idea, a pollen monitoring station at Fordham’s Lincoln Center Campus recorded 236 particles of pollen per cubic meter on May 6. Anything above 90 is considered high, Gothamist reports. Guy Robinson, who runs the station, says that wearing a mask and limiting outdoor exposure can help. The CDC recommends taking over the counter allergy medications, showering and changing clothes after being outside.

Closing Time

Residential: The priciest residential sale on Monday was $5.8 million for a 3,500-square-foot townhouse at 120 West 88th Street on the Upper West Side. Elizabeth Jean Adams of Brown Harris Stevens had the listing.

Commercial: The largest commercial sale of the day was $8 million for three apartment buildings in the Bronx: 2111 Hughes Avenue, 2130 Crotona Avenue and 950 Jennings Street. They total 242 units.

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $7.8 million for a 4,900-square-foot house at 357 Henry Street in Cobble Hill. Jose Nunez of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing. — Matthew Elo