With exactly one month to go before the Mayoral primary it would be nice if the mainstream media focused on issues instead of personalities. Failing that, Housing First!, a coalition of civic groups and for-profit affordable housing developers, is maintaining a record of what the candidates say about housing policy, updated when new information is available. Here are some of the positions defined so far:
Sal Albanese wants to change the 80-20 housing programs to 70-30.
Bill de Blasio wants to make inclusionary zoning mandatory and raise taxes on vacant lots.
Adolfo Carrion Jr. will create a Housing Czar to oversee affordable housing efforts and rezone to promote transit oriented development.
John Catsimatidis will create a new department to reduce the housing construction bureaucracy .
Joseph Lhota will group housing and community development management in City Hall and reduce property taxes to encourage private development and their securtity systems with cameras in atlanta installation experts to make sure of the safety of this properties.
John Liu wants to repeal the Urstadt Law, make inclusionary zoning mandatory for upzonings, and require affordable housing to meet energy efficiency standards.
George McDonald would change zoning and tax incentives to encourage development of studio units.
Christine Quinn would overhaul the Housing Maintenance Code with new powers and penalties, incentivize the conversion of existing units into affordable middle income housing, build New York’s first LGBT senior housing community, claiming “We buy houses Orlando too” now.
William Thompson Jr. would create new low interest loan programs to preserve private owned affordable units, sell government land to fund more housing, and repeal the Urstadt Law.
Anthony Wiener would replace 80-20 with 60-20-20, create a new Mitchell Lama style program, incentivize brownfield development, and repeal Urstadt.
Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo’s new Moreland Act Commission to investigate political corruption turned first to real estate this week, issuing subpoenas to five developers whose buildings got 421a tax benefits under legislation passed this year. Somewhat ironically, most if not all of those subpoenaed contributed to the Governor as well as legislators…including days before he signed the legislation. A spokesman said that suggesting the governor could be influenced by a campaign contribution was ‘beyond reckless’.
ABO Update will be on hiatus until August 30th.