State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan told a Crain’s breakfast meeting this week that New York City should be subject to the same local property tax levy cap as the rest of the State. The cap is 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. New York City is budgeting a roughly 5.2 percent levy increase for fiscal 2016 and the applicable inflation rate is .73 percent — so the cap this year would have been one seventh of what the City is taking.
Twelve million dollars of that money will go to doubling the City budget for “Anti-Eviction Legal Services,” which the Mayor and other advocates keep confusing with preserving affordable housing. Lost rent and higher legal bills won’t help building owners maintain their properties.
According to Property Press Online, renovation is necessary to maintain the aged housing stock, but the City Council introduced a dozen bills this week to make it more difficult to work around existing tenants, including Intro 936 which will require more detailed tenant safety plans and mandatory compliance inspections.
REBNY, yesterday, reportedly filed a constitutional challenge to the City moratorium on converting hotels to residences.
And the owner of Grand Central Station sued the City claiming that the City’s grant of air rights to a development next door essentially stole the value of his rights, an issue that is likely to be raised again as the midtown east area is rezoned for taller office buildings.
Coincidentally, Wednesday, Property Shark released an interactive air rights map so you can locate space citywide.