queensnyatty t1_j750e06 wrote on February 4, 2023 at 2:52 AM

How about instead of all these tax giveaways in exchange for “affordable units” set aside in the buildings, we don’t give out tax breaks and instead use the money to rehabilitate and reissue the public housing units that already exist?

DetectiveMoron t1_j76jcc2 wrote on February 4, 2023 at 1:36 PM

Use what money? Those are tax exemptions that make those projects feasible. Let’s say the city exempts $50 million in those taxes to create that housing. If you take away the tax exemption, it doesn’t suddenly have an extra $50 million. It’s also not enough. NYCHA needs like $40 billion with a B.

TeamMisha t1_j77ka6m wrote on February 4, 2023 at 6:03 PM

While the other poster misunderstood the abatement concept, he gets at an interesting point. I can't find how much taxes in total since the inception of 421a have been abated, but it could be interesting to compare that number and see what could have been done with the money over the years. Would more housing units have been able to be built by the government instead? I.e. if we stopped this abatement and just directly build subsidized housing with the future tax revenue that would have been abated (ideally better than NYCHA, in my dreams...) would we have more or less affordable style housing?

Chipper323139 t1_j7b79x9 wrote on February 5, 2023 at 2:27 PM

Government is doing a bang up job of being a landlord, let’s expand the program…