New York City may allow affordable housing developers to ‘double dip’ in subsidies

In a change from last year, the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio would let some residential developers double or even triple-dip into affordable housing subsidy pools for the same projects.

This is a reversal of a policy that would have eliminated double dipping. It came to light as two affordable housing measures were being debated.

One is a property tax exemption called 421-a that would require developers to set aside 25% to 30% of apartments in new buildings as affordable housing. Another, known as mandatory inclusionary zoning, would require that developers set aside up to 30% of all new condo or rental buildings as affordable on rezoned property.

The latter policy must be approved by the City Council. The relationship between the many programs that generate and govern affordable housing is complicated. How the two programs interact with each other, provided they both end up as law, remains to be seen, according to Crain’s New York Business.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.