REBNY Wants 421-a Tweak
Crain's reports that the Real Estate Board of New York wants developers to still get tax breaks for new market-rate residential buildings in the so-called 421-a exclusion zone, so long as they build a fifth as many affordable apartments within a half-mile of the project or in the same community board district.
The bill Speaker Christine Quinn introduced on Wednesday would require such buildings to have the affordable housing on-site.
All told, though, REBNY's objection is awfully minor given the amount of ground that developers will give up should Quinn's bill pass, which it most certainly will. Her exclusion zone will grow from central Manhattan, where it now is, south to the Battery, into Harlem and along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront--and it might grow even larger as the next two weeks unfold.
- Matthew Schuerman
