ALBANY, NY – New York state lawmakers are poised to pass a $237 billion budget that includes sweeping plans to build housing, close unlicensed cannabis stores and help manage the city’s immigration crisis.
The series of proposals is expected to pass through the Legislature Friday night and over the weekend, nearly three weeks after the budget is due.
The governor and leaders of the state Senate and Assembly weighed numerous political and business demands during their closed-door negotiations. They also faced a cyberattack that temporarily closed parliament’s bill-writing office just as legislation began to flow.
The housing deal, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget crown jewel, was the spending plan’s most contentious issue.
The goal is to solve one of the state’s most pressing problems: a housing crisis in New York City, where supply is dwindling and prices are astronomical. To do this, Hochul turned to a familiar idea: a tax break for developers who agreed to include below-market-rate apartments in new buildings.
New York first offered a tax incentive to developers to build in the 1970s when the city was in financial trouble, and more recently required buildings to offer some discounted apartments to qualify for the program, known as 421-a. .
The incentive has always been controversial. Critics call this a boon for developers, who in turn respond that the cost of building in the city makes it unprofitable. Opponents also point out that this costs the city a lot of money: about $1.8 billion in one of its last fiscal years.
Regarding its effectiveness, a report by the Furman Center, a research group on housing and urban policies at New York University, concluded that 68% of the more than 117 thousand housing units built between 2010 and 2020 benefited from the program.
State lawmakers let the 421-a tax break expire in 2022, with lawmakers in the state Legislature thwarting an effort by Hochul to tweak the program.
This year, the plan was to revive the tax break, but also defend the interests of unions fighting for wage standards and progressives who have long wanted stronger protections for tenants against unwarranted rent increases and evictions.
The end product is something called 485-x. And while formal budget language has not yet been released, officials said it includes a tax break for developers if they rent a percentage of their apartments at below-market rates, a wage deal for construction workers and a package of protections for tenants.
The state will also offer tax incentives to turn vacant offices into apartments and set aside a sum of money to build apartments on state-owned land, as part of the broader strategy to boost housing supply.
“This is a great deal for New Yorkers,” Hochul said in an interview this week with Spectrum News NY1.
Hochul presented the deal as a major legislative victory on a pressing issue, especially after his previous plans to boost construction in the state failed in the House. It also marked an important moment of compromise with progressive Democrats at a critical time for his party.
Within a few months, New York is expected to be a congressional battleground where elections in New York City’s suburban districts could decide which party controls the House. Hochul, who has taken a more prominent role in her party’s messaging strategy, appears eager to carry Democratic political victories into the campaign season and has already begun publicly touting her budget wins.
The governor also pushed to legislate other headline-grabbing issues, including how to deal with the large numbers of international migrants who have overwhelmed New York City’s homeless shelters. Others include concerns about retail thefts that have resulted in cumbersome security measures at many stores, and unlicensed cannabis storefronts that have become ubiquitous in the city.
Over objections from progressives, Hochul pushed through a measure to increase criminal penalties for assaulting retail workers, although at the negotiating table he agreed to make the crime a Class E felony rather than the more stringent felony classification it had. initially proposed.
The budget also includes $40 million to establish law enforcement teams dedicated to organized retail theft and a $5 million tax credit for small businesses to install security measures.
For contraband marijuana stores, the budget should include a measure that allows local authorities to more easily close unlicensed stores. The measure is intended to resolve bureaucratic problems that have embarrassingly thwarted the government’s efforts to shut down thousands of contraband retailers, which operate out of flashy storefronts on seemingly every street corner in New York City.
The state will also spend $2.4 billion to provide shelter services, legal assistance and health care to migrants, among other things, another proposal from the governor’s office.
The budget, made up of several dense pieces of legislation, was introduced slowly in incremental stages this week and is expected to be finalized in a series of votes on Friday night and over the weekend.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
