A Q&A with Catharine Young

Q: What do you believe is the best way to fix the housing affordability crisis in New York City?

CY: The proposal included within the Senate’s one-house budget resolution, introduced last month, to establish a Tenant Rent Increase Exemption Program would be an effective way to address affordability by freezing struggling tenants’ rent. The bill will target assistance to those families making less than $50,000 per year living within rent-stabilized apartments who spend more than half of their income for rent. The program is crafted similarly to the popular existing Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption and Disabled Rent Increase Exemption programs.

A version of the 421-a program should be put in place to continue construction of affordable units. Whatever is developed should ensure that affordable construction is encouraged, rather than stifled. When we receive the mayor’s proposal we will be looking at it very closely to see if it in fact does this.

Q: The expiring rent regulations and 421-a tax break tends to dominate the housing conversation. Are there any other housing issues you’d like to confront before the end of session?

CY: Housing had a good year in the 2015-16 state budget. We increased funding for the Rural and Urban Communities fund by over $10 million, to $17 million. The program helps finance mixed-use development projects that incorporate affordable housing with a commercial operation. This program is beneficial in restoring downtowns and other areas by ensuring that people actually live in these areas and support the businesses in these areas. We need to renew the 421-m local tax exemption program, which is expiring this year. It allows a municipality to target an area for redevelopment and provide a real property tax exemption to help finance the project to make it feasible.