Real estate attorneys in New York City are stupefied by the stance on Albany's 421a tax abatement.
"This has never been done in the history of the state of New York - in the history of the United States - where two private organizations are going to determine the outcome of a law," said Alvin Schein of Seiden & Schein.
According to The Real Deal, Alvin Schein was referring to the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the Real Estate Board of New York, which represents construction unions. While these two private organizations are edging closer to an agreement earlier this month, the Jan. 15 deadline came and went with no deal.
The sticking point was about a wage requirement, which was insisted upon by Gov. Cuomo and opposed by the real estate industry and by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said it would reduce the development of affordable housing.
Whether the legal counsels to real estate developers in New York City agree with the 421a or not, something has to be done to help develop the much-needed rental housing in New York.
"As a whole, real estate developers are an optimistic bunch," Schein said. "There's hope and concern at the same time. No one really believes that it's going to stay the way it is, without the 421a program."
Steven Hochberg of Stempel Bennett Claman & Hochberg, had said that 421a was created to establish new residential housing stock in New York.
He said it was time for it to "go back to the legislature to look at and see whether or not the current statute works - and if not, what needs to be changed to make it work."
"If this progresses long-term, I don't think you'll see any [rental] development," Schein said. "The 100 percent affordable projects could go ahead, but you're not going to get mixed-income projects," he added, as reported by the Kings Court Realty.
It's "extraordinarily difficult to just have zoning be the tool to incentivize affordable housing," Schein also related.
