YONKERS, NY - Mayor Phil Amicone is expected today to propose an overhaul of the city's affordable-housing law that he says will ease burdensome requirements on developers. Amicone called the current law a "failure," saying it imposes too many expensive restrictions on builders. He said it often binds a developer to building 20 percent of a project for below-market rents or sales, and requires a mix of apartment sizes that can be difficult to deliver.
"Why would we continue to hammer ourselves and make it impossible for developers to come in and build in our city by putting such an onerous proposal on them?" Amicone asked. The mayor said he wanted to revise the law to target it to city employees with moderate incomes, rather than lower-paid residents in general. The current law expires at year's end.
In the two decades since the city has had an affordable-housing law, only two developments have been approved by the city and only one started. That development, the Millennium in Northwest Yonkers, has faced extensive delays because of construction problems, said Rose Noonan, executive director of the Tarrytown-based Housing Action Council.
The affordable housing approved as part of the Ridge Hill development and Struever Fidelco Cappelli's downtown redevelopment plan are not a result of the law, but due to negotiations between developers and the City Council. The only other below-market-rate housing built in the city was ordered by a federal judge under his housing desegregation order against the city. That housing required government subsidies to make it affordable.
City Council President Chuck Lesnick and Council member Patricia McDow, D-1st District, had sought to renew the existing law, with one change: eliminating a ban on building below-market housing in southwest Yonkers. The ban was imposed by U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand, who in his desegregation ruling found that the city had systematically concentrated its low-income housing in that quarter of the city.
Lesnick said Friday that he would be willing to consider Amicone's proposal because a potential mayoral veto would leave the city without any affordable-housing law. "He's been working on this over a long time, and we've had conversations on this over the last six months," said Lesnick, who said he was waiting to see the mayor's proposal. Amicone declined to detail his plan, but acknowledged that he had previously said a set-aside of 10 percent for affordable housing - half what is required now - would be reasonable.
Noonan, whose Housing Action Council has a contract with Yonkers to operate the city's affordable-housing program, said the city's current law has been one of several reasons more affordable housing has not been built in Yonkers. Developers are generally able to build affordable housing because the below-market units are offset by higher prices on the remainder of the apartments, Noonan said. But "when you have a high percentage that is required to be affordable, the economics of the deal don't work," Noonan said, adding that she considers 20 percent to be on the high end.
Of the 10 other Westchester municipalities that require a specific set-aside for affordable housing, most require 10 percent to be affordable. Only Bedford and North Salem have rules calling for 20 percent affordable housing under certain circumstances. The Yonkers law requires a 20 percent set-aside, but that can be reduced to 10 percent in densely developed areas.
Amicone said the current affordable-housing law was aimed at residents earning 50 percent to 120 percent of the area median income, a range that does not create enough housing for city employees. The median income in Westchester is $101,600 for a 4-person household. Though Amicone declined to specify what he was proposing for an eligibility range, Lesnick said the mayor had previously said he wanted to focus on those earning roughly 80 percent to 100 percent of the median income.
McDow said she believed lower-income residents, as well as city workers, should also benefit from the affordable-housing program, particularly because some apartments in an earlier generation of affordable housing were being converted to market rate. "People should have the opportunity to remain here on the west side of Yonkers," McDow said.
Source: LoHud.com