Mission-driven housing groups oppose Hochul's 421-a replacement, say NYS should redirect resources. What about the organizations in BrooklynSpeaks?

In my recent report on the BrooklynSpeaks session on affordable housing, I noted that presenter Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), sounded low-key--neither enthusiastic nor critical-- about Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposed replacement for the 421-a tax break, which would deliver more lower-income units than currently, but has been denounced by some advocacy groups as a giveaway.

After all, as de la Uz acknowledged, that proposal could mean that future Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park units do meet BrooklynSpeaks' request to focus on lower-income households.

I wasn't sure whether her neutral response was because the proposal was new, or because some advocacy groups for the poor had already criticized it. As of then, the key umbrella group for nonprofit housing groups like FAC, the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD), had not weighed in. 

Well, on 1/31/22, ANHD, of which FAC is a member organization, criticized Hochul's proposal within a report, New York’s Pandemic Rent Crisis, citing a "severe rent debt and eviction crises and disproportionate impacts on people of color, which require both immediate and long-term solutions."

Said ANHD:

New York State should eliminate the 421a tax break and redirect resources to deep affordability, ending homelessness, and investing in public housing. 

Proposed policies

The recommendations include:

• Rent relief
• Eviction protection
• Stability for tenants and long-term supply of permanently, deeply affordable housing

The latter includes the state centering "deep, permanent affordability in its Five-Year Housing Capital Plan," allowing "tenants the opportunity of first purchase of buildings that are offered for sale," and eliminating 421-a.

The role of mission-driven nonprofits

Added ANHD in a tweet responding to my query:

Additionally, non-profit, mission-driven developers like ANHD's member organizations generally use housing subsidy programs designed specifically for affordable housing - not 421a. A list of our member organizations is on our website: https://anhd.org/members.

Indeed, among the members are FAC and IMPACCT Brooklyn, another member of the BrooklynSpeaks coalition. 

Potential complications

While FAC and IMPACCT Brooklyn may not, by virtue of their mission, embrace Hochul's proposal, they might not--at least from the perspective of being part of BrooklynSpeaks--hate it, especially since they are in this case acting as advocates, not developers or co-developers.

Another member of ANHD is MHANY (Mutual Housing Association of New York), the ACORN successor that manages the housing lottery process for the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park affordable housing.

Similarly, MHANY is not using housing subsidies for affordable housing because it's a service provider, not a co-developer. So they might not embrace "affordable housing" at 130% AMI, but it's part of the overall program they signed up for. 

Presumably ACORN or a successor could've sued to uphold the promises in the 2005 Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement, which incorporated the non-binding Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding that ACORN signed with original developer Forest City Ratner, and promised equal proportions of low-income and middle-income housing. 

But maybe they recognized that the case would be difficult, and the cost prohibitive.