Lawmakers Vie for City of Yes Housing Funding

Lawmakers are already vying for a piece of the $1 billion the state pledged as part of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity.

Gov. Kathy Hochul committed that money to secure City Council approval of various zoning changes under City of Yes. If approved by the legislature, the funding would be spread out over the next five years for construction of new affordable housing and preservation of existing stock.

But which projects get that money is up in the air.

Democratic Sen. Cordell Cleare wants some of the financing to go toward deepening the affordability at the Seneca, the redevelopment of the former Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem into 105 condo units. The homes would be affordable for those earning 80 or 100 percent of the area median income, but Cleare, along with Council member Yusef Salaam and Assembly member Eddie Gibbs, have called for lowering those thresholds.

“Is there a way to use the City of Yes funding, to use any other funding to ensure that this project, when it is built, will be truly affordable?” Cleare asked RuthAnne Visnauskas, head of the Division of Homes and Community Renewal, during a state budget hearing on Thursday. “How can we make affordability a reality on state-owned land projects like this?”

Assembly member Nikki Lucas asked if some of this money could go toward creating more homeownership opportunities in East New York.

Visnauskas said the state will “work closely with the city” to determine where the funds will be deployed.

It is unclear if these funds will be divided into buckets of project types — including programs that fund new rental construction and those that help preserve existing housing, including public and Mitchel Lama housing — or if some of it will be earmarked for specific projects.

Sen. Thomas O’Mara, a Republican who represents the Finger Lakes, noted that no similar funding has been pitched for other parts of the state and said he is troubled by the dearth of information on the funding’s intent.

“It is concerning to me, the lack of detail, and frankly it should be to everyone in the legislature,” he said.

The city has also dedicated $1 billion to housing as part of City of Yes. Kim Darga, who oversees the city’s Office of Development, said the city funds will go in the capital budget and be dedicated to preservation of Mitchel Lama units and Housing Development Fund Corporation co-ops, along with other homeownership programs.

Plenty of candidates could line up for the state funding, including housing projects that were approved over the last few years have not yet gotten off the ground. One example is Innovation QNS, a 3,200-unit housing development planned for Astoria, Queens, where nearly half of the apartments are affordable, with 25 percent set aside for those earning less than 50 percent of the area median income. The long-stalled megadevelopment at Pacific Park, or the 1,200 apartments planned for 5 World Trade Center, could also use a boost.

The funding still needs to be approved and can only go so far.

New York Housing Conference’s Rachel Fee noted in her testimony that the funding could be absorbed by the needs of the city’s public housing stock and Mitchell-Lamas, and that the funding, if stretched over five years and broadly allocated, “risks being diluted at a time when the crisis is accelerating.”

During the hearing, lawmakers also discussed ramping up housing construction outside the city. The New York State Association for Affordable Housing is pushing the legislature to include $1 billion for what it is calling “State of Yes, Housing for All Plan,” which would provide financing for housing statewide.