Thank you for visiting PlanNYC.
As of July 7, 2010, we have suspended daily news updating on this website, and will not be adding new developments or policy and legislative debates.
PlanNYC, a student-run website based at NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, has proudly served New Yorkers for five years. During that time, the growth of online information on land use and development issues, along with advances in technology such as RSS feeds and news alerts, have created many opportunities for New Yorkers to stay informed about housing and land use debates in the City. As a result, the daily news updating on this site has become less unique and less critical to our users.
We are pleased to keep the existing PlanNYC content online as a resource; all content on the site is current of July 6, 2010, but will not be updated after that date.
We hope you continue to use the data and research available at the Furman Center (which you can find at www.furmancenter.org), and we welcome your ideas and suggestions for how we can continue to provide objective information and analysis about land use and housing policy debates in New York City.
For additional information or questions, please email furmancenter@nyu.edu.
Proposal Seeks 421-a to Be Based On Full Value, Not Cap
The Real Estate Board of New York has proposed that 421-a tax abatements, which are given as incentives to build affordable housing, be based on the full value of the property. Since 2007, legislation limited deductions to $65,000, although the original state law from the 1980s provided that 421-a certificates were based on full value. Some real estate insiders suggest that the 421-a certificates are trading as much as $23,000 per certificate lower in the current market, and that rolling back the cap would help build a little momentum in the stalled real estate market. No new certificates have been issued since the December 27, 2007 legislated deadline mandated the cap. The proposal must be reviewed by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development before being approved through the state legislature and the governor.