NEW YORK CITY—Celebrating the recent passage of his administration's fifth on-time state budget, on Friday Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke to the Association for a Better New York of his upcoming priorities, with several of them appearing to be good news for the real estate industry.
For the remainder of the current legislative session—which only has another eight weeks to go—the Governor will work to get 421a and rent regulations extended or even amended, he said from a Midtown ballroom. In addition, the state is going to be investing further in the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
“The 421a program has to be extended; that's essential,” he declared. “If it's not, Mayor Bill de Blasio's hope of changing affordable housing will be impacted dramatically.”
Along the same lines, he said of rent stabilization and other rent regulations, “They have to be extended or we'll have chaos in the market. Rents would go up right away and people would get evicted; it'd be mayhem.”
In terms of amending 421a, Governor Cuomo said, “Many people want changes to it and there's a good case to make for that so I'm asking the parties to it to work out the issues among themselves. If they can, great. But negotiation on these finer points is going to be complicated so at a minimum 421a and rent regulations need to be extended. At a maximum they'll be refined.”
On the transit front, the Governor plans to re-appoint Thomas Prendergast as chairman and chief executive of the MTA and he pledged $1 billion to the Transit Authority, in part for a big change in the Bronx. “The budget includes funding of $250 million for four new Metro-North stations in the Bronx. This will make the borough minutes away from Manhattan and it will transform the borough,” he said. “It will open up the Bronx in a way that it hasn't been in decades.”
In addition, the Governor noted, “We have the lowest corporate taxes we've had since 1968, property taxes are capped at 2% and manufacturing tax rates are the lowest they've been since 2017. Also, we have created 640,000 jobs since 2011, placing NY at number two in jobs created since the recession.
Governor Mario Cuomo, the late father of the current Governor, reportedly often asked his son, “Did you make this a better place?” On Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo answered, “We have the state's lowest taxes in 50 years, the highest credit rating ever and the most jobs in New York City. “Government can be a vehicle to make this a better place and I think we did.”
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
