noted<\/a> could very well violate state law.<\/p>\nAs written, COPA could sweep thousands of buildings across the city into its scope, including distressed properties, buildings in foreclosure, properties with outstanding violations and those with expiring affordability agreements.<\/p>\n
Few buyers will want properties encumbered by months of delay, higher legal fees and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Even third-party bidders will think twice if a deal can be pulled out from under them.<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s likely result: depressed property values. Shoddier units. And tenants suffering, in turn.<\/p>\n
Owners who know their properties are worth less will try to cut their losses by putting less money into them.<\/p>\n
Any improvements in \u201caffordability\u201d would thus come at the cost of quality; buildings subject to COPA will be in poorer conditions than if left in private hands.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t mere speculation. After decades on the books, Washington, DC, rolled back parts of its version of COPA.<\/p>\n
Not only did the law produce costly delays and uncertainty, it failed to deliver the hoped-for wave of tenant and nonprofit ownership.<\/p>\n
It created a weaker housing market: delayed sales, less investment and aging buildings left with owners who wanted out.<\/p>\n
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In addition, many nonprofits buyers will likely enter into preservation agreements with the city\u2019s Department of Housing Preservation & Development to secure property-tax exemptions over their new buildings.<\/p>\n
When buildings stop paying property taxes, the city doesn\u2019t cut spending to make up the difference.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s up to remaining taxpayers to pick up the slack \u2014 and subsidize the nonprofit sector and its jobs.<\/p>\n
Worse, nonprofits or \u201ccommunity-based organizations\u201d aren\u2019t any better at providing housing.<\/p>\n
Just because a building is owned by a nonprofit doesn\u2019t mean it doesn\u2019t have to pay its bills. There\u2019s no escaping the hard reality that rents need to cover costs.<\/p>\n
The average operating income of a pre-1974 stabilized unit is just $512 per month \u2014 before paying the mortgage. In The Bronx, it\u2019s just $283.<\/p>\n
Over 20% of nonprofits\u2019 current portfolio isn\u2019t even bringing in enough revenue to meet expenses.<\/p>\n
But for the city\u2019s far left, COPA offers a chance to strengthen its voter base by supporting jobs in the NGO housing sector, dependent on public-sector support.<\/p>\n
It would do little to improve the quality of housing, and its ability to make apartments more affordable is dubious, at best.<\/p>\n
If city leaders are serious about making housing truly more affordable and fostering long-term communities, they would encourage private investment \u2014 by making it easier to build new housing and reducing the regulatory frictions to enter and exit the housing market.<\/p>\n
When regulation makes investment less attractive, the public suffers: Just look at New York\u2019s 50,000 vacant rent-stabilized units, the result of laws that make it impossible to recover expenses to bring apartments up to code.<\/p>\n
Whatever its intentions, COPA is a serious threat to private property from city leaders who are unserious about making housing better or more affordable.<\/p>\n
Adam Lehodey is an investigative reporter at Manhattan Institute\u2019s City Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s City Council is intent on helping nonprofits snap up apartment buildings, whether owners want to sell…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":823107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[852,5229,11096,21976,5310,7065,405,403,5226,5225,15418,5228,5227,1269,10204,24667,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-823106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-affordable-housing","tag-america","tag-apartments","tag-buildings","tag-city-council","tag-housing","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-nonprofits","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-opinion","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-tenants","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116640539368847836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}