Dive Brief:
- New York City launched a four-year, $4 billion initiative to boost affordable housing development and preservation across the city’s five boroughs, Comptroller Mark Levine announced.
- The NYC Housing Investment Initiative doubles the amount of city pension funds invested in housing. “We’ve advanced critical zoning changes, but without financing, housing doesn’t get built,” Levine said in a news release.
- The program will also support office-to-housing conversions.
Dive Insight:
Amid an ongoing housing affordability crisis, local governments are seeking creative ways to help finance housing projects.
Philadelphia and Durham, North Carolina, have dedicated millions in municipal bonds to increase housing. Seattle last year instituted a 5% social housing tax on compensation businesses pay to employees beyond $1 million annually.
Communities including Chicago and California also are finding public land they can reallocate to housing. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently pledged to fast-track permitting processes for such projects.
Since the early 1990s, New York City pension investments have helped create or preserve 199,000 units of housing, according to the comptroller’s office.
The latest infusion of pension funds into housing is a “historic step,” Rafael Cestero, CEO of The Community Preservation Corp., said in a news release.
“This initiative sets a powerful model for how public capital can drive real impact by significantly expanding investment in the creation and preservation of our city’s housing stock,” Cestero said.
The first wave of investments will include $750 million for the creation of mixed-income affordable housing, housing preservation and office conversions; $500 million to expand the city’s Public Private Apartment Rehabilitation program; and additional investment to finance large-scale multifamily and affordable housing projects using union labor.
