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March 5, 2006
Spotting Glut, Mayor Deflates Condo Cushion
New York Observer:
The 421a program, which accounts for about one-third of all new construction, explains a lot about all the recent condo activity in Brooklyn and Queens. A 100 percent tax exemption on the new construction lasts for 11 years in the boroughs, with four years at a reduced rate. In Manhattan, the full exemption lasts only two years, and the taxes are slowly phased in over the next eight. And an extra 10 years of tax breaks are added in Manhattan and the boroughs if the project includes affordable housing.
...
Just a small portion were located in up-and-coming or already arrived neighborhoods that will undoubtedly be the focus of any redrawing of program boundaries: the Lower East Side, Soho, Tribeca, the financial district, the East Village, Chelsea, Dumbo, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene and Williamsburg. Of those 209 addresses, all but 25 were certified since January 1999, and all but 79 in the last two years. Far from trailblazing, it looks as if the 421a program is merely gilting a well-traveled road.
Posted by amy at March 5, 2006 12:08 PM