Submitted by Lara, Dec 18, 2006 10:34

There may be plenty of people who want to live in one and two family homes, but there are also plenty of people who want to live more responsibly, in multi-family buildings. The city should not be in the business of subsidizing the irresponsible development of low-density residential uses. More than a third of all the land in the city has already been appropriated for such uses. If we are serious about creating an environmentally and socially responsible city, the last thing we need is to offer incentives for this type of development.

Furthermore, one, two, and three-family homes are in Tax Class 1 and enjoy considerable tax favor when compared to multi-family buildings. The reason 421-a must continue to exist is because of unfair and overly burdensome assessment policies that make difficult to build new multi-family without some type of tax relief. That is not the case with Class 1 properties. In fact, one of the reasons sales prices are so high here in the city compared to in the surrounding suburbs is because property taxes on these homes are so cheap. If you really want to even the playing field with Westchester and L.I., get to the business of tax reform. Class 1 properties should bear a larger share of the overall tax burden in order to discourage environmentally inappropriate development in NYC.

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