Housing Advocates Target Tribeca Tower

By Barry Owens
MAY 3, 2006

A massive residential tower is under construction at Leonard Street and Broadway. When the 21-story building is completed this summer, it will contain 352 apartments, including a sprawling penthouse. There will also be a pool, a gym, a 200-space garage, a 4,200-square-foot community facility, and 7,200 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

What there will not be at 88 Leonard Street, affordable housing advocates say, are enough units for low- to moderate-income families to justify the nearly $2 million worth of tax breaks that the developer is getting.

At a rally across the street from 88 Leonard last month, affordable housing advocates presented the building as an example of what they say is wrong with the city's "421a program," which gives tax breaks to developers of residential buildings. The program is a holdover from the 1970s, when the city's housing market was plummeting. These days, housing advocates said, those tax benefits too often go to developers who build luxury housing in thriving and pricey Manhattan neighborhoods. "This is a symptom of a world upside down," said Roland Lewis, executive director of Habitat for Humanity–New York City. "This building behind us is being subsidized by the taxpayers, but the taxpayers can't afford to live there."

Housing advocates organized the rally to draw attention to a new report from Habitat for Humanity and the Pratt Center for Community Development that listed 10 examples of developments in Manhattan that have benefited from the tax breaks but do not offer housing for moderate- to low-income residents.
The list included four Tribeca buildings: 88 Leonard Street; 336 Broadway, 147 Chambers Street; and 124 Hudson Street.

The developer of 88 Leonard Street, Leviev Boymelgreen, received $112.5 million in tax-free Liberty Bond financing, which requires that five percent of the building's units meet affordable housing requirements. Under the 421a exemption, the developer also got a tax break of more than $750,000.
The report said that only 17 units would be set aside for families earning less than $105,000 per year.

"[Developers] are simply playing by the rules," Lewis said. "But thousands of hard-working New Yorkers are playing by the rules, too, and they can't afford decent homes. It's time to change the rules."

The report was released on the eve of the first meeting of a city task force that will look into the tax break program, which was started in 1971. The group is expected to make recommendations by the fall.

Brad Lander, executive director of the Pratt Center for Community Development and a member of the task force, said the tax break should go only to developers that include low- and moderate-income units in their buildings.

Lewis said the city gave $320 million in tax breaks for luxury housing developments last year. He said that he would "wipe the program out, take the $320 million and have a dedicated source of money for housing subsidy."

"What a shame, what a pity, we can't live in New York City," advocates chanted at the rally, some of them holding signs with photographs of subsidized Tribeca buildings and their rental rates. Margaret Chin, deputy executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, pointed at the building across the street.

"We're only a few blocks from Chinatown," she said, "and not one single hardworking immigrant can afford to live here."