Can't sell your 14,000-unit housing project for $1.3 billion? Don't give up! Here's one way to gain negotiating leverage: begin the legal steps necessary to charge all your tenants market-rate rents. Such is the order of business at Jamaica Bay's Starrett City, where the owners are floating that they might exit the Mitchell-Lama program, which offered tax abatements and the like in return for landlords offering lower rents. In fact, only about 700 tenants at Starrett City fall under the Mitchell-Lama plan, and the downside to the complex's owners is that they'd have to pay off a $200-million-plus mortgage and shell out full property taxes. Bottom line at this point? Negotiations continue, as does the sound and fury.
· Starrett City's Owners Make Move Towards Market Rate [NYTimes]
· Starrett City's Owners Move to Opt Out of Mitchell-Lama [NYSun]
· Starrett City Deal Still Twisting in the Wind [Curbed]
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