It may be a big pay day for landlords and building owners across the city: a new policy, effective today, will allow owners of mixed-income rental properties to cash-in by selling up to 80-percent of their market-rate units, if they commit to preserving or expanding in perpetuity the number of affordable rentals in the building, the New York Times reports. The policy is aimed at maintaining and bolstering the city's current stock of affordable housing, some 120,000 apartments, often in buildings where affordability restrictions expire after a set number of years.
The policy will affect buildings that take advantage of government programs that offer subsidies to property owners who earmark 20-percent of building apartments as affordable. Renters of market-rate apartments will be first offered the opportunity to purchase their apartment should a landlord choose to participate in the sell-off, meaning the unit will convert from a rental to a condo or co-op. If they do not buy the apartment, they'll be protected by existing rules from being kicked out. There's no figure, yet, that projects how many affordable homes the policy will bring to the city.
· Policy Change Could Benefit New York's Landlords and Tenants [NYT]
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