City will invest $250M to preserve Mitchell-Lama buildings

Mayor de Blasio is putting forth yet another initiative to preserve the city’s diminishing affordable housing stock. After announcing that his ambitious Housing New York plan to create and preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing by 2024, is on track to be completed two years earlier, the mayor set a new goal of 300,000 affordable apartments by 2026. In order to achieve this, the city will invest $250 million toward preventing subsidized Mitchell-Lama developments from being converted to market-rate apartments, reports the New York Post.

The Mitchell-Lama Reinvestment Program [PDF!], as it has been named, will work to keep over 15,000 subsidized apartments affordable over the next eight years. According to city officials, the money will go toward helping landlords pay to repair aging Mitchell-Lama Housing Development buildings, Patch reports.

Over the past 30 years, nearly 20,000 apartments within the Mitchell-Lama program have chosen to opt out and convert to market-rate housing. In February, residents of the St. James Towers in Clinton Hill had to decide between keeping the building in the program or to allow for privatization, as the Financial District’s Southbridge Towers did. Ultimately, residents voted to remain within the program.

“This is about keeping New York, New York,” said de Blasio as he announced the new program at the Ryerson Towers in Clinton Hill. “This is about not letting New York City slip away.”

• De Blasio allots $250M to keep subsidized units from market rates [New York Post]
• City Will Spend $250M To Save 15,000 Affordable Apartments [Patch]
• De Blasio admin ups affordable housing goals to 300K units by 2026 [Curbed]
• Clinton Hill Mitchell Lama residents vote against privatization [Curbed]