NYS Budget '24: NYSAR Declares "Victory" On Pro-Growth Policies + Watered-Down "Good Cause"

NYSAR issued the following statement on Tuesday afternoon in response to passage of the 2024-25 New York State Budget: "NYSAR applauds the new state budget as a victory for REALTORS® because it includes multiple incentives for residential development across New York State.  We are hopeful this helps mitigate the historically and chronically low inventory of homes for sale and rental units. The budget also includes additional protections for renters with significant improvements over earlier proposed draconian tenant eviction rules.  The so-called 'good cause' provisions now include an 'opt-in' provision outside of New York City, a rent increase cap of 10% or 5% plus CPI, whichever is greater, and exemptions for smaller property owners. Not included in the state budget is NYSAR’s first-time homebuyers’ incentive or our co-op purchase transparency bill.  NYSAR will focus its advocacy during the remaining days of this year’s legislative session on these and other high-priority REALTOR® issues.  NYSAR thanks the more than 400 members who came to Albany on March 27 to advocate on many of the topics addressed in the new state budget.  Their voices made a difference in the outcome."

The NY Times summarized: "The far left had fought for a measure known as 'good cause eviction,' which was intended to greatly limit annual rent hikes and aggressively restrict the reasons for which landlords could evict tenants. It passed in the final budget but in a largely diluted form. There were a number of exemptions from good cause, including luxury buildings and landlords with 10 units or fewer. Outside New York City, localities may opt into good cause instead of being required to do so."

The City summarized the passed-version of "Good Cause" policy: "The 'good cause' policy is a historic change for the city’s housing market, one that follows in the footsteps of other, similar rent rules recently adopted in California, Oregon, and Washington and being seriously considered in Connecticut now... In other words, landlords have to have a good cause for not renewing a tenant’s lease. Some of those causes include non-payment of rent, illegal behavior if an owner is trying to change the use of an apartment from residential to another purpose (like commercial space), or when an owner wants to demolish a building. The policy takes effect immediately for the five boroughs. It is also set to expire in just 10 years in 2034."

As NYSAR previewed this past Saturday, there are a lot of statewide pro-growth housing policies coming out of the compromise between the Governor, State Assembly, and State Senate: 

• Creation of a statewide tax incentive for multi-family housing.
• $650 million in discretionary funds for municipalities designated as “Pro-Housing Communities” (ex. Mineola).
• Providing incentives for communities to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs).
• $500 million towards development of up to 15,000 housing units on state-owned land (ex. Creedmoor, Pilgrim State).
• Protecting homeowners from deed theft.

And also some policies specifically for New York City, including all of the Borough of Queens:

• Creating a new 485x tax abatement for construction of affordable housing (421a replacement).
• Extending for 6 years the expired 421a incentive for vested projects already in the pipeline.
• Making it easier to convert unused office space into affordable housing.
• Raising the residential floor area ratio (FAR) cap to increase density (current law is 12:1).
• Raising the cap on rent increases for individual apartment improvements (IAIs) for vacant units in rent-regulated buildings (current law caps IAIs at $15,000 over 15 years or approximately $83/month).

NYSAR will share a full round-up in their next Saturday newsletter.