As NYC shifts its sights to balancing its budget and addressing its housing and climate issues, the need to lift our voices as homeowners has become even more urgent.
Empire Bins are once again in the news, as DSNY seeks to expand its pilot program fully into Community District 2 in Brooklyn. More news on that will follow next week.
Meanwhile, City Council and New York State continue to introduce other bills for consideration, many of which could add to the compliance burden faced by co-ops and condos.
Among these bills are two that would help co-op and condo homeowners by expanding tax exemption and tax abatement programs.
S.8170A/A.10549 would extend the J-51 Tax Abatement Program for an additional ten years, enabling co-ops and condos to receive money off real estate taxes when they perform qualifying capital work -- including window replacement, roof replacement, full facade work and energy efficiency work. Importantly, this legislation would increase the number of co-ops and condos that would be eligible for the program for the full ten years and would reduce the cost of applying for the abatement.
S.1457B/A.5344A would increase tax exemptions available to senior and disabled homeowners by raising the cap on eligibility, so homeowners with an annual income of $75,000 or less (based on adjusted gross income less IRA distributions and annuities), would become eligible for the exemption. The legislation also includes an ongoing escalator to ensure qualifying individuals do not lose the exemption when their social security benefits increase to take into account inflation.
If you'd like more information on either bill, please e-mail me at poole@cnyc.coop.
If you'd like to send a letter to your legislators to support these bills, you can do so by CLICKING here
and following the prompts. It's easy - click - enter your address - hit send - share with others. Passing these bills will help mitigate the impact of increasing costs for many co-op and condo homeowners.
Stay tuned for further updates on DSNY's implementation of the containerization legislation and other actions we can take to safeguard the affordability of our homes.