Relates to increasing the bonding authority of the New York city housing development corporation

Title of bill

An act to amend the private housing finance law, in relation to increasing the bonding authority of the New York city housing development corporation

Summary of provisions

Section one of this bill would authorize the New York City Housing Development Corporation ("HOC") to increase the maximum aggregate principal amount of its outstanding bonds and notes from $11.25 billion to $12.5 billion.

Section two would provide that this bill take effect immediately.

Reasons for support

By the end of March 2016, HOC had approximately $10.4 billion of bonds sold or outstanding, leaving the corporation with slightly less than $850 million of unused bonding authority. HOC has also currently agreed to finance multi-year projects that will require an additional $133 million in bonds. In a little over a decade, since January 1,2005, HOC has issued in excess of$15.6 billion in bonds to finance the construction or preservation of tens of thousands of apartments throughout the City. These include bonds to finance the preservation of thousands of Mitchell-Lama apartments as well as Liberty Bonds to finance the construction or conversion from non-residential use of thousands of apartments in lower Manhattan. This record has made HOC one of the largest issuers of multi-family affordable housing bonds in the nation, and frequently the top annual issuer.

Under the City's "Housing New York" plan, as of April 1, 2016, HOC has financed the construction or preservation of more than 15,000 affordable apartments in less than two years under the plan. HDC financed over 76,000 affordable apartments under the City's prior housing plan, far surpassing its original goals. HOC financing relating to the City's housing plan is provided under a variety of new programs: (1) the Extremely Low and Low-Income Affordable program ("ELLA"), which provides apartments for low-income people earning 60% of the Area Median Income ("AMP') or less, including deeply affordable apartments for people earning no more than 30%, 40% and 50% of AMI or apartments for the formerly homeless; (2) the Mixed- Middle Income program ("M2"), which provides apartments for people at a mix of incomes, including low income people, moderate-income people earning 80-100% of AMI and middle-income people earning 130-165% of AMI; (3) the "Mix and Match" program, which provides apartments for low-income and moderate- or middle-income people in the same project; (4) the "50/30/20" program, which provides apartments for low- and moderate-income people in projects where half the project is rented at the market rate; and (5) the Mitchell Lama restructuring program. In addition, HOC has launched a series of other initiatives that use the corporation's bonding authority, including programs using taxable bonds and recycled tax-exempt bonds.

This legislation will strengthen HDC's ability to continue to provide financing for the creation and preservation of affordable housing in New York City.

Fiscal impact

None to state

Effective date

Immediately