Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan criticized the Common Council's development policies during her State of the City address Tuesday.
Almost a year ago, the Albany Common Council by a vote of 12-2 overrode the mayor's second veto of the Affordable Housing Ordinance, which has developers setting aside 7% of units as affordable housing, with staggered increases up to 13% in buildings as the number of units increases.
With a growing need for affordable housing, Sheehan says the city's limited inventory is shrinking, blaming the inclusionary zoning rules passed by the Common Council.
"We went from 5%, which was working, to a formula that is not working," said Sheehan. "When we had the 5% inclusionary zoning we were on average putting 418 new units into service every year. Right now, our pipeline is 122. The goal that was stated for inclusionary zoning was to ensure that we were creating more affordable housing south of Central and west of Lark. What we have seen is those who build subsidized housing, tax credit housing, are lining up. You see this subsidized by right up 520%. Not all of those units will be built. Those are applications that are in for 9% tax credits, which is highly competitive. But we are seeing that those low-income tax credit proposals are coming in. The number of subsidized inclusionary units is down 62%. And the number of market rate units that are in the pipeline is down 71%."
Citing a need to grow the tax base, Sheehan is imploring the council to change course.
"I normally stand here and talk about how confident I am about our future. And I am very concerned. I'm very concerned if we stay on the trajectory that we are on. If we have effectively cut off the pipeline for both market rate housing and workforce housing, that we are missing an opportunity and that the jobs that are being created here will result in people continuing to access housing in the suburbs that is being built, as apartments are going up in Bethlehem, Guilderland and Colonie. And they will be moving into those units because we're not building those units here,"Sheehan said.
Asked for comment, Common Council President Corey Ellis threw the ball back into City Hall's court.
"I've already had the council pass an affordable housing resolution that calls for the council to set up a quality of life, Affordable Housing Task Force. The council needs to act on that ASAP. I've talked to the leadership over and over about this. So they need to act on that Affordable Housing Task Force. So they can take a look at holistically where we're going with affordable housing, and then they can address those issues. But they need to do that ASAP," Ellis said.
Sheehan, a Democrat who will not run for a fourth term next year, insists the inclusionary zoning rules are hindering the growth of all types of housing throughout the city.
