Albany’s inclusionary zoning laws have been a recent point of contention among city officials. The city’s current law, passed in 2023, requires developers make 13% of new housing units affordable to individuals earning no more than 60% of the area median household income.
But Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs and several members of the Common Council want to amend those percentages to require developers make 5% of new units affordable to people earning no more than 70% of the area median household income — a change that would ultimately lessen the requirements for developers to set aside units specifically for affordable housing.
Applyrs, who as a Common Council member in 2017 was one of the architects of the city’s original inclusionary zoning laws, said the amendments show that the city is “open for business.”
“The city is facing a housing crisis. There is a shortage of housing of all types in our city, affordable, workforce, market-rate, and luxury. We needed to right-size inclusionary zoning to increase the supply of Albany’s housing stock to meet the demand,” Applyrs said.
The new legislation — on the agenda for the Common Council’s March 5 meeting — provides developers an opportunity to opt out of inclusionary zoning by paying $50,000 per unit into a newly created housing trust fund.
According to the amendments, a majority of the money put into the fund will be used for “tenant-related assistance programs” and the rest will be put toward homeowners assistance programs at the discretion of a yet to be formed advisory board.
Speaking at a press conference at City Hall Tuesday, Applyrs said the details of the trust fund still need to be “worked out.”
“The current city department that will be charged with the evaluation and compliance aspect of this is the Albany Community Development Agency and so that advisory body will help to inform and provide recommendations on how the trust fund is spent etcetera,” Applyrs said.
But not everyone is satisfied with the anticipated changes.
Canyon Ryan is the executive director of United Tenants of Albany — a housing advocacy group.
Ryan says the group was involved with negotiations over the changes between developers and the mayor’s office in January. He is disappointed.
“We were part of the negotiations and made this version of inclusionary zoning as strong as we could but its clear that the city is under a lot of pressure from the governor and the state,” Ryan said.
However, Ryan says he has sympathy for Applyrs.
“Because this is a really tough position for a progressive mayors first housing initiative to be rolling back a program designed to benefit low-income tenants and so we’re hopeful that moving forward there is now room for more progressive housing initiatives that respond to tenants needs rather than developer and bureaucrats desires,” Ryan said.
The news of expected inclusionary zoning changes comes just after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office issued a strategic plan outlining how best to invest $200 million in state money to revitalize the capital city.
One of the takeaways from the 88 page “Downtown Albany Strategy” is that downtown must attract more residents.
The report reads: “Downtown will only thrive with significantly more residents living in the core.”
Applyrs said talks surrounding changes to inclusionary zoning laws had already been taking place before the report’s release. But it only reinforced the idea that amendments are necessary.
“I think the investment from the governor, some of the work, that has come out of that and the recommendations really underscore and put emphasis on what many of us already knew and were saying, but I think it helped to change some of the tone and tenure to the conversation, so it helped,” Applyrs said.
