A New York Building Congress analysis of U.S. Census data shows that residential permits issued by the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) has dropped by more than half in the 12 months after the demise of the 421-a program. The now discontinued program gave developers a 10-year tax exemption for building a multi-unit residential project on vacant land. The DOB said that residential permits fell 62 percent to 52,618 in the 12 months that followed the project’s demise.
Through the first six months of 2016, the Bronx led all boroughs with 1,926 DOB-authorized units, followed by Brooklyn with 1,394 units, Queens with 1,222, Manhattan with 821 units, and Staten Island with 621 units. Both the Bronx and Staten Island saw an increase in the number of permitted units during the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2015, while Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens experienced considerable declines.
“In addition to the investment community’s continued and seemingly insatiable appetite for residential projects, local developers were working furiously to get their projects fully permitted in advance of anticipated changes to the 421-a program,” noted New York Building Congress president Richard T. Anderson. “All of this produced an unprecedented, one-time surge in permits.”
