Kyle Ems testifies on HPD tax exemption for preservation
He raises concerns about a large affordable housing preservation tax exemption awarded to his building, says tenants were not informed and do not want it, and questions the $359 million cost.
I'll do video.
Yeah, sure.
All right, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Chair Riley, I appreciate earlier you had voiced concern about the number of units of affordable housing seeming to be
like the number one goal and actually being concerned about the effectiveness or implementation rather than just chasing a number.
And that's why I want to raise directly to you.
I've emailed your office about this, but over the summer, HPD awarded the largest affordable housing preservation tax exemption in New York's history, nearly 1,100 units.
It costs the city of over a third of a billion dollars.
No tenants knew about it.
No tenants want it.
I'm in one of the buildings and I actually have a tenant association with 100% participation rate.
No one is dissenting.
We do not want this agreement.
No one told us about it.
The landlords do not deserve it.
It's a third of a billion dollars plus.
And there's no news about it.
I've asked every city council member about it.
No one has any answers.
It's been six months where every day I've worked to find just even a simple answer.
Like, could you explain the cost?
How'd you get to the $359 million cost calculation?
Like, what's the numbers behind it?
Because it's mathematically impossible.
possible according to the tax values and the disclosures and numbers given in HPO's term sheet.
Sorry if that's a little off topic, but that's what I got.
Everybody shopped your office.
Hope you'll hear back.
Thank you, Kyle.
Can you send that to my office again?
I'm not sure what email you sent it to, but can you send it to Cynthia Prisco, please?
Yes.
Thank you.
That's cprisco at council.nyc.gov.
P-R-I-S-C-O.
Prisco.
Thank you, Kyle.
Next, we'll hear from Cheryl.
You may begin.
Cheryl dropped off.
Next, we hear from Dominic.
You may begin.