BUFFALO, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for more housing has been interpreted by industrial development agencies as a green light to ramp up controversial tax breaks for developers.
The state’s 107 IDAs have never been explicitly authorized to subsidize housing and some lawmakers say that’s for a reason: Housing creates few permanent jobs compared to the industrial and commercial projects the agencies were designed to support.
When IDAs do subsidize housing, it tends to be for market-rate rather than affordable units. IDA subsidies in general — property, sales and mortgage tax breaks — reduce the revenue local schools and municipalities can collect, shifting the burden to other taxpayers. That dynamic has recently sparked outcries in parts of the state.
John Kaehny, executive director of the good–government group Reinvent Albany, called IDA subsidies for housing “abysmally stupid, on top of being illegal.”
