PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Christie Peale, CEO and Executive Director of Center for New York City Neighborhoods (CNYCN), on the Housing Recovery and Resident Protection Act
2:41:04
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3 min
Christie Peale, CEO of the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, testified in support of the Housing Recovery and Resident Protection Act, which aims to reform the 3rd party transfer program. She emphasized the need for clarity, simplicity, and additional resources for small property owners and mission-driven developers.
- Advocated for a separate pathway or exemption for tax class 1 home properties
- Suggested simplifying owner-occupancy declaration process, similar to Philadelphia's Homestead tax exemption
- Stressed the importance of making property owners whole on the equity side and increasing resources for small property owners and mission-driven developers
Christie Peale
2:41:04
Good afternoon, Paul.
2:41:06
Good afternoon, Sharon Sanchez.
2:41:08
Members of the committee.
2:41:09
Thank you so much for the hearing, the opportunity to testify.
2:41:12
My name is Christie Peel.
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I'm the CEO and executive director of the Center for New York City Neighborhoods.
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We work with homeowners across New York City to offer free high quality housing services.
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We've served over 250,000 homeowners since our founding in response to the foreclosure crisis in 2008.
2:41:30
We're very supportive of the intentions behind the housing recovery and residential protection act in addressing profoundly unsafe housing conditions while also protecting affordable homeownership.
2:41:40
In particular, we think that removing the blocks week will help mitigate some of the impact that we saw where bipoch homeowners and communities in particular were impacted.
2:41:51
And we would love to work with the council to continue to drive words, clarity and simplicity for owner occupants in particular and understanding how this legislation aligns and dovetails and deviates from the newly enacted taxing sale.
2:42:06
Legislation, we think it's very confusing.
2:42:09
For all of us, and we imagine that all these nonprofessional landlords out there are going to be similarly confuddled.
2:42:17
So we thought in the tax lien I'm sorry.
2:42:21
The TPT working group, the smaller group that was working on small homes, we had advocated for a separate pathway or even an exemption for tax class home properties.
2:42:31
We thought you heard the deputy commissioner say there's a robust toolbox for a multifamily Property owners, there is not as robust a set of tools for small homes.
2:42:41
We are really relying on individual outreach, community based outreach education engagement, advocacy, 1 on 1 representation, and a limited number of repair resources to address unsafe building conditions, but we don't have the same tax exemptions.
2:42:57
So we really would like to see a separate and robust pathway and pipeline and process for tax cuts from properties.
2:43:05
And I would say that we could one example of a way
Pierina Ana Sanchez
2:43:09
You may conclude that
Christie Peale
2:43:10
your way to simplify things is to look at the Philadelphia Homestead tax exemption, where you can declare owner occupancy in a much more simplified way, where you don't have to have been previously approved for a tax exemption.
2:43:23
In order to qualify, they just they they require an affidavit and to prove 2 sources of proof of residency.
2:43:31
Also, we think in order for the goals of this legislation to be realized, we need to make sure we're fully making property owners whole on the equity side, so it's not subject to the same legislative challenges that we have seen on our Hennepin.
2:43:46
And, obviously, in order to keep properties out of the situation where they're gonna have significant financial and physical distress.
2:43:52
We need to radically increase the resources for small property owners and also for the mission driven CLTs and providers who are mission driven developers who are gonna work properties on the back end.
2:44:04
We we know that for every dollar as an HD said last week, you know, for every dollar in in this investment, we need, you know, several dollars more to put back in in capital.
2:44:14
So the CLTs in particular that are operating now, they need re sources to support those operations, especially if they're going to be contemplating, taking on distressed properties alongside their mission driven developer colleagues.
2:44:28
So for that, thank you again, and we look forward to working with you on making sure that we can have this be as aligned and simple as possible, like, keep well well intention homeowner and landlords off the tax lien and and TPG foreclosure process.
2:44:43
Okay.
Pierina Ana Sanchez
2:44:43
Thank you so much.
2:44:44
That's really helpful.
Christie Peale
2:44:48
Alright.
