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Q&A
Clarifying the proposed vacancy tax on multifamily housing
2:27:39
·
118 sec
Commissioner Valerie White asks former Council Member Benjamin Kallos to clarify his vacancy tax proposal regarding the types of units and buildings targeted.
Kallos explains the proposal aims to expand a law he previously authored (Local Law 64).
It would require registration for multifamily buildings with 10+ units (or owners with 10+ units total) and impose a tax on units deliberately kept vacant, exempting smaller property owners.
Valerie White
2:27:39
Yes.
2:27:41
Thank you both for your testimony.
2:27:44
Former city council person, good to see you.
2:27:47
And thank you for mentioning AMI versus Census Block.
2:27:51
It's been a thing of mine for, like, close to thirty years that I've been in the business.
2:27:56
So thank you for that.
2:27:57
I had a question in relation to the 20,000 short term units that you referenced that should go back in on market in every single type of multifamily structure.
2:28:10
Do you mean every single type of multifamily structure?
2:28:13
And precisely, what type of short term units are you talking about?
2:28:16
Were they the Airbnb or or whatever?
2:28:19
Yeah.
2:29:22
Right.
2:29:22
Because my the reason I was questioning, I was thinking of the family that, you know, for family house that might have a vacant unit.
2:29:30
And was that who you were talking about?
2:29:34
the law says before as well.
2:29:36
You.
Benjamin Kallos
2:28:20
Thank you.
2:28:21
A publication called Skiff did a a steep dive onto the law I wrote on short term regulation and found that the 20,000 short term rentals had not been put back on the market.
2:28:33
Local law 64, which I wrote, governs affordable housing subsidized by the city and requires all of those affordable housing units to register.
2:28:43
In my more detailed testimony, I suggest expanding local law 64.
2:28:46
So it would be multifamily housing with 10 or more units as well as if one person owned 10 or more units across multiple buildings.
2:28:56
So we're trying to target some of the larger, landlords and then making sure that as part of that registration, we're putting in a vacancy tax so that if they try to leave their markets off leave their units off the market in order to kinda drive up prices, it would actually mean that they couldn't do it.
2:29:15
There's buildings in my district with 400 vacant units, and that just shouldn't be when we're trying to increase housing supply.
2:29:32
No.
2:29:33
Okay.
2:29:33
We accepted that from what
2:29:37
No.
2:29:37
You got it.