There have been a number of articles published recently that examine the future of affordable housing in the city, many of which zoom in on the problems developers are having (or are expected to start having) financing projects with affordable components. To summarize:

There’s less money for 80-20. The New York State Housing Finance Agency says there will be only $689 million available over the next three years for new 80-20 developments (whereby 80 percent of apartments in a building are market-rate and 20 percent are affordable), according to an article in Crain’s. This means that only two or three of the 30 or so developers currently seeking tax-exempt 80-20 financing this year will get the dough they wanted. The Housing Financing Agency has determined that 80-20 doesn’t result in the most affordable housing bang for its tax-exempt bucks and is putting more financing into other programs. Regardless, the 80-20 clamp down is likely to affect projects in Manhattan more than those in Brooklyn and the other boroughs.

Low-Income Housing Tax Credits Are Vanishing. Per the Real Deal: Affordable housing financiers—called syndicators—package…tax credits and sell them to firms that get a return on their investment and a reduction in taxes. Banks that buy the low-income credits also get favorable consideration for investing in underserved communities from regulators under the federal Community Reinvestment Act. But after the subprime crisis left balance sheets uneven, many investment firms have less need to shelter profits from taxes. In response, developers of affordable housing are starting to consider building fewer units or trying to rustle up alternate sources of funding. “The government can put in more money, private capital funds could give more, or we could raise the rents some,” says Martin Dunn, the president of Brooklyn-based affordable housing developer Dunn Development.

The City is Whittling Affordable Housing Projections. Although the Bloomberg administration still believes it will reach its target of creating 92,000 new affordable units by 2013, it is also scaling back the number of affordable units it expects to see created over the next year, according to an article in the Observer. HPD predicts that construction on 7,947 affordable units will take place over the next fiscal year (which begins in July); HPD previously reduced the number of affordable housing construction starts it expected to see happen over the coming fiscal year from 11,587 to 8,568.

Tax-Exempt Housing Funds are Drying Up [Crain's]
Financing for Affordable Housing Harder to Come By [The Real Deal]
Targets for Affordable Housing Drop, But City Says Its Plan Still On Track [Observer]
Photo by threecee.