A Reprieve for Four-Family Brownstoners

Somehow we missed this article in Friday’s New York Times. At a meeting with roughly 300 Harlem brownstone owners on Thursday night, city officials delivered the welcome news that the much-publicized tax increases being levied on owners of 4-family townhouses was being rolled back through some creative reinterpretation of the code. Caren Chesler, who owns a building on West 112th Street and had been facing and increase from $1,800 a year to $18,000 is getting off the hook with a far more manageable $3,000. The reinterpretation is only a temporary solution while the city tries to affect changes in the relevant State law. Bravo, we say. Penalizing people for improving the housing stock is hardly the kind of incentive we need.
City to Scale Back on Tax Increases from Renovations [NY Times]
Four-Family Brownstones Getting Slammed [Brownstoner]