Week 4

Hello everyone, welcome back to my senior project blog! This week for my senior project I began my onsite placement, continuing my research, and outlined my final paper.

At my onsite placement, I have been allowed to conduct my research under the guidance of my advisor helping me to organize my research. This week I continued my research in hopes of answering the question of how tax abatements can be used effectively in incentivizing developers to create more housing and affordable housing. My research introduced me to 421a, a tax code that allowed for a tax break upon creating a percentage of units in a residential building to be affordable based on AMI guidelines of the area. 421a allowed for the creation of new affordable units that would not have been constructed had the abatement not existed but were criticized for not doing enough. This abatement was well received by developers which caused disruption when it expired in 2022. Through conversation with my desk mate at the company, I was introduced to 485x which is a new proposed tax break part of Kathy Hochul’s new housing bill which is to be up for review over the weekend. 485x is not as well received by 421a but it is better than not having any tax incentive for developers. 

Lastly, I planned out the contents of my paper to be focused on analyzing the approach taken while critiquing its strategy in hopes of finding new avenues of expansion. My paper will be organized in the following way: Abstract Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Background of MSMX Chapter 3: Rezoning Chapter 4: Tax Abatement Laws Chapter 5: Inclusionary Zoning Chapter 6: Discussion Chapter 7: Conclusion Bibliography

Thank you for your time.