BILL NUMBER: S8783

SPONSOR: GOLDEN
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the private housing finance law, in
relation to increasing the bonding authority of the New York city hous-
ing development corporation

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To increase the maximum aggregate principal amount of outstanding bonds
and notes of the NYC Housing Development Corporation by $1 billion.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section one of this bill would authorize the New York City Housing
Development Corporation ("HDC') to increase the maximum aggregate prin-
cipal amount of its outstanding bonds and notes from $12.5 billion to
$13.5 billion.

Section two would provide that this bill take effect immediately.

              

 
JUSTIFICATION:

By the end of March 2018, HDC had approximately $11.1 billion of bonds
sold or outstanding, leaving the corporation with slightly less than
$1.4 billion of unused bonding authority after adding its April bond
issuance of approximately $235 million. HDC expects to issue approxi-
mately S250 million in bonds over the next year to preserve and refi-
nance a portion of its Mitchell-Lama portfolios, and another $250
million in bonds to support the Neighborhood Pillars program, a new
initiative under the Housing New York plan to provide financing for
nonprofit organizations to acquire and preserve affordable housing in
existing buildings. In addition, HDC expects to provide financing for
construction of numerous new low income projects as well as multi-year
financing for several large-scale mixed-income developments using both
tax-exempt and taxable bonds totaling approximately $650 million.
Furthermore, HDC may use taxable or recycled bonds totaling approximate-
ly $200 million in the next year to replace the financing for FHA Risk-
Sharing loans provided by the Federal Financing Bank (if such financing
authority fails to be extended by the Federal government). In a little
over a decade, since January 1, 2005, HDC has issued in excess of $18.
5 billion in bonds to finance the construction or preservation of over
100,000 apartments throughout New York City. These include bonds to
finance the preservation of thousands of Mitchell-Lama apartments as
well as Liberty Bonds to finance the construction or conversion from
non-residential use of thousands of apartments in lower Manhattan.  This
record has made HDC one of the largest issuers of multi-family afforda-
ble housing bonds in the nation, and frequently the top annual issuer.

Under the City's "Housing New York" plan, as of April 1, 2018, HDC has
financed the construction or preservation of more than 40,000 affordable
apartments in less than four years. HDC financed over 76,000 affordable
apartments under the City's prior housing plan, far surpassing its
original goals. HDC financing relating to the City's housing plan is
provided under a variety of new programs: (I) the Extremely Low and
Low-Income Affordable program ("ELLA"), which provides apartments for
low-income people earning 60% of the Area Median Income ("AMI") or less,
including deeply affordable apartments for people earning no more than
30%, 40% and 50% of AMI or apartments for the formerly homeless; (2) the
Mixed-Middle Income program ("M2"), which provides apartments for people
at a mix of incomes, including low-income people, moderate-income people
earning 80-100% of AMI and middle-income people earning 130-165% of AMI;
(3) the "Mix and Match" program, which provides apartments for low-in-
come and moderate- or middle-income people in the same project; (4) the
"50/30/20" program, which provides apartments for low- and moderate
income-people in projects where half the project is rented at the market
rate; (5) the Mitchell-Lama Reinvestment Program which anchors the
affordability of the remaining Mitchell-Lama apartments; and (6) the
Neighborhood Pillars program. In addition, HDC has launched a series of
other initiatives that use the corporation's bonding authority, includ-
ing programs using taxable bonds and recycled tax-exempt bonds.

This legislation will strengthen HDC's ability to continue to run
programs that develop and maintain affordable housing in New York City
and plan for future financings.

Accordingly, the Mayor urges the earliest possible favorable consider-
ation of this proposal by the Legislature.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

Undetermined.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.