CRAMPED TENANTS PRICED OUT & FED UP
By MELISSA GRACE
New York Daily News
January 10th, 2007

Delia Herrera shares a basement apartment in Corona with her husband, 10-year-old son - and four strangers.

They all share a kitchen and bathroom. They have no living room. And for safety, they lock their bedroom doors.

For this, they pay $1,500 a month in rent, and can hardly afford it.

"My dream is to own my own house," said Herrera, 52, who emigrated from Ecuador 20 years ago. "But how can we save money with all the expenses we have? With the price of housing going up, it's impossible."

Tenant advocates charge that thousands of poor Queens residents were left out in the cold when the City Council extended tax breaks to real estate developers last month without requiring them to build affordable units.

"We need affordable housing," said the Rev. Lancelot Waldron, president of Queens Congregations United for Action, adding that he is "not sure what the justification is" for the developer tax breaks.

Advocates are pinning their hopes for stronger low- and middle-income unit requirements on the state Legislature, which must approve the bill before it takes effect next year.

"Buildings are going up that our families can't afford," said Jamie Weisberg, director of the coalition of churches. "This is public money, it should go to benefit the public."

Weisberg cited a study that showed the median household income in Queens fell 6.6%, while the median rent rose 7.2% from 2002 to 2005.

The city legislation is the first overhaul in years to the 421-A program. Established in the 1970s to spark development, it has been slammed as a $400 million gift to developers in the recent building boom.

The new bill offers developers in large swaths of Brooklyn and Manhattan tax breaks, but only if 20% of the units they build are affordable to low- and median-income households.

In Queens, only new construction along the East River will need to include affordable units to qualify for the 10- to 15-year tax breaks.

City Council members who voted for the bill said extending tax incentives without attaching affordability is necessary to spur construction in areas where the real estate market is not as hot as Manhattan and Brooklyn.
"It would cut off investment in Woodside, Sunnyside and Long Island City," said Councilman Eric Gioia, a Democrat who represents those neighborhoods.

Councilmembers who oppose the bill called it irrational in today's market.

"We're getting unwanted overdevelopment and publicly subsidizing it," said City Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona).

A 2006 study by the Pratt Center for Community Development found 25 luxury and market-rate condominiums going up in Astoria, Long Island City, Corona, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills and Flushing.

"There are $300,000 condos in Corona. Three years ago, there weren't any," said Pratt's Marnie McGregor, noting that development has been hot there for several years.

© 2007 Daily News, L.P.