The City of Albany has proposed a reform to the current Inclusionary Zoning ordinance that would make the following changes to the current law:
1. Increase the Area Median Income from 60% to 70%, meaning new developments must be eligible to tenants with higher incomes than before.
2. Rather than the tiered structure which set aside between 7-13% of units in new developments for low income renters, the new ordinance would be a flat 5% for all developments of 20 units or more. However, developers can buy their way out of providing those units to tenants with 70% of AMI by giving the City of Albany $50,000 per unit. For example, if 100 units are being developed, 5 of those would need to be eligible to tenants with an income of 70% of the AMI. Now a developer can pay the City $250,000 (5 units x $50,000) to be exempt from inclusionary zoning.
This is better than the original proposal by former Mayor Kathy Sheehan, but is still a rollback of inclusionary housing.
The bill also establishes new compliance mechanisms to ensure that if a developer maintains their inclusionary units they are going to eligible households and promoted accurately.
The money a developer would pay to exempt themselves from Inclusionary Zoning would go to the Albany Community Development Agency where a Housing Trust Fund is to be established. The Housing Trust Fund will be overseen by community organizations and members to ensure it goes where its most needed.