Council Member Shanae Williams continues to call on Yonkers City Council to review the Affordable Housing Ordinance (AHO). She is urging council to amend the law to increase developers’ affordable housing requirements from 10% to 20% for all new builds.
Despite her objections, Williams’ proposed revisions to the AHO were placed in the Council Real Estate Committee. As she describes in her statement, the item has yet to move forward.
“After several meetings held by the Real Estate Committee, the majority of the members decided it was best to hold the item in committee at the end of the session. My colleagues and I agreed to work on the legislation over the summer break and pick it back up in September. Unfortunately, we are at the end of October and have yet to discuss the proposed legislation in the Real Estate Committee.”
Williams is pursuing the amendment in response to local residents’ concerns about the lack of affordable housing options in Yonkers. The current AHO is based on the area median income (AMI) of Westchester County, which requires 10% of market rate housing to be affordable.
Proposal Lacks Mayoral Support
Although Mayor Mike Spano met with the Majority Democratic Caucus in early November, he is not in favor of the increase to 20% affordable housing. Williams is receptive to Mayor Spano’s willingness to work with council.
“Since we cannot agree on all the changes in the proposed ordinance,” William stated, “the administration suggests that we conduct a study on affordable housing. This study is expected to take about 3-4 months to complete.”
Assessments have already been conducted by Westchester County to determine housing affordability needs. While Williams is optimistic that changes to the AHO will benefit the people of Yonkers, she is concerned about the delays of a separate study. She feels confident that her proposal can move forward based on existing data for the county, which includes the City of Yonkers.
“Some of my colleagues are in agreement with the administration that conducting a Yonkers study is the best route to take at this time. I believe this is an effort to delay the vote on the proposed ordinance, since we already have data from the County’s study,” she said.
Additional topics of the debate include proposed concessions for developers to construct affordable housing in different locations to satisfy the 20% threshold.
