Albany OKS rental layout

Mayor: Affordable housing quotas could deter builders

ALBANY — In a win for some affordable housing proponents, the city’s Common Council approved new rules that require developers to increase the number of units set aside for renters under certain income limits.

The council approved the changes in a 14-0 vote on Monday, despite continued opposition from Mayor Kathy Sheehan, who has said she thinks it will make Albany less attractive to housing developers. Twelfth Ward Councilman Hyde Clarke did not vote in favor of or against the proposal, instead voting “present.”

The city already had an existing quota that required developers of buildings with more than 50 units to dedicate 5 percent of the building as affordable units.

The changes will create a staggered system that increases the percentage of affordable units as a development gets larger. Developments with 20 to 49 units will need to keep 7 percent of their units as affordable housing. The number rises to 10 percent for developments with up to 60 units, 12 percent with developments up to 75 units and is capped at 13 percent in buildings with more than 75 units.

The new legislation also changes the income requirements. Developers must now make the units affordable to renters who make 60 percent or less of the area’s median income. The prior income level was for renters who made 100 percent or less of the city of Albany’s median income.

The increase has been discussed for more than a year as the council wrestled with how high to push the percentage of affordable units. Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Capitalize Albany, the city’s economic development arm, had urged the council

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not to increase the amount of affordable housing units in developments, arguing it would put the city at a competitive disadvantage and drive developers to surrounding areas.

Councilman Alfredo Balarin, who sponsored the legislation, said the result was a compromise. Balarin cast the increase as a way for the city to combat gentrification and ensure there is affordable

housing throughout the city’s neighborhoods.

“This is not the solution to affordable housing, this is just one of many tools,” he said Monday.

In a letter to the council prior to the vote, Sheehan cast the increase as one that would effectively kill future housing development in the city. She noted that more 1,500 affordable housing units have been built or renovated in her time in office and another 1,500 are in development. She also pointed to the city’s use of American Rescue Plan funding to increase affordable

housing opportunities.

In her letter, Sheehan argued that under the new requirements, none of the city’s housing projects currently under development would be financially feasible.

“Even though there is a need for more housing in Albany, no developer will build here if the risk is too high, and the reward is too low, especially compared to our neighboring communities,” she wrote.

Sheehan is expected to veto the ordinance, setting up an override vote at the next Common Council meeting.