Subsidy Sheet: Furman Center on NYC OZs, Niagara Handouts for Pizza Wage Thief

A new report from the highly respected NYU Furman Center shows that Opportunity Zone (OZ) tax breaks in New York City do little for low-income neighborhoods and mainly subsidize high-end, market-rate apartments. Furman’s analysis confirms what studies have already been showing for years and demolishes the absurd claim by the program’s supporters that Trump’s OZs are an anti-poverty program.

Unfortunately, New York State and City could start losing up to $424 million annually in capital gains tax revenue as soon as next year unless the Assembly joins the Senate in passing S3340 (Gianaris) / A3246 (Dinowitz).

Highlights from the Furman Center report:

• “Development in OZs is disproportionately located in non-low-income tracts that have a shared border with an eligible low-income area.” 
• “Nearly 60 percent of new apartments in OZs were market rate, compared to less than 50 percent in eligible but not designated areas.” 
• “Much of the new development in OZs occurred in contiguous non-low-income designated tracts, and any potential additive investment appears to have been limited to market rate housing.” 
• “The OZ program does not provide rental assistance to very low-income households, does not efficiently target benefits or units to very low-income neighborhoods or households, and prevents the benefit from being used to invest in emergency repairs or smaller rehabilitation scopes in existing buildings.” 

Source: NYU Furman Center

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More NY corporate giveaway news from this week:

• The New York State Senate passed Sen. Sean Ryan’s bill to ban tax breaks for Amazon warehouses on Monday. The company has been seeking a $31 million property tax break for a planned warehouse in the upstate town of Wawayanda, something state Sen. James Skoufis called “highway robbery” given the near-minimum-wage jobs the warehouse would provide (Spectrum News).
• The Investigative Post reports that a Niagara Falls Papa John’s pizza owner has now gotten Niagara County Industrial Development Agency subsidies for an eighth time despite being under investigation for wage theft. Though fast food outlets are usually ineligible for IDA assistance, the county IDA unanimously approved Muhammad Shoaib’s $48,750 grant on the grounds it keeps tourists on the “economically distressed” side of the U.S.-Canada border.
• Micron’s chip plant in the Syracuse suburb of Clay, which is set to get up to $5.5 billion in state subsidies, looks likely to have its planned groundbreaking delayed as it awaits a final environmental impact statement, though a company exec says Micron is still hoping to “have wafers out the door later this decade.” Can Micron be a bit more specific? Do they mean next year or the last day of 2029? This vague timeline isn’t stopping Syracuse [dot] com’s editorial board from talking up all the workers the project will need. 

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