Exclusive | Controversial tax credit credited to save jobs in downtown Manhattan, Buildings on the eve of renewal: Resources

The push from the real estate traders for Albany to renew a controversial critical tax loan to save in the city center of Manhattan turned into a real “rock” seems ready for approval, the post has learned.

The relocation assistance program throughout the city and a similar one specifically for the Lower Manhattan, known as LM-Rea, provide tax loans up to $ 3,000 for employees for companies displaced from the city or from Manhattan parts are in foreign municipalities or downtown.

Tens of thousands of work and the future of a number of Lower Manhattan office buildings would be at risk if little -known reap programs were not renewed when they expire on June 30, according to owners and business advocates.

The measures were left out of the state budget plan declared in April and were convicted after lawmakers in the Senate of the State and the Assembly decided to escape for their summer rest.

But there was movement in an extension during the week, a well -known Albany source for The Post on Monday.

“Finally got the main approval in the Assembly, and it looks good tomorrow in the Senate, which was where the hanging was,” the source said.

Michael Gianaris, vice president of the state Senate Most of Queens, had argued, among other things, that Reap cost the city a lot in predetermined taxes – up to $ 33 million by 2033, according to the finance department – to justify the economic benefits of additional affairs.

But the renewal of the program “is essential for Covid’s recovery, maintaining affordable office space and promoting job growth in small and medium -sized businesses,” argued a representative for the city center alliance.

Supporters say the LM-Reap costs the city a negligible $ 5 million a year-a weighted anti-tax benefits that help generate property taxes and income, though those figures are harder to estimate.

Reap begins in 1987 to curb an exodus of tenants in New Jersey. Manhattan’s low plan, launched in 2003, is entrusted to support 16,000 city jobs and help rent hundreds of square meters of office space in a market that had more ups than UPS since September 11th.

A source predicted a fresh wave of flight to New Jersey If Reap is allowed to die.

“They are actively recruiting New York businesses with programs offering up to $ 8,000 for work and $ 250,000 shift grants. It is clear that if New York step back, New Jersey will enter it,” Burimi said.

Reap renovations, as well as the creation of a new program called Assisted Credit for Employees (Race), are supported by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

But feeling that the measures would be allowed to die, representatives of the local Congress threw their voices into the quarrel.

Gregory Meeks, Grace Meng, Ritchie Torres, Thomas Suzzi and Adriano Espaillat wrote to the leader of the Most of the Senate of the State Andrea Stweart-Cousins ​​and the leader of the Carl Heastie Assembly that “register the City City Workplace”, now not to end LM-Reap. “

Reap programs have also brought work to Dumb, Metrotech and Marin Yard in Brooklyn and Long Island City in Queens.

But the heat is mainly in the lower Manhattan, where more than 20% of about 90 million square meters of officials in the country’s second largest trade circle stay blank and can deteriorate.

“I believe the numbers cited for current and future vacancies are very low, especially on the water road,” said one executive in the city center who asked the anonymity to the post. “Reap program is essential to keeping in the center of the competitive city.”