Albany, New York Affordable Housing
Article published February, 2025.
| City | [1] |
|---|---|
| City of Albany Treasurer's Office | 2024 |
| Author(s) | User:KarlTyche |
What is Albany's Affordable & Inclusionary Housing program?
What are Inclusionary Housing provisions? Quoting Grounded Network which runs the Inclusionary Housing site, “Local inclusionary housing policies tie the creation of affordable homes for low- and moderate-income households to the construction of market-rate housing or commercial development.”
Albany is the only Capital District community that has Inclusionary Housing provisions in development code and processes.
What is Albany's Inclusionary Housing policy
A quick review of Albany’s policy:
- “all developments containing 20 or more dwelling units to make a certain percentage of units affordable to persons earning no more than 60% of the area median household income (AMI)”
- Originally the % of units was 5% however in April 2023 the policy was amended as such:
- 20-49 units => 7% of units shall be affordable
- 50-60 units => 10% of units
- 60-75 units => 12% of units
- 75+ units => 13% of units
As an illustrative example, 1211 Western Ave is an apartment building near University at Albany that is under construction and has 136 units. The project was approved in 2019 and therefore has an affordable unit requirement of 7 units (5%). If the project had been approved more recently the requirement would have been 17 units.
For this analysis we will draw from the “Unified Sustainable Development Ordinance: Annual Report & Memorandum”, May 2024, produced by the Department of Planning & Development.
How much affordable housing is being developed?
Let’s look at the data from the Department of Planning & Development report. The report contains a list of all multi dwelling unit (MDU) housing that is impacted by the Inclusionary Housing requirement between January 2018 and February 2024. The report lists out:
- The project street address
- The date of the original plan submission
- The total number of housing units
- The number of affordable units required by the Unified Sustainable Development Ordinance (USDO)
- If the development is being funded through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. All units included in these projects are required to be made affordable
- The project status as of May 2024
| Project Address | Submittal Date | Total Units | Affordable Units Required by USDO | Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program | Project Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 760 Broadway | 1/5/2018 | 88 | 4 | Completed | |
| 1211 Western Avenue | 5/3/2018 | 136 | 7 | Under Construction | |
| 16 Sheridan Avenue | 8/3/2018 | 133 | 7 | Completed | |
| 1 Steuben Place | 9/4/2018 | 59 | 3 | Completed | |
| 76 North Pearl Street | 9/4/2018 | 63 | 3 | Completed | |
| 563 New Scotland Avenue | 10/30/2018 | 188 | 9 | Under Construction | |
| 705 Broadway | 2/27/2019 | 129 | 6 | Under Construction | |
| 67 Livingston Avenue | 4/2/2019 | 67 | 3 | Yes | Approved |
| 25 Delaware Avenue | 5/3/2019 | 51 | 3 | Yes | Completed |
| 745 Broadway | 5/29/2019 | 80 | 4 | Under Construction | |
| 425 North Pearl Street | 7/1/2019 | 82 | 4 | Completed | |
| 25 Holland Avenue | 8/30/2019 | 60 | 3 | Under Construction | |
| 60 Colvin Avenue | 5/3/2020 | 63 | 3 | Yes | Approved |
| 19 & 21 Erie Boulevard | 5/5/2021 | 261 | 13 | Completed | |
| 244 State Street | 1/12/2022 | 61 | 3 | Under Construction | |
| 1379 Washington Avenue | 2/9/2022 | 100 | 5 | Completed | |
| 1361 Broadway | 2/17/2023 | 220 | 11 | Under Review | |
| 500 Northern Boulevard | 4/20/2023 | 185 | 24 | Yes | Approved |
| 48 North Pearl Street | 4/27/2023 | 20 | 1 | Under Construction | |
| 324 State Street | 5/11/2023 | 29 | 2 | Under Construction | |
| 97 Central Avenue | 7/27/2023 | 47 | 4 | Approved | |
| 64 Colvin Avenue | 8/4/2023 | 120 | 16 | Yes | Approved |
| 124-132 Henry Johnson Boulevard | 10/13/2023 | 38 | 3 | Yes | Under Review |
| 222 Spruce Street | 11/21/2023 | 48 | 3 | Under Review | |
| 575 Broadway | 2/9/2024 | 49 | 3 | Under Review | |
| 1383 Washington Avenue | 2/29/2024 | 99 | 13 | Approved |
We can aggregate the projects, using all of the data except for the two “Expired” projects. If and when the remaining 26 projects are all completed, this would add:
- 2476 total housing units
- 524 housing units developed from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program
- 108 housing units developed from the Inclusionary Housing provisions
- 632 total low income housing units
What is the Multi Dwelling Unit (MDU) Growth Rate?
For perspective, the 2020 US Census showed that Albany had 48,031 total housing units and 42,158 occupied housing units.
| MDU-driven Housing Growth | New Housing Units | Low Income Housing Units | |
| 2476 | 632 | ||
| Total Housing Units - Census 2020 | 48,031 | 5.2% | 1.3% |
| Occupied Housing Units - Census 2020 | 42,158 | 5.9% | 1.5% |
If we look at the growth rate in housing driven exclusively through multi dwelling unit (MDU) housing by the 26 projects above we can see that the new MDU housing for the 26 projects grows the City of Albany’s Total Housing Unit count by over 5% if all projects are completed.
Where is the affordable housing being developed?
We created a map to view where the projects are located .
Each housing development is shown on the map with a red house icon. If you click on each location you can see the address, total units, affordable unit requirements, whether or not the development falls under the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program and the project status.
What are the Nationwide Affordable and Inclusionary Housing Statistics?
We can use data and analysis from Grounded Solutions Network and their Inclusionary Housing analysis. Their academic publication is here.
- There are over 1000 Inclusionary Housing programs nationwide
- New York has the 4th most programs by state, 44, behind NJ, MA and CA
- There are no other Capital District communities that have an Inclusionary Housing program
- Grounded Solutions suggests “Most inclusionary units are targeted to households earning 50–120% of AMI (area median income)”. Albany’s program targets 60%. Further research should explore Albany’s AMI vs. the median AMI of other programs nationwide.
Additional Explorations
When the 2025 Unified Sustainable Development Ordinance: Annual Report is available we will integrate the updated data.
Data
TBD - need to post Inclusionary Housing Report
Process
No significant data processing was required, other than converting data in the PDF to XLS
Credits
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:
- © Copyright 2025
- Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
- KarlTyche (Karl Urich)
For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:
"Portions derived from 'Albany NY Affordable Housing', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., KarlTyche (Karl Urich) & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"