Relates to affordable housing for persons with a disability or having attained the age of sixty-two; establishes a developmentally disabled and elderly adult accessory apartment loan program.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A2244
SPONSOR: Santabarbara TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the private housing finance law, in relation to afforda-
ble housing for persons with disabilities and those having attained the
age of sixty-two
PURPOSE:
To establish a developmentally disabled and elderly adult accessory
apartment loan program.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This proposal would add a new paragraph (i) to subdivision 7 of section
45-b of the private housing finance law to establish this accessory
apartment loan program.
JUSTIFICATION:
At this time, about 1 in 68 children are identified with autism spectrum
disorder (ASD) each year according to estimates from the Center for
Disease Control's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring
(ADDM) Network. This statistic highlights a growing phenomenon as these
children become adults living with autism. This legislation seeks to
allow a more flexible approach to housing at a time when thousands of
residents with developmental disabilities are in need of placement.
Currently, autistic adults have one primary option: community-based
housing in which they share a group home. Many families are concerned
that adults with autism are not receiving an appropriate level of care
addressing their specific needs. Similarly, older adults may face many
of the same obstacles in attaining the appropriate level of care needed.
This bill would establish a developmentally disabled and elderly adult
accessory apartment loan program, allowing individuals and families to
leverage their own resources and potentially create housing at a lower
cost to the state. The program would allow owner-occupiers of single
family homes, including families of persons with disabilities, to get an
interest free, potentially deferred payment loan for up to $50K or 50%
of construction costs to add an accessory unit of up to two bedrooms,
provided a deed restriction is in place that requires a person who has a
developmental disability to reside on the property.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2015-16: A8696 - ordered to third reading rules cal.341
2017-18: A220 - referred to housing
2019-20: A1410 - referred to housing
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
To be determined
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after it
shall have become a law.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
2244
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 15, 2025
___________
Introduced by M. of A. SANTABARBARA -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Housing
AN ACT to amend the private housing finance law, in relation to afforda-
ble housing for persons with disabilities and those having attained
the age of sixty-two
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 7 of section 45-b of the private housing
2 finance law is amended by adding a new paragraph (i) to read as follows:
3 (i) Establish a disabled and elderly accessory apartment loan program,
4 loans issued for which purpose shall be subject to the following parame-
5 ters:
6 (i) proceeds of loans shall be used to construct an additional dwell-
7 ing unit of up to two bedrooms within a structure, or to improve, reno-
8 vate, or rehabilitate not more than one dwelling unit of up to two
9 bedrooms located in a structure that, at the time of the loan applica-
10 tion, contains a total of not more than two dwelling units; each dwell-
11 ing unit may not be less than four hundred fifty square feet of gross
12 living area;
13 (ii) at least one dwelling unit within the structure shall be owner-
14 occupied, and, following completion of the project, at least one dwell-
15 ing unit within the structure shall be occupied by a household that
16 includes one person with a disability or one person having attained the
17 age of sixty-two, either of whom may be related to the borrower;
18 (iii) loans shall be limited to the less of fifty percent of the
19 financing of the total development costs or fifty thousand dollars;
20 (iv) loans shall not be issued unless a contract or agreement for the
21 use of the property for the purposes of such housing provides for the
22 recording of a restriction in the registry of deeds maintained by the
23 clerk of the county in which the affected real property is located, for
24 the benefit of said corporation, running with the land, that the land be
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD05056-01-5
A. 2244 2
1 used for the purpose of providing alternative forms of rental and owner-
2 ship housing. Such property shall not be released from such restriction
3 until the balance of the principal and interest for any such loan shall
4 be repaid in full or until a mortgage foreclosure deed shall be
5 recorded;
6 (v) loans shall be issued for a term of up to thirty years which time
7 repayment may be deferred by the loan issuing authority. At maturity,
8 the corporation may extend a loan for an additional period of up to ten
9 years. Thereafter, as long as the housing continues to comply with the
10 requirements set forth in the loan documents, additional ten-year exten-
11 sions may be approved.
12 (vi) interest rates for loans shall be fixed at a rate to be deter-
13 mined by the director of housing and community development, in consulta-
14 tion with the state treasurer;
15 (vii) expenditures from this paragraph shall not be made for the
16 purpose of refinancing outstanding mortgage loans for housing in exist-
17 ence prior to the effective date of this paragraph;
18 (viii) the corporation shall take due consideration of a balanced
19 geographic plan for such alternative forms of housing when issuing such
20 loans;
21 (ix) at least one half of the beneficiaries of the loan program
22 created by this paragraph shall be persons whose income is less than
23 eighty percent of the area-wide median income as determined from time to
24 time by the United States department of housing and urban development;
25 and
26 (x) the corporation shall promulgate rules and regulations for the
27 implementation of the loan program created by this paragraph.
28 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
