N.Y. Private Housing Finance Law § 800: Policy and purposes of article

§ 800. Policy and purposes of article. It is hereby declared and found

that there exists in municipalities in this state substandard and

insanitary areas and neighborhoods characterized by undermaintained and

deteriorating housing accommodations and under-utilized non-residential

buildings and under-utilized vacant land. It is further found that there

exists in such municipalities a diminishing and seriously inadequate

supply of safe and sanitary dwelling accommodations, particularly for

persons of low income; that the loss of housing accommodations is caused

by the inability of the ordinary unaided operations of private

enterprise to make loans for rehabilitation or construction purposes or

for conversion which accelerates the process of deterioration and

abandonment, turning active and viable neighborhoods into slums and

blighted areas; and that the prevention of deterioration and loss

through abandonment can only be achieved by the elimination of

conditions which are unsafe or detrimental to health, the replacement of

antiquated heating, plumbing, and electrical systems and, where

necessary, the overall rehabilitation of certain housing accommodations,

the construction of new housing accommodations on vacant land and the

conversion of under-utilized non-residential property to residential

use, and that the unavailability of funds for the conversion of

under-utilized property to residential use, for the preservation and

rehabilitation of housing accommodations and for the construction of new

housing accommodations on vacant land constitutes a threat to the

health, safety and well-being of the persons who occupy them and denies

to others the possibility of living in safe and sanitary housing

accommodations.

In order to promote the preservation and rehabilitation of such

housing accommodations, the creation of new housing accommodations by

the conversion of under-utilized non-residential property into multiple

dwellings and the construction of new housing accommodations on vacant

land in such areas and to encourage the investment of private capital in

such areas, provision should be made for a municipality to attract

private investment for such purposes by utilizing funds, which are

available from the federal government through specific or discretionary

grants, or are available from other financing sources, for joint

participation loans with private investors, or loans or grants by the

municipality, to effect the required construction, rehabilitation or

conversion.

The necessity in the public interest for the provisions hereinafter

enacted is hereby declared as a matter of legislative determination.