N.Y. Spells Out More Projects That Will Benefit From Stimulus

New York revealed more information about its plans to use federal stimulus funds for roughly $4 billion of infrastructure projects yesterday at a meeting of legislative leaders called by Gov. David Paterson.

The state has identified about 2,100 projects estimated to cost $14 billion that could use the funds, said Timothy Gilchrist, Paterson's senior adviser for infrastructure and transportation.

How the stimulus package will affect the state's borrowing program is still under review and will be subject to legislative negotiations, Division of Budget spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said.

The New York City Transit Authority, the division of the state's Metropolitan Transportation Authority that operates the subway system, will get $816 million of public transportation stimulus funds. The MTA could also get funds under the $750 million New Starts Program for its Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access projects.

The clean water state revolving fund will get a $435 million shot in the arm and the drinking water state revolving fund will get $85 million. The New York State Environmental Facilities Corp. sells bonds against the two funds. At least half of the funds must be put toward loan forgiveness, providing negative interest loans or grants.

Affordable housing deals that have been put on hold because of weakness in the Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit market will be able to access $245 million of gap financing under the HOME Investment Partnership program. The state Department of Housing and Community Renewal plans to use the funding to fill gaps in deals that were allocated tax credits in 2008 but have not yet closed.

Affordable housing deals typically use the federal credits as part of the total financing package but the market for those credits has dropped off steeply as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other companies stopped buying them, driving down their value to developers.

The result has been that some affordable housing deals approved by the New York State Housing Finance Agency and the New York City Housing Development Corp. that relied on those credits have been harder to make work financially, delaying the issuance of bonds.

The state will receive a total of $24.6 billion in aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

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