Joseph Spector http://rochesterdemocrat.ny.newsmemory.com/

Albany Bureau Chief

ALBANY — Housing c osts for renters and homeowners in New York soared compared to incomes over a 12­year period, a report Monday said.

More than half of renters and a third of homeowners paid more than 30 percent of their 2012 gross income on housing, the report from Comptroller Thomas Di-Napoli found.

The report had a sur­prising outcome: Rent affordability was most stressed in the New York City suburbs and up­state. “Regardless of where they live, more New Yorkers are feeling pinched by rising hous­ing costs,” DiNapoli said in a statement.

The Hudson Valley in 2012 had four of the five counties in New York with the highest propor­tions of renters paying above the 30 percent af­fordability threshold — a federal guideline on what people should spend on housing com­pared to gross house­hold income.

The Bronx was first because of high poverty, but was followed by Greene, Ulster, Rock­land and Orange coun­ties. They were among 17 counties in New York where the cost of renting exceeded 50 percent of the renter’s gross in­come, the report said.

Putnam and Monroe counties ranked seventh and eighth on the list of high rents to incomes, at 54 percent a piece. West­chester, which is em­broiled in a federal fight over affordable housing, ranked 10th at 53 percent. Dutchess was 16th at 50 percent.

Housing advocates said the report showed the dearth of affordable hous­ing options outside major cities in New York. “We find it unacceptable that more than 50 percent of New Yorkers pay rents over the affordability lev­el,” Alison Badgett, exec­utive director of the state Association for Afford­able Housing.

DiNapoli’s report eval­uated housing affordabil­ity trends from 2000 to 2012 based on U.S. Census Bureau data. It used the federal government threshold for affordable housing costs: being be­low 30 percent of gross household income.

The percentage of households with rents above the affordability level in New York in­creased from 41 percent in 2000 to nearly 51 per­cent in 2012. Homeowners paying above the afforda­bility rate increased from 26 percent in 2000 to 34 percent in 2012, the report said.

In 2012, the most re­cent data available, near­ly 28 percent of renters and 15 percent of home­owners paid housing costs that were at least half of their household income.

Housing costs signifi­cantly outpaced income growth, the report said.

Median monthly hous­ing costs in New York rose by 19 percent for renters and 10 percent for home­owners between 2000 to 2012. Yet homeowners’ median household income declined 1.6 percent, or $963, and dropped 7.1 per­cent for renters, or $2,058, the report said. The federal govern­ment says “gross rent” also includes the monthly costs for utilities. Home­owner costs includes cost for mortgages, insurance, utilities and real estate taxes. New York has among the highest property tax­es in the nation. Accord­ing to census data, median real estate taxes in­creased in 53 of New York’s 62 counties — an average increase of $349, or 12 percent, over that time. Blair Sebastian, execu­tive director for the state Rural Housing Coalition, said upstate communities shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to afford­able housing.

“The affordable hous­ing crisis in upstate rural New York is complex and confounding,” Sebastian said in a statement. “Af­fordable housing is an im­portant prerequisite for so many things in our lives, yet it remains an un­realized promise for hun­dreds of thousands of New Yorkers.”

JSPECTOR www.twitter.com/gannettalbany