Aaron J. Yowell

My focus

Aligning interests

Building new affordable housing and preserving housing requires marshaling diverse sets of government agencies and debt and equity partners within an ever more complex set of programs and incentives. We guide developers and investors in building transactions on the foundation of our broad and deep experience. For example, we recently helped a for-profit developer and a nonprofit operator acquire and finance a hybrid supportive housing and transitional housing project. The project was financed with a mix of subsidy, credit tenant lease financing, a Freddie Mac loan, and brownfields equity. Getting to closing required us to harmonize the interests of each of these sources while protecting our clients’ core interests.

Innovation

Up-to-the-minute deal awareness is essential. We rely on strong project management to ensure that all members of our team, our clients, and other transactional partners are aligned and directed. Affordable housing transactions, which often involve upwards of five or six different sources of debt financing, tax credit equity, and state and local tax exemptions, present a unique opportunity to create value through efficiency and we work hard to seize that opportunity on every transaction. During my time as Chief Innovation Officer, our team has developed several approaches that reduce friction.

However, our innovation initiatives are not only focused on increasing transactional efficiency but also on helping clients identify opportunities for existing assets and unlock new lines of business. We work closely with our clients, investors, lenders, and regulatory agencies to develop new models to create much-needed housing, including using new sources and regulatory approaches. We relish the opportunity to help with the newest approaches, the most challenging transactions, and the most difficult problems.

Resiliency & Investment

Our team does the work we do for a key reason. We think housing is critically important. Our work reflects that commitment, and we truly relish contributions we can make to housing projects that have the most impact on the residents—including senior and supportive housing and transitional housing shelters. I am gratified by my long-running relationship with the Furman Center for Real Estate & Urban Policy at NYU, which conducts cutting-edge research on urban development and affordable housing. In addition to affordable housing, sustainability and green building are very important to me. I was a founding board member of GreenHomeNYC, a nonprofit offering sustainability resources for small- and medium-sized buildings in New York City.

Representative experience

• Represented the developer in a joint venture to develop a hybrid supportive housing and transitional shelter located in Queens, NY. The project was financed by a mortgage, New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) together with private equity and will generate New York State brownfields cleanup program credits.
• Representation of an affordable housing developer in securing an Article XI for a 259-unit HUD-subsidized senior housing property in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
• Counsel to the purchaser of Starrett City, a 5,881-unit multi-building, mixed-use property in Brooklyn, New York, and the largest federally subsidized rental housing development. Served as primary interface to both HUD and New York State DHCR with respect to Mitchell-Lama regulatory and tax exemption issues regarding the permanent preservation of the asset.
• Represented a developer on the $30 million acquisition of the Johanna Apartments, a 100 percent Project Based Section 8 property across four buildings on West 144th Street. The developer partnered with Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement to extend affordability protections to the Johanna Apartments for the maximum 40-year term through a new US Department of Housing and Urban Development contract and an agreement with the City of New York.
• Represented a nonprofit developer in connection with the property acquisition, financing, and development of a new affordable housing development in Middle Island, New York. The team negotiated the permanent and construction financing for the project, which included funding from Bank of America, the New York State Office of Mental Health, the New York State Housing Finance Agency, the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the New York State Homeless Housing and Assistance Corporation, Suffolk County, and the Town of Brookhaven. The development includes 123 affordable apartments with 50 supportive housing units.
• Represented the Hudson Companies, Inc. through their Green Fund, in securing construction financing for a mixed-income development on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.
• Lead affordable housing counsel in connection with a recapitalization of a large portfolio of general partner interests in low-income housing tax projects across a large number of jurisdictions.
• Represented a joint venture between an MWBE developer and a Westchester-based nonprofit in connection with the development of a new construction affordable housing project to be located in the Bronx, New York, with a low-income housing tax credit investment, tax exempt bonds from HFA and subsidy from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development of the City of New York.
• Represented an affordable housing developer in the preservation of a 1590-unit development in lower Manhattan. The project, one of the oldest affordable housing projects in the country, is subject to Article IV of the New York State Private Housing Finance Law, will receive much-needed rehabilitation while being preserved in perpetuity.
• Represented a joint venture between an affordable developer and a market rate developer in the development of a senior affordable housing project in lower Manhattan financed with subsidy from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development of the City of New York. The project involved substantial novel structuring issues as it did not receive an allocation of low-income housing tax credits.
• Represented a nonprofit supportive housing developer in connection with a 102-unit new construction bond tax credit project to be located on a parcel adjacent to an historic church in the Bronx, New York, with our half of the units providing supportive services. Financing for the project also includes operating subsidy under the ESSHI program and debt from the New York State Office of Mental Health.

Looking ahead

The New York City and State governments continue to try to outdo each other in housing production and regulatory complexity, increasingly insisting upon a substantial mix of incomes, set asides, regulatory restrictions, and other programmatic priorities. At the same time, with tax-exempt bond volume cap constrained not only in traditionally starved New York City and State but other jurisdictions around the country, opportunities abound for less conventional structures and more creative players. State and local governments at all levels are going to have to find new ways to build housing and this presents opportunities for traditional affordable housing developers, market-rate developers, and players new to the affordable market to expand in both size and scope. At the same time, on a nationwide basis, portfolios from the early phases of the low-income housing tax credit program are reaching the end of their regulatory restrictions. The developers of these portfolios will be looking to recapitalize and reposition. We will all have to adapt their approaches to accommodate this volume.

Our work in this area will not just be substantive. Through our legal technology initiatives, we continue to improve our efficiency and productivity, reduce transactional pain points, and find new areas where we can help our clients. The last several years have seen tremendous growth in this area, with new tools, including artificial intelligence, becoming an essential part of our practice in a matter of months.

Insights

Publications

• “Building Environmentally Sustainable Communities: A Framework for Inclusion” (What Works Collaborative 2010) (co-author with Vicki Been, Mary Cunningham, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Adam Gordon, Margorie Turner and Ken Zimmerman) 
• “That’s Where We Print the Money: Trading Increased Density for Public Amenities,” 15 NYU Environmental Law Journal 493, 2007, reprinted in Zoning and Planning Handbook , Patricia E. Salkin, editor, 2008 
• “Tracking Building Energy Usage,” The Cooperator, June 2008 
• “Inclusionary Zoning for New York City: Predictions and Recommendations for Hudson Yards, Greenpoint-Williamsburg and Beyond,” 14 NYU Wagner Review 1, 2007 

Select Presentations

• “Housing Markets and Housing Affordability,” 2024 Notre Dame Housing Conference, October 14, 2024 (Speaker)
• “Financing Projects without Federal LIHTC,” Annual Upstate New York State Affordable Housing Conference, May 15, 2024 (Speaker)
• “The Latest on Real Property Tax Exemptions for Affordable Housing,” Annual New York State Affordable Housing Conference, May 17, 2023 (Speaker)
• “The Latest in Financing Housing for the Homeless,” NYSAFAH’s 2022 Annual New York State Affordable Housing Conference, May 18, 2022 (Moderator)
• “State Rent Regulation Changes: What Affordable Housing Developers Need to Know,” NYHC Housing Marketing & Rent Law Policy Symposium, New York, NY, September 10, 2019
• “New Sources of Equity Workshop,” 20th Annual New York State Affordable Housing Conference, New York City, May 15, 2019
• “Private Equity in Affordable Housing,” Institute for Responsible Housing Preservation with Joshua Plattner, Jonathan Rose Companies; Lisa Davis, PGIM; Louis Harrison, Belveron Real Estate Partners; Rick Gropper, Camber Property Group; and Kim Darga, New York City Housing Preservation and Development, January 2019 (Panel moderator)
• “How Will Opportunity Zones Impact Land Use and Development?” ULI New York Real Estate Outlook 2019, January 2019 (Panelist)
• “Strategies to Maximize Opportunity Zone Investments,” Capalino + Company with Morgan Harper, LISC; Michael Lohr, Goldman Sachs; Richard Roberts, Red Stone Equity Partners; and Adam Roman, Stellar Management, New York City, November 2018 (Panelist)
• “Federal Housing Program Changes & their Impact on States,” NYSAFAH Upstate, September 2018 (with Richard Roberts, Red Stone Equity Partners; Linda Manley, New York State Homes and Community Renewal; and Olivia Barrow, Enterprise Community Partners (Panelist)
• “State Funding Update,” NYSAFAH Upstate, September 2016 (with Marian Zucker, HFA; David Walsh, JPMorgan Chase; Sue McCann, TCB; and Victor Sostar, First Sterling (Panelist)
• “Affordable Housing’s Getting Creative,” Bisnow, September 2016 (with Spencer Orkus, L+M Development; Eli Weiss, Joy Construction and Shwetha Subramanian, Forest City Ratner (Panelist)
• “Developing Inclusionary Housing without 421a: Alternative Tax-Exemption Tools,” Nixon Peabody LLP, July 2016 (with Vicki Been, HPD Commissioner and Chuck Brass, Forsyth Street Advisors (Panelist)
• “Beyond Tax Credits: Alternative Financing for Affordable Housing,” Nixon Peabody LLP, March 2016
• “Labor and Employment Issues in Affordable Housing,” Nixon Peabody LLP, November 2015)
• “Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Property Dispositions,” IPED, October 2015
• “Developing for ELI (Extremely Low Income) Tenants,” New York State Supportive Housing Conference, May 2015
• “Supportive Housing—Challenges and Opportunities,” IPED, March 2015
• “Negotiating Equity Documents,” Nixon Peabody LLP, November 2014
• “Better Buildings, Greener Pockets: HUD’s New Funding,” Institute for Responsible Housing Preservation, January 2014
• “Real Financing, Real Quick (Financing for People with Short Attention Spans),” Building Energy New York City, October 2013 (Panel moderator)
• “Negotiating Confidentiality Agreements, Northwood Acquisitions,” January 2011
• “The Good Green Meme: Models of Citizen Engagement from the Streets of New York City,” GreenBuild 2009, Phoenix, Arizona (with Gita Nandan, thread collective and Miquela Craytor, Sustainable South Bronx (Panelist)

Ideas

• New York Affordable Housing Legislative Updates
  Affordable Housing Alert | 06.07.22
• Regulatory and Transactional Trends Affecting Affordable Housing
  Affordable Housing | 05.13.22
• Amendment to Private Housing Finance Law Codifies HDFC Sales Tax Exemption
  Affordable Housing Alert | 04.26.21
• New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development Issues New Article XI Real Property Tax Exemption Term Sheet
  Affordable Housing Alert | 04.12.21
• IPED's Affordable Housing Industry Update
  Affordable Housing | 11.09.20