New York City Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program
What does ICAP actually do?
ICAP is the city's property tax abatement for commercial and industrial construction: new buildings, expansions and renovations. Those two words are defined broadly enough to reach offices, retail, transient hotels and community facility uses. Four things about it decide most projects.
The four things that decide it
It abates the tax increase your work creates
The abatement is computed from the difference between the property's tax after construction and before it, phased over 8 to 25 years depending on the schedule the project lands on. There is no fixed dollar amount: the benefit follows what your project does to the assessment, which is why no honest screen promises a number before a review of your project's own figures.
Commercial and industrial property, as the statute defines them
The law works in two categories, and the first is wider than its name suggests. Commercial property means nonresidential property used for buying, selling or otherwise providing goods or services, including hotel services, or for other lawful business, commercial or manufacturing activities. Offices, retail, and community facility uses that provide services all sit inside that definition; community facility is a zoning term rather than a tax one, so it qualifies through this test rather than as a category of its own. Industrial property is the narrower category and demands at least 75 percent of total net square footage for manufacturing. Transient hotels have their own provision, and utility property is excluded from both.
At least 30 percent of taxable assessed value
ICAP requires spending at least 30 percent of the property's taxable assessed value within four years of the first building permit. The checker on the front page computes that dollar line for your lot from the city's published assessment roll, so you know the threshold before anyone files anything. Industrial projects that reach 40 percent unlock additional benefits.
The application precedes the first building permit
The preliminary application must reach the Department of Finance on or before the day the first building permit is issued: foundation, new building, support of excavation or Alteration Type 1. File after that date and the benefit for the work is forfeited. Nothing later recovers it.
The one mistake that cannot be fixed
Almost every other problem on an ICAP file has a path: a marginal budget, a mixed-use split, an old benefit on the lot. The permit date does not. The application must be in before the first qualifying permit is issued, and a demolition or electrical permit does not start that clock, so pulling one does not mean you are late. If a qualifying permit was issued today, the filing can still go in today. Call before you write anything off.
Find out where your own project stands
The free check reads the city’s assessment roll for your lot and prints the minimum you would have to spend, along with anything in the public record that already blocks a filing. It takes about a minute and asks for no sign-up.