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The City Council recently introduced a package of 12 bills aimed at increasing protections for tenants who feel the Department of Buildings doesn’t adequately monitor owners who carry out unpleasant, and often dangerous, building renovations.
According to city officials, developers of 2,472 apartments spread across 194 buildings in New York City ignored the terms of the 421-a tax break by failing to register the apartments as rent stabilized. Under the 421-a tax incentive, developers are required to register apartments as rent stabilized, meaning their rents would be regulated by the city. Leases would also be renewable to tenants each year.
When the 421-a tax abatement policy expired on June 15, the number of building permits issued for the following month plummeted. According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of permits issued in July fell by 90 percent from June. The biggest losses were felt in Brooklyn and Queens, which saw a fall-off of 97 percent and 98 percent, respectively.
Mayor de Blasio recently signed three bills into law designed to protect rent-regulated tenants from pressure to agree to buyouts or cash payments in return for giving up their apartments. Among the laws, which take effect in 90 days, is one that prevents owners from pressuring tenants into accepting buyout offers or making offers within 180 days of a tenant refusing an offer. They also require owners to notify tenants of their right t...
New York City is in the midst of a building boom as evidenced by permit filings at the Department of Buildings. Over the last fiscal year, the DOB agreed to the construction of 52,618 residential units. This represents a massive 156 percent increase from the previous fiscal year and a 749 percent increase from the post-recession low of 2010, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the New York Building Congress.
A group of Orthodox Jewish tenants are suing the owners of a housing complex in Corona, Queens, alleging religious discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. In 2012, the 20-building complex embarked on a renovation project that added lobby doors that open only with electronic keys, as opposed to traditional metal keys.
A recent study looked at Airbnb home/apartment listings in 20 different Zip codes located throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. It found that those listings which offered to rent entire homes or apartments on Airbnb’s website comprise at least 10 percent of the total rental units in those Zip codes, according to the report by New York Communities for Change. The most popular neighborhood for Airb...
Developers in line for tax breaks for building low-income housing in or near luxury buildings can no longer install a "poor door" to separate low-income tenants from those who pay market rates. The New York State ban was passed recently as part of legislation that renewed the state's 421-a tax break program and strengthened the state’s rent regulation.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently announced a settlement deal with Bank of America and Citigroup in which the banks will provide $75 million to build or rehabilitate 2,300 rental units in the city and 1,500 elsewhere in the state. The money, which would be used to fund low-interest loans, will count as “consumer relief” that the banks pledged to provide under multibillion-dollar national settl...
Since Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s Airbnb report last fall, which found that 72 percent of all Airbnb transactions between 2010 and June 2014 violated state law, City Council members have been intensifying their efforts to stem the illegal use of Airbnb. Recently, Manhattan City Council members Helen Rosenthal and Ydanis Rodriguez have introduced new legislation that would ramp up penalties for people who misu...
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