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According to research recently published by the Regional Plan Association (RPA), a handful of landlords is responsible for a disproportionate amount of the city’s poor housing and eviction cases. RPA labels these landlords as “bad landlords” and defines them as having: (1) a building with more than 10 housing-code violations; (2) at least two eviction cases in housing court between 2013 and mid-2015; and (3) eviction proceedings involving 30 percent of...

Construction spending will reach $61.5 billion in 2018, a new record high for the city, according to the Construction Outlook 2018–2020 report produced by the New York Building Congress (NYBC) and the New York Building Foundation. The report states this spending reflects a 25 percent increase from last year. However, construction spending is expected to dip to $59.3 billion in 2019 and $56.4 billion in 2020.

HPD recently reminded tenants, owners, and landlords of the temperature requirements for all apartments as New York’s “heat season” begins. The 2018-2019 “heat season” begins on Monday, Oct. 1 and continues through Friday, May 31.

Councilmember Ritchie Torres introduced a new bill to stop owners from falsely claiming on applications for building permits that their properties have no rent-regulated units. According to a report recently released by the Housing Rights Initiative and the Department of Investigation, the city approved more than 10,000 false permit applications in the past two and a half years.

The NYC City Council recently held hearings on a package of bills aimed at reducing lead poisoning in children. “I believe it is a failure and a tragedy that children are still affected in a devastating way, potentially for the rest of their lives," said Speaker Corey Johnson at a hearing. He is leading the effort to pass the 25 bills aimed at protecting children from lead exposure, which can cause lifelong learning difficulties and high blood pressure in adu...

Two Queens lawmakers, State Senator Mike Gianaris and Assemblyman Brian Barnwell, recently introduced a bill in their respective chambers that would repeal the Major Capital Improvements (MCI) program and instead provide building owners with tax credits to offset the costs of upgrades. The MCI program, which was implemented in the 1970s, currently allows owners of rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartments to pass on the cost of building improvements to tenants by ra...

According to an investigation spearheaded by the nonprofit Housing Rights Initiative (HRI), attorney Michael Cohen, known for being President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, allegedly engaged in tenant harassment and falsified paperwork in order to quickly turn a profit on three rent-stabilized buildings he owned in Manhattan.

The DOB recently fined Kushner Companies $210,000 for falsifying dozens of permit applications at 17 buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The New York Times first reported that the DOB levied the fines for 42 instances in which Kushner made misrepresentations about the existence of rent-stabilized tenants at buildings, thereby potentially avoiding regulations intended to protect tenants from abuse during periods of construction.

Mayor de Blasio recently announced the creation of a new Tenant Anti-Harassment Unit that will be dedicated to pursuing potential cases of maintenance harassment in multifamily residential buildings and connecting tenants to legal services resources, a complement to the city’s efforts against construction as harassment.

HPD and NYC Housing Development Corporation (HDC) recently announced the launch of Partners in Preservation, a new pilot program that will serve as a hub for local anti-displacement initiatives in the Inwood and Washington Heights, East Harlem, and Jerome Avenue neighborhoods. The program will provide funding for community-based organizations to jointly coordinate anti-displacement initiatives – such as code enforcement, tenant organizing and education, legal repr...