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Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that Maria Torres-Springer will step down as Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in early March to take on a new role as Vice President of U.S. Programs for the Ford Foundation. 

A Manhattan judge recently blocked new legislation that required Airbnb to turn over detailed data about their hosts. The law, which was set to take effect in February 2019, would have provided the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement with the names and addresses of hosts, the type of dwellings being rented, the frequency of rentals, the rental income, and, in some cases, the account name and number where hosts receive their rental fees.

The city’s Department of Sanitation (DOS) will be conducting special curbside collections for mulching and recycling Christmas trees through Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. Recycling trees and wreaths doesn’t just help the environment. It also helps eliminate the fire hazard posed by storing dried-out trees and wreaths in your building overnight or longer. The trees and wreaths may simply be put curbside until Jan. 12, and weather permitting, DOS will collect and c...

In a speech last month at the New York City Bar Association, Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined an ambitious agenda for the first 100 days of his third term, which started Jan. 1. As part of his agenda, the governor intends to reform rent regulations, including ending vacancy decontrol, repealing preferential rent, and limiting capital improvement charges.

Cuomo has stated that it will now be easier to enact many of the agenda items, since the Democrats gained nearly two-...

For the first time, a group of low-income housing developers is teaming up with low-income tenant activists to push for rent regulation reforms. The New York State Association for Affordable Housing, along with groups that include the Legal Aid Society, VOCAL New York, Enterprise Community Partners, AARP, the Coalition for the Homeless, and the New York Housing Conference recently sent letters to state leaders urging specific pro-tenant changes when the rent laws expire...

Mayor de Blasio recently announced Requests for Proposals for the private management of 21 public housing projects. Through the public-private partnerships and HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) intends to bring comprehensive repairs to 62,000 apartments. RAD is a tool that lets public housing authorities permanently preserve public housing developments as affordable homes and make necessary repairs. Al...

In a recent decision, the Appellate Division found that owners cannot claim ignorance if inspectors find that tenants used online sites to rent out their units for short-term stays. The court affirmed fines for the illegal conversion of residential units into hotel rooms.

HPD recently announced the release of the “Speculation Watch List,” a new tool to track rent-regulated properties that may have been purchased by predatory investors and identify properties for enhanced tenant support. The city is making this information available so that tenants and tenant advocates can see another indication of where tenant harassment may occur. The list was announced as part of the Predatory Equity bill, which was signed into law earlier ...

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.