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A group of tenants in Manhattan Beach recently went to court to make their building’s owner get rid of a foul smell that Superstorm Sandy left behind. According to tenants, a smell has permeated the 49-unit property ever since sea water flooded the basement and sprang leaks in stored fuel tanks.
State and federal officials are worried about an increase in the number of those displaced by Hurricane Sandy seeking temporary shelter. Although many people have stayed home despite having neither heat nor hot water, particularly in city housing projects in Coney Island and the Rockaways, officials are worried that another wave of people will seek shelter as temperatures fall and they can no longer bear the cold.
Don't wait till you're hit with a rent overcharge complaint to get your old lease files in order. That's the advice of New York City attorney Erez Glambosky, who warns, “Since the 2010 Court of Appeals decision in Grimm v. DHCR, if a tenant submits a ‘colorable claim of fraud’ in connection with an overcharge complaint, the four-year rule will be ignored, and the DHCR will examine the apartment's rent history to establish a base ...
An owner who bought nine of the most run-down apartment buildings in the Bronx in April 2011, promising to revitalize them, has made approximately $10 million in repairs since buying them for approximately $28 million. Tenant advocates worry that the new debt total of $45.5 million—$10 million more than the mortgage that forced the previous owner, Los Angeles-based Milbank Real Estate, into foreclosure—is unsustainable. They're concerned that such a burd...
In last month's Insider, we discussed the Department of Environmental Protection's accelerating phaseout of the dirtiest heating oils. The city's new regulations, issued in 2011, ban the heaviest heating oils—No. 4 and No. 6—that are still used in approximately 10,000 buildings and significantly contribute to air pollution.
FBI agents recently arrested five more people in a widening probe of corruption allegations involving New York City government housing preservation officials. One city official and a former city employee were among those arrested on a variety of corruption charges.
The five will be arraigned in Brooklyn federal court. The most recent arrests mark the expansion of an ongoing probe by the FBI and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office's anti-corruption ...
The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), a nine-member panel that sets annual rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments, met on May 1 to vote on preliminary numbers for increasing rent-stabilized rents. The board voted for rent hikes of between 1.75 and 4 percent on new one-year leases and increases of between 3.5 percent and 6.75 percent for two-year renewal leases.
On May 4, the New York City Water Board approved a 7 percent rate increase in water rates that it had earlier proposed, in addition to raising fees for certain services. The increase, while the smallest in seven years, is the city's 16th annual hike for metered and unmetered water rates. The new rates for commercial and residential properties go into effect on July 1.
Owners of large apartment buildings in the city are bearing more of the property tax burden than owners of one- to three-family homes, according to a recent report released by NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The report is titled “State of New York City's Housing and Neighborhoods 2011.”
The City Council is considering two new elevator safety bills. One would require certification for mechanics, and the other would require elevators to be equipped with extra safety mechanisms.
The proposed legislation is prompted by the tragic death of the advertising executive who was killed last December when the elevator she was entering at her Madison Avenue office building shot upward unexpectedly, with the doors still open.
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