A sweeping corruption investigation led to the recent indictment of 16 employees in the Department of Buildings and Department of Housing Preservation and Development, along with various property managers, contractors, and expeditors. The defendants are charged in 26 indictments including...
Newly elected New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie recently stated that renewing and strengthening New York City rent-regulation laws will be his “No. 1 priority” during his first public appearance with Mayor Bill de Blasio. “When it comes to the issue of affordable housing,...
City Council Member Corey Johnson seeks to introduce new legislation that would change the methodology of the city’s Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) for determining rent guidelines for rent-stabilized apartments. At a rally in front of City Hall, he said that while owners’ operating...
On Jan. 20, the City Council’s Housing and Buildings Committee held a hearing to discuss various matters related to short-term apartment rentals, especially those listed through Airbnb, the pioneering home rental service. New York has emerged as Airbnb’s largest market. The company...
Council members Mark Levine and Vanessa Gibson are co-sponsors of a City Council bill that would establish the right to legal counsel in eviction cases. The bill, Intro 214, would create a position of civil justice coordinator under the commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development. If...
Recently, an owner with illegally partitioned apartments pled guilty to negligent homicide for a 2010 fire that killed five residents. Prosecutors had filed charges against both the man accused of setting the fire and the owner. In February 2015, the owner is scheduled to be sentenced to one to...
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) updated its flood-zone maps for New York City, it covered 84,596 structures in the five boroughs, up from 23,885 in the 2010 maps, according to a recent report by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. These newly analyzed flood insurance...
Two years ago the city passed a law to make landlords repair the “underlying conditions” that cause mold to linger and ceilings to collapse instead of simply covering problems with layers of paint. Since the law was passed, records show the city has targeted only 69 buildings,...
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recently announced that the state’s Tenant Protection Unit (TPU) has signed an agreement that will end the reported harassment and intimidation of long-term tenants at several rent-regulated buildings in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush and Crown Heights. The...
Owners who currently participate in government programs that offer subsidies such as bond financing and tax breaks in return for setting aside 20 percent of a building’s units for low-income housing will be able to sell their market-rate rentals—up to 80 percent of an individual...
Two Albany lawmakers want State Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky to investigate Airbnb for what they call misleading insurance policies. State Sen. Adriano Espaillat and Assemblyman Francisco Moya in a recent letter to Lawsky questioned the legality of Airbnb’s “$1 Million Host...
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently announced that his office has reached a settlement with Colonial Management over the company’s maintenance of 42 rent-regulated buildings in New York City and its treatment of tenants at those properties.
