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Last December, Airbnb released a massive dataset covering November 2014 through Nov. 1, 2015, about its business in New York City. The data provided information on thousands of hosts in the city including statistics such as host earnings, the types of listings, and how often people rent out their homes. This action was taken to counter the image portrayed by the New York state attorney general, who has accused Airbnb of enabling illegal hotels.
Evictions by city marshals have decreased 24 percent since Mayor de Blasio took office, down from 28,849 in 2013 to 21,988 in 2015. And evictions decreased by 18 percent last year even as the number of cases filed by owners for nonpayment of rent declined by only 2 percent, court and city marshals figures show. The drop in evictions may be due to de Blasio administration’s efforts to increase free legal services for tenants.
At a recent public hearing, Anne-Marie Hendrickson, a deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), said proposed New York City Council legislation requiring landlords to register their rent-regulated apartments with the city or face fines is a “waste of taxpayers’ resources.”
New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) recently released the new list of residential buildings that have been placed into the agency’s Ninth Round of the Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP). The AEP is aimed at increasing the pressure on the owners of the city’s multifamily residential buildings that have fallen into disrepair, many of which are rent regulated, to bring the properties up to code so that the residents are not forced to live in substandard and hazardous conditions.
As the 421-a tax break program was set to expire on Jan. 15 of this year, developers pushed applications through the city's Department of Buildings. A total of 7,781 permits were approved for 299 different projects, which represents the third highest monthly total in the past seven years. The 421-a tax abatement program allowed developers tax exemptions on the development of vacant land into a residential building with at least 20 percent affordable units.
According to a recently filed lawsuit, owners are seeking damages against one of their tenants who had an illegal Airbnb sublet. In May, a Department of Buildings inspector found that tenants at the owner's five-story, 21-unit building, were illegally renting their apartments through Airbnb and similar services.
Recently, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered 50,000 housing units to be returned to rent-regulated status. He has charged that owners getting a major tax break from New York State have illegally deregulated apartments. Cuomo, who issued his order on Jan. 6, said that the owners of the targeted buildings are receiving J-51 tax benefits from the state and had claimed to be exempt from rent regulation, contrary to the law. The state is sending a letter to each building owner with instructions to re-register their units as rent-regulated apartments.
A new bill in Albany would set tougher fines for owners who overcharge their rent-stabilized tenants. The bill by Sen. Brad Hoylman and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, both Democrats, would increase penalties against landlords to five times the amount of the overcharge, plus interest, for a first violation and 10 times the amount for subsequent violations.
The city’s Department of Buildings responded to New York’s building boom in 2015 with a significant increase in the number of stop-work orders issued at unsafe construction sites. There were 8,326 stop-work orders as of Dec. 18, which represents a 17 percent increase over 7,120 such orders in all of 2014.
Public advocate Letitia James recently released her annual list of the city's 100 worst landlords, based on data gathered from the Department of Buildings and Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The release of the annual roster, which is hosted on a searchable website for a year, coincided with a tenant rally organized by the public advocate’s office.
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