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A group of advocates and state Assembly members recently called for the end of certain fees owners are legally allowed to charge rent-stabilized tenants to bump up the amount of money they collect every month. These levies include a $5 monthly charge per appliance for having an air conditioner, for example, or a roughly $16 monthly fee for a washing machine.
Many aging apartment buildings in the Bronx do not have the resources to upgrade boilers and undertake major repairs and renovations to make them more energy efficient and to improve living conditions for tenants. In response to this problem, borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. has teamed up with city housing officials to create a program that will help those buildings pay the upfront costs for energy improvements, such as replacing an old boiler, insulating windows, or installing solar panels on the roof.
Last fall, Mayor de Blasio signed a bill increasing the maximum penalties for owners found to have harassed their tenants, from $5,000 to $10,000, and requiring the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to post a list online of owners that have been found to harass their tenants. Now, there has been a new bill introduced targeting a similar pool of owners who aggressively seek to buy out rent-stabilized leases.
New York City's Human Rights Commission (HRC) recently filed a notice that an owner’s policy of not allowing rent-stabilized tenants to use the gym is discriminatory. The notice followed a tenant's complaint that the rent-regulated tenants excluded from the building’s gym are largely over 65, while market-rate tenants aren't. The HRC’s notice states that there's enough evidence of age discrimination to merit a hearing on the building’s gym rule.
The Manhattan District Attorney is overseeing the investigation into the deadly building explosion that occurred last month in the East Village. The explosion caused two buildings to collapse and ignited a large fire that quickly spread to neighboring buildings, injuring at least 19 people and killing two.
On March 30, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law Intro. 685, which extends the city's rent stabilization laws for another three years, until April 1, 2018. The mayor has asked Albany to also follow the city's suit as the Urstadt Law of 1971 comes up for renewal this June. The city extension will stick only if the state renews the law.
A U.S. appeals court recently ruled that an elderly Manhattan woman's rent-stabilized lease could not be seized and sold to satisfy her creditors after she filed for bankruptcy. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the rent-stabilized tenant’s lease, which she has had for more than four decades, qualified as a "local public assistance benefit" that state law places off-limits to bankruptcy creditors.
Under legislation recently introduced in the City Council, residential buildings would not be allowed to block tenants from bringing their bicycles into their apartments. The proposal is sponsored by Transportation Committee Chairman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) and follows up on a 2009 law that required commercial landlords of buildings with freight elevators to allow cyclists to bring their bikes into offices.
The Comptroller's office recently criticized the city's housing courts over having inadequate services for those who don't speak English. "In a city with nearly two million individuals with limited English proficiency, it is outrageous that, in our courthouses, tenants wait hours for interpreters, help desks aren't always able to provide necessary services, and signage and literature are inadequate," City Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a statement.
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