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On Sept. 28, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed Local Law 98. Sponsored by Council Member Carlina Rivera, this law amends Local Law 55 of 2020, which temporarily prevents the enforcement of personal liability provisions in commercial lease or rental agreements involving tenants impacted by COVID-19.
On Oct. 5, Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended the ban on the city’s tax lien sale for another month. This is the fourth postponement since the start of the pandemic. The governor signed an executive order delaying lien sales statewide through Nov. 3. Without the order, the city’s lien sale on overdue property taxes and water and sewer bills could have resumed in early October.
The DOB recently announced that it has extended the Facade Amnesty Program for Cycle 8 filings through Oct. 31, 2020. The amnesty program is open only to non-compliant Cycle 8 owners and won’t be extended again according to the DOB service notice.
For owners who are required to submit a Cycle 8 Facade Report and didn’t submit one, the amnesty period allows filing before the end of this month for the report to administratively close Cycle 8 with the Cycle 9 report.
If your building includes commercial tenants, be aware that New York’s moratorium on COVID-related commercial foreclosures and evictions will be in place until at least Oct. 20. The moratorium was set to expire Sept. 30, but Governor Cuomo recently signed a new executive order extending the ban for another month. This measure extends protections already in place for commercial tenants and mortgagors in recognition of the financial toll the pandemic has taken on business owners, including retail establishments and restaurants.
New York City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection recently held a hearing on Intro. 1947, a bill that would amend Local Law 97, which requires applicable buildings to cap carbon emissions. Local Law 97 mandates a 40 percent reduction in citywide emissions by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. To achieve these goals, most properties larger than 25,000 square feet must limit emissions based on the building type and size or pay huge fines.
City Comptroller Scott Stringer has officially launched his mayoral campaign. He is seeking to brand himself as a progressive candidate. In his remarks announcing his candidacy, Stringer spoke on Mayor Bill de Blasio and his legacy, saying the current administration has done more to exacerbate the city's inequalities despite a vow more than seven years ago to close the wealth gap. He said those inequalities have been further exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately impacted low-income people of color in the city's poorest neighborhoods.
The DOF recently announced another postponement of the annual tax lien sale until Sept. 25, 2020, to give New Yorkers additional time to pay debt or enter into payment plans. The lien sale is administered by the NYC Department of Finance, which sells overdue property taxes, water and sewer charges, and other property charges to a non-profit trust.
New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Council Housing and Buildings Committee Chair Robert Cornegy recently announced that the City Council has designated funding in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget for several programs to provide relief to both renters and homeowners dealing with the financial impacts of COVID-19.
In an advisory opinion issued on July 30, the DHCR extended the deadline for filing annual rent registrations to Sept. 30, 2020. According to the opinion, the postponement is in response to the governor’s directive to take every effort to keep New Yorkers safe and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Two bills were introduced recently in the NY State Senate and Assembly that propose removing the vacancy rate from the criteria for rent regulation until two years after the state’s Covid-19 emergency declaration is over. The legislation, introduced by Manhattan Democrats Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, would put a pause on the official count of the city’s vacancy rate, which is completed by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the U.S. Census Bureau.
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