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On June 6, New York Apartment Law Insider received the First Place Award for Best Business Newsletter, presented by the Specialized Information Publisher’s Association (SIPA) at its annual conference in Washington, D.C.
The judges based their decision on 2017 issues in which editor Eric Yoo explained:
In its first, preliminary vote of the season, the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) recently set the range of rents it will consider before its final vote setting the new rent guidelines in June. Rent-stabilized tenants could see their rents go up by as little as 0.75 percent to as much as 1.75 percent for a one-year lease. Tenants who sign a two-year lease could be paying anywhere from 1.75 to 3.75 percent more.
HPD recently announced the full rollout of “Aging in Place,” a new preservation program tool that offers apartment modifications to residents living in buildings undergoing city-financed rehabilitation to increase safety and comfort in the home and reduce the risk of falls. HPD administers multiple financing programs to facilitate the physical and financial sustainability and affordability of privately owned multifamily and owner-occupied buildings, and to rehabilitate formerly publicly owned buildings of varying sizes.
Local Law 84 (LL84) requires large building owners to annually measure their energy and water consumption in a process called benchmarking. The owners are required to enter their annual energy and water use in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) online tool, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, and use the tool to submit data to the city. Building owners are subject to a penalty if usage data isn’t submitted by May 1 every year.
On March 27, Mayor de Blasio signed legislation to extend rent regulation laws for the next three years. The laws will remain in effect until April 1, 2021. A vacancy rate below 5 percent allows the state rent regulation laws to continue to be effective in New York City. The city’s vacancy rates are determined and measured by the Housing and Vacancy Survey, which is conducted every three years. According to the 2017 Housing and Vacancy Survey, New York City has a 3.63 percent vacancy rate.
A new report from the NYC Tax Commission for fiscal 2017 shows the independent agency received 54,730 applications to review property tax assessments by March 2017. These applications covered 211,034 separately assessed tax lots, having an aggregate assessed value of $223,161,504,033. According to the Tax Commission, this represented an almost 26 percent increase in the number of applications since 2008 and about 98.6 percent of the total 2017/18 tentative taxable assessed value of all city properties in all tax classes.
On May 2, HPD is offering a clinic geared toward property owners. The clinic is billed as an opportunity to learn about how the city’s low- or no-cost financing and tax benefits can help owners upgrade or replace major building systems and lower operating costs. Representatives from HPD, the Department of Finance (DOF), the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Department of Buildings (DOB) will be on hand to meet privately with property owners.
Numbers from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey conducted for the city every three years by the U.S. Census Bureau were presented recently at a recent City Council meeting. Full data from the 2017 edition won't be out until this summer, but the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) prepared a summary of the major findings that was presented at the meeting.
Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals and of the State of New York Janet DiFiore recently delivered the State of the Judiciary Speech. On the issue of Housing Court, DiFiore said, “New York City is experiencing its highest levels of homelessness since the Great Depression.”
Under state laws, owners of rent-controlled buildings can apply for rent increases to offset the cost of major capital improvements on a per-room basis. Recently, a group of more than 100 renters rallied outside the DHCR offices on Union Hall Street. Several tenants accused the DHCR of being a rubber stamp for owners, alleging that the agency has signed off on improvements that were not necessary.
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