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If your residential building has small commercial tenants, you’ll need to heed a new law recently signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The law is designed to shield commercial tenants from landlord harassment.

A Manhattan Supreme Court Justice recently granted a temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit submitted by the Rent Stabilization Association.

The City Council recently released a report entitled, “Landmarks for the Future,” with several new proposals to alter the way the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) works. The city council made similar proposals last year. This year, the council once again proposed a series of recommendations for the LPC including imposing time limits on designating items.

On June 8, the full City Council voted 38-10 in favor of the bill, and the Land Use Committee had earlier voted 12-4 in favor of it, along with one abstention.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently announced that a landlord and developer of an Upper West Side building will pay the city a $500,000 settlement for illegally buying two elderly, rent-controlled tenants out of their units, and later trying to conceal the fraudulent transaction. The developer, who began converting apartments in the building into condominiums in May 2012, bought the units from them for $200,000 and $155,000 respectively in Dec.

On May 3, the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) voted on preliminary increases for next year for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments. The nine-member board voted 5-4 in favor of increases of 0 percent to 2 percent on one-year leases and 0.5 percent to 3.5 percent on two-year leases signed between Oct. 1, 2016, and Sept. 30, 2017.

According to a recent report by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), 42 percent, or 5,885 of the 13,755 low-income units built in 2014 and 2015, were aided by the 421-a program. That study included 156 projects that were either all low-income or mostly market-rate, with about one-quarter of the units set aside as low-income housing.

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently proposed a $183 summer credit on the water and sewer bills of over 664,000 homeowners, in keeping with the city's past efforts to ensure bills stay as low as possible. The 664,000 homeowners represent almost 80 percent of all customers. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Emily Lloyd stated that the one-time credit results from the administration's decision to no longer request a rental payment from the NYC Water Board, saving $244 million in FY17 and $268 million in FY18.

In recently released guidance, HUD tells owners that turning down tenants based on their criminal records may violate the Fair Housing Act. People with criminal records aren't a protected class under the Fair Housing Act, and the guidance from HUD's general counsel says that in some cases, turning down an individual tenant because of his or her record can be legally justified.

Mayor de Blasio recently announced two new appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB). The two appointments – former United States Magistrate Judge Kathleen Roberts and Mary Serafy – have years of experience in both the public and private sectors and will be responsible for establishing rent adjustments for approximately one million dwelling units subject to the Rent Stabilization Law in the city. Judge Kathleen Roberts and Mary Serafy will serve as Chair and Owner Representative of the Board, respectively.

A state appellate court recently dismissed the city’s Commission of Human Rights’ $185,000 claim against an owner, finding that the landlord was just in denying a paraplegic tenant a wheelchair ramp to her first-floor Astoria apartment because the costs were too burdensome.