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As the New York City Council considers new rules to regulate apartment sharing sites such as Airbnb, the home-sharing startup’s public policy blog recently released a statement or “community compact” pledging to “promote responsible home sharing” and acknowledging that a “dense, urban city may have different concerns than a historic vacation town or a non-traditional travel destination.”
Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan) recently introduced a new bill that would ban owners from checking applicant’s credit scores to decide whether to rent to applicants. The legislation would also prevent owners from considering other factors such as medical debt, consumer debt judgments, and debts that have been sent to collection agencies.
Owners could still run detailed credit reports and use other information they contain, including history of bankruptcy, foreclosure, delinquencies on current debt, and how much total debt a tenant owes, to make their decision.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration intends to spend $1 million on ads to promote the unprecedented rent freeze enacted in June by the Rent Guidelines Board for New York’s rent-regulated tenants. The city will pay for ads on the subway, in newspapers, on the radio, and online. The campaign was announced just before Mayor de Blasio’s first town hall-style meeting.
Rent-stabilized tenants of an East Village apartment building recently submitted audio and video recordings to housing court depicting the owner’s agents as engaging in a campaign of harassment to force them out. The evidence is part of a months-long dispute at the building between the property management company and a group of tenants at the building.
The massive Stuyvesant Town apartment complex is prepped for sale, five years after its owners defaulted on the mortgage. CWCapital Asset Management, which is currently in charge of the property, is looking to sell. A sale of Stuyvesant Town, home to about 30,000 New Yorkers, would end the litigation and fighting that has involved residents, bondholders, and politicians since 2010, when Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Inc. gave up the property after its value plunged in the financial crisis and they were unable to raise rents.
The Independent Budget Office (IBO) recently released a study that found that nearly a quarter of New York City apartments were rented at a preferential rent or at a rate lower than the maximum allowed under law in 2013. Specifically, using apartment registration data from the DHCR, the IBO found that of the 765,354 state-registered units subject to the traditional rent-regulation rules in 2013 (the most recent data available), 23 percent—more than 175,000 apartments—were rented at a preferential rate.
As part of the Department of Buildings technology enhancements outlined in its Building One City plan, the DOB recently announced a forthcoming online tool named “Inspection Ready.” According to the DOB, this tool will dramatically simplify compliance and reduce wait times when scheduling appointments for inspections. Features of this new system will include the ability to request and cancel appointments online, as well as view inspection results and documentation.
The City Council recently passed three measures meant to protect rent-stabilized tenants from pressure to agree to buyouts or cash payments in return for giving up their apartments. All three measures passed with only one negative vote from Staten Island Republican Councilman Steven Matteo. Here are the bills:
Two years ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a new flood map for the New York City region, one that substantially expanded what’s known as the “100-year floodplain”—areas where there is at least a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year. The update, which is still subject to final approval, would nearly double the number of structures in the zone to 71,500.
State investigators have launched an investigation into an East Village owner who has been accused of intimidating tenants into vacating their rent-regulated units. The state’s Tenant Protection Unit recently served subpoenas as part of an investigation into claims of tenant harassment.
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