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On Feb. 27, 2013, Final Rules were published for Local Law 45 of 2012, which Mayor Bloomberg signed into law on Oct. 2, 2012. Local Law 45 emerged from the findings of a growing trend among New Yorkers to market rooms within residential apartment buildings for short-term use.
On Jan. 15, the city’s Department of Finance (DOF) released the tentative property assessment roll for fiscal year 2014, the tax year beginning July 1, 2013. According to the publication, the total market value of Class 2 properties, which consist primarily of cooperatives, condominiums, and rental apartment buildings, rose $9.4 billion, or 4.8 percent, to $204.6 billion citywide. Seventy-one percent of this increase, or $6.7 billion, is due to market forces, with the additional 29 percent coming from other changes, including new construction and physical improvements.
On Feb. 11, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gave her final state of the city speech and, in doing so, laid out a proposal she says will make housing more affordable for New Yorkers. During her speech, she also unveiled a new study about the city’s shrinking middle class, showing that the average middle-class income has declined steadily since 2001, while costs of living have surged.
A bill that gets tougher on owners who make cosmetic repairs to buildings but fail to address underlying structural problems was recently passed by the city council. The bill passed unanimously and now goes to the mayor’s desk for his signature. If it becomes law, there will be a rulemaking process to define the policy.
On Nov. 30, Mayor Bloomberg and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Carter H. Strickland Jr. announced that the city would temporarily suspend water bills for properties that were severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
Mayor Bloomberg, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), and Housing Development Corporation (HDC), together with Citi Community Capital, recently launched the Storm Recovery Loan Fund, a pilot program to provide up to $40 million in low-cost loans to fund the repair of multifamily buildings damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
A group of tenants in Manhattan Beach recently went to court to make their building’s owner get rid of a foul smell that Superstorm Sandy left behind. According to tenants, a smell has permeated the 49-unit property ever since sea water flooded the basement and sprang leaks in stored fuel tanks.
State and federal officials are worried about an increase in the number of those displaced by Hurricane Sandy seeking temporary shelter. Although many people have stayed home despite having neither heat nor hot water, particularly in city housing projects in Coney Island and the Rockaways, officials are worried that another wave of people will seek shelter as temperatures fall and they can no longer bear the cold.
Don't wait till you're hit with a rent overcharge complaint to get your old lease files in order. That's the advice of New York City attorney Erez Glambosky, who warns, “Since the 2010 Court of Appeals decision in Grimm v. DHCR, if a tenant submits a ‘colorable claim of fraud’ in connection with an overcharge complaint, the four-year rule will be ignored, and the DHCR will examine the apartment's rent history to establish a base date.”
An owner who bought nine of the most run-down apartment buildings in the Bronx in April 2011, promising to revitalize them, has made approximately $10 million in repairs since buying them for approximately $28 million. Tenant advocates worry that the new debt total of $45.5 million—$10 million more than the mortgage that forced the previous owner, Los Angeles-based Milbank Real Estate, into foreclosure—is unsustainable. They're concerned that such a burden will force the owner to skimp on maintenance and repairs.
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