New Disclosure Rules for NYC Luxury Real Estate Sales | NYC’s Struggling Low-Income Co-ops

Photo credit: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

1. New Disclosure Rules for Shell Companies in New York Luxury Real Estate Sales “Seeking to increase transparency in the luxury real estate market, the de Blasio administration has imposed new disclosure requirements on shell companies buying or selling property in New York City. The changes will help remove a ‘veil of secrecy’ surrounding high-end real estate sales by requiring that the names of all members of a shell company buying or selling property be disclosed to the city, the finance commissioner, Jacques Jiha, said.” [New York Times – 07/20/15]
2. New York’s Struggling ‘Low-Income’ Co-ops “While many of these limited-income co-ops have been successful, nearly a third are struggling to pay tax bills, which is a sign of poor overall financial health, according to data provided by the city’s Independent Budget Office. The city has about 1,000 limited-income co-ops, which over the past five years have accounted for nearly half of all delinquent tax payments from the city’s more than 4,800 co-ops. Many housing experts say that in problem buildings, management is often lax, maintenance fees are kept too low to pay bills and care for buildings, and many are run by fiefs of shareholders around whom swirl allegations of favoritism and corruption.” [Wall Street Journal – 07/20/15]
3. Time Limits for Public Housing Get a Boost “Momentum is building to let more housing authorities impose time limits or work requirements on tenants who move into public housing or receive the federal rental subsidy known as Section 8. Competing plans in the Senate, House and Obama administration would broaden a 1996 project called Moving to Work, which allows a small group of housing authorities to set requirements aimed at promoting self-sufficiency among tenants. The project currently includes 39 authorities that manage nearly 11% of all public-housing units and 13% of rental vouchers in the U.S., in cities such as San Antonio; Charlotte, N.C.; and Tacoma, Wash. The proposals would add up to 300 authorities to the project out of the approximately 3,200 nationwide.” [Wall Street Journal – 07/21/15]
4. City Agrees to Give Communities Advance Notice Before Opening New Homeless Shelters “Under the current policy, a company or nonprofit that wants to open a shelter must notify the community before submitting an application to the city. But it has no responsibility to follow up. After approving a long-term shelter application, DHS holds a public hearing near City Hall at the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services. But advocates assert there is little advance notice of the hearings, and that they aren’t accessible to community members who live outside Manhattan. The new policy requires DHS to give the community board and all elected officials who represent the district that receives a shelter a full 45 days’ notice before the hearing in lower Manhattan. Within those 45 days, a representative of either DHS or the provider that proposed the shelter also will be required to attend a community board meeting in the district to discuss the project.” [Crain’s New York Business – 07/22/15]
5. Queensbridge Houses Will Be First to Get Free Broadband Service “The Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City will be the first of five public housing developments citywide that will receive free high-speed Internet service under a $10-million pilot project, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week. The more than 7,500 residents of Queensbridge, the largest campus in the nation, will get the wireless broadband access as part of President Obama’s ConnectHome initiative that brings together service providers, non-profits and the private sector. Residents will also receive technical training, digital literacy programs and devices as part of a U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development project. New York City is one of 27 cities which won HUD’s competition to participate in ConnectHome.” [Times Ledger – 07/23/15]
6. Developers Hope to Change the Face of Transit Hub in Jamaica, Queens “A major stop on the AirTrain from Kennedy International Airport has long offered a troublesome first impression for travelers visiting New York. Scarred by poverty, crime and blighted conditions, that transit hub in Jamaica, Queens, has generally been more of a place to contemplate from train platforms than to stroll through on the ground. But sweeping plans are being made to rejuvenate the area with new hotels, stores and apartments, with hopes of persuading some of those travelers to step off the platform and stay a while.” [New York Times – 07/21/15]
7. Do Taller Buildings Have to Mean Darker Streets? “For a century, New York’s designers, planners and policymakers have been trying to make sense of an eternally shifting puzzle: how to pack more people into the same patches of land, while still making the city’s buildings beautiful, well constructed and pleasant to live in and around. As part of the housing plan of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, the Department of City Planning has been working on the first serious update to the city’s zoning code since the 1980s. And one big part of the department’s plan is to allow more flexibility in the very shape the buildings take — to ‘modernize the rules that shape buildings,’ with the aim of making the city’s built environment look more like it did in the early 20th century, with more interior courtyards, street-side gardens and airy ground-floor shops.” [Next City – 07/20/15]
8. Existing U.S. Home Sales Climb to Highest Level in 8 Years “Sales of previously owned U.S. homes climbed to an eight-year high in June as momentum in the residential real estate market accelerated. Closings on existing homes, which usually occur a month or two after a contract is signed, climbed 3.2 percent to a 5.49 million annualized rate, the most since February 2007, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. Prices rose to a record amid tight supply. The housing market has picked up in recent months as more jobs, historically low mortgage rates and greater household formation boost demand. Faster wage growth will be needed to help housing continue its recovery and become a bigger contributor to growth this year.” [Bloomberg Business – 07/22/15]
9. The North Shore of NYC’s Forgotten Borough Slated to Become a Brooklyn-Style Boom Town “Staten Island wants to be the new Brooklyn. An island that boomed with exiles who followed the Dodgers out of the borough is now poised for a new renaissance as investors and developers pour $1 billion into the North Shore in hopes of striking Brooklyn-style gold. Sure, it’s long been considered the city’s least hip enclave, but these boosters believe it can finally be transformed into the borough’s answer to booming Long Island City or even Jersey City, with glassy high-rises geared toward young professionals.” [NY Daily News – 07/23/15]
10. City’s Tenant Protection Effort Breaks Ground and Ruffles Feathers “The ‘Tenant Support Unit’ may have made a bad first impression in Cypress Hills, but the city says its new outreach unit is part of an unprecedented effort to empower tenants against landlord harassment. HRA is sending dozens of workers to knock on doors, canvas streets and attend community events to inform residents about de Blasio’s Anti-Harassment Tenant Protection Program, an initiative announced in February to guarantee free legal services to tenants in neighborhoods that the city wants to rezone. The outreach unit is modeled on the mayor’s Pre-K For All enrollment initiative, which used dozens of organizers to reach into communities and help families enroll in pre-K.” [City Limits – 07/21/15]