NYC City Council Seeks Stronger Protection for Tenants | Reimagining NYCHA’s Towers in the Park

Jumaane Williams. Photo Credit: Politico / William Alatriste for the New York City Council

1. City Council Seeking Stronger Protections for Tenants “As the de Blasio administration prepares to rezone large swaths of the five boroughs to expand affordable housing, the City Council is poised to pass three tenant-protection bills at its stated meeting on Thursday. The bills are designed to provide support for tenants when landlords and speculators try to force them out of their homes—a practice that often takes place as or right before a neighborhood becomes gentrified. One piece of legislation, introduced by Brooklyn Democrat Jumaane Williams, would make tenants aware of their rights when they are offered buyouts, and would make it illegal for tenants to be contacted about getting bought out without being notified in writing first.” [Politico – 08/11/15]
2. Reimagining NYCHA’s Towers in the Park “Near the end of his final term as mayor, Michael Bloomberg unveiled a proposal to shore up the finances of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) by allowing developers to build mostly market-rate apartment towers at eight public housing campuses in Manhattan. While the plan would supposedly generate $50 million-a-year for the cash-strapped agency, it was met with swift and stinging criticism, and a lawsuit from the New York City Council and a coalition of NYCHA residents. Bloomberg’s land lease proposal was further derailed by the politics surrounding it: A billionaire mayor letting developers bulldoze grassy plots and basketball fields at public housing developments for expensive new apartments. One of the most vocal critics of the proposal was Bill de Blasio, the progressive public advocate gunning for Bloomberg’s job. But about a year-and-a-half after becoming New York City’s chief executive, de Blasio has revived the proposal, albeit with some significant changes.” [Architects Newspaper – 08/11/15]
3. When Tenants Can’t Be Evicted, Building Around or Over Them “In a city where the only place to go is often up, adding floors to an existing building is nothing new. Rarely, if ever, is this work undertaken over an occupied apartment building. If it works, though, other developers might start stacking apartments, too. ‘The idea is genius,’ said Jesse M. Keenan, research director at the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University. ‘The execution will be challenging, but not impossible.’ The soon-to-be downstairs neighbors are not so enthusiastic. Tenants in about half of the apartments at 711 West End Avenue have formed a group opposing the project, contending that the blueprints do not begin to convey what the project will look and feel like from below.” [New York Times – 08/10/15]
4. What Will Become of America’s Slums? “Housing mobility, the idea that moving poor families into wealthier neighborhoods where they have access to better schools and services, has been gaining traction in recent weeks. The Supreme Court upheld a lower-court decision that forced the state of Texas to shift the construction of affordable housing to areas where little such housing exists. President Obama released a new rule for the way the federal government distributes housing money, requiring regions to more carefully integrate its housing stock. The New York Times editorial board endorsed the rule, calling it ‘The End of Federally Financed Ghettos.’ But housing integration has downsides, some experts say. Building new affordable housing in wealthy areas takes investment away from the downtrodden areas that most need it.” [The Atlantic – 08/12/15]
5. Council-Backed Tenant Advocacy Group Targets ‘Bad’ Landlords “As the de Blasio administration engaged in a push to reform rent regulations in June, a coalition of tenant advocates and neighborhood organizations seeking to protect renters from landlord harassment received a $1.25 million boost in City Council funding for the upcoming fiscal year. Stabilizing NYC, which formed last year with seed money from Councilman Dan Garodnick, has since created its own version of the typical ‘bad landlords’ watch list, including seven companies that own or run a combined 509 buildings throughout the city. The group and Garodnick say the additional money will be put toward coming up with permanent solutions — including possible legislation — to push back against predatory landlords, while providing legal services and other assistance for tenants.” [Politico – 08/11/15]
6. De Blasio’s Park Slope Housing Plan Opens Old Wounds “Back in 2003, then-City Councilman Bill de Blasio signed off on a Park Slope rezoning that spawned tall, lifeless buildings along the Brooklyn neighborhood’s Fourth Avenue border. Now residents are channeling that bitter experience against Mr. de Blasio, who as mayor has sent city planners back with a proposal to deliver the affordable housing and aesthetics that the last one never did. ‘It’s hogwash,’ said Bo Samajopouols, who has lived near the corner of Fourth Avenue and 16th Street for nearly four decades and eyes the city’s Planning Department with skepticism. ‘These are the same people who destroyed our neighborhood.’ The administration’s Zoning for Quality and Affordability Text Amendment aims to encourage architecture that meshes with the historic brownstone area while creating affordable units for families and seniors. What worries locals, however, is that to do all that, the city wants to slightly relax the strictures that govern the shape, height and look of buildings.” [Crain’s New York Business – 08/12/15]
7. Landlord of ‘Three-Quarter’ Homes Faces Criminal Charges “Prosecutors have filed criminal charges against a notorious landlord of cramped flophouses in Brooklyn, taking what housing advocates described as unusually forceful action against an operator of so-called three-quarter homes. The landlord, Yury Baumblit, was the subject of an investigation in The New York Times on three-quarter housing — seen as somewhere between regulated halfway houses and actual homes — in May. The two counts filed against Mr. Baumblit last week that allege he illegally evicted tenants are misdemeanors, punishable by as much as a year in jail. But housing advocates could not recall the last time, if ever, prosecutors have moved ahead with charges against an operator of three-quarter houses accused of unlawfully evicting tenants.” [New York Times – 08/10/15]
8. Parts of Queens Are Now Pricier Than Brooklyn “It’s become more expensive to rent an apartment in Queens than in Brooklyn, at least in northwest Queens. For the first time, median rents in northwest Queens, which includes Long Island City, last month surpassed rents in Brooklyn, according to the Daily News. In July, median rents in northwest Queens reached $3,016 a month, up 14% from the same time a year earlier, according to a new report by Douglas Elliman. In Brooklyn, median rents clocked in at $2,968 a month—a record for the borough but far behind northwest Queens. Rents were driven up by first-time homebuyers struggling to meet stricter lending requirements by banks, forcing them to continue to rent, and therefore pushing rents up.” [Crain’s New York Business – 08/13/15]
9. Group Pushing NYCHA Chair to Resign Is Pitching Its Own Plan for Public Land “The national organization behind a recent media blitz demanding the resignation of the New York City Housing Authority chairwoman has simultaneously been trying to sell politicians on a proposal that could allow the group to develop under-utilized public housing property, a proposal that would undermine her plans for revitalizing the moribund authority, the Observer has learned—and helping them is an ambitious Brooklyn congressman rumored to be eyeing a challenge to Mr. de Blasio in 2017. Last month, staffers for several Brooklyn elected officials received an invitation to a July 22 meeting in the district office of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries at the Shirley Chisholm State Office Building in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The purpose of the conference was to hear a proposal to ‘infill’ large tracts of open space at public housing developments with between 10,000 and 20,000 units of senior citizen housing.” [Observer – 08/13/15]
10. Historic Low Homeownership Rate and Housing Recovery “The homeownership rate has fallen to a near 50-year low and looks as though it will decline further for another year or two. This does not mean that the housing market is in a funk. Rather it is quite the opposite, with home sales and home prices rising solidly in recent times. Existing home sales were up eight percent year-to-date to June from the same period a year ago, while new home sales were higher by 21 percent. Home prices were up anywhere from four to seven percent at the national level depending upon the data source. […] Unlike stock market wealth, housing equity is primarily middle-class wealth. At the same time, mortgage debt levels have fallen for six straight years as Americans have become more averse to taking on unnecessary debt, as well as banks being less willing to lend, after the financial crisis. The end result is much more financially healthy homeowners; the current mortgage default rate is one of the lowest in recent memory.” [Forbes – 08/12/15]