What a rally! What a hearing on Intro.195!!

On June 6, 2023 the Stand for Tenant Safety/Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing joined Council Members Carlina Rivera and Gale Brewer to support Intro. 195. Under current law, if you have a serious problem stemming from a vacant apartment next door, HPD generally won't inspect that vacant unit.  Intro. 195 would require landlords to respond to HPD within a specific period of time regarding access to the vacant units.

The City's Department of Housing Preservation & Development (along with landlords) opposes the bill on the grounds that it's not needed. But they can't say how many vacant units they've inspected (if any) and the results of those inspections.  We hope the bill will pass and tenants can provide 311 with the information about which apartments are actually vacant and which pose hazards to their neighbors. 

[Photos by Bill Alatriste, NYC Council; used with permission]

Many people testified meaningfully at the hearing. Click here for Oksana Miranova's testimony from the Community Service Society. Here's an excerpt:

Some in the real estate industry have said explicitly that they are not renting vacant units because, under current regulations, it costs more than they are willing to pay to upgrade them. If they are, in fact, admitting to withholding otherwise affordable rentals from potential tenants, it reflects an act of politically motivated sabotage to further worsen the housing emergency and undermine hard-fought tenants’ rights in New York.

Landlords claiming that renovations of units held off market would cost an average of $80,000 are significantly overstating the average costs of renovation at turnover. A two-minute conversation with a contractor, or elemental googling skills, will show this to be an astronomical figure. Responsible operators of rent-stabilized housing tend to average $15,000 in renovations at turnover, which matches the way the post-HSTPA Individual Apartment Improvement (IAI) guidelines are written. In rare cases where the need for rehabilitation is immense, renovation costs can reach $30,000. The only way that an $80,000 renovation pencils out is if the goal is to turn a formerly affordable unit into a luxury one.

Meanwhile, the City of New York has several programs available to landlords who need money to bring apartments up to code. For years, HPD’s Landlord Ambassador program has offered both capital and human resources to owners facing such a predicament. More recently, the city’s Unlocking Doors program offers landlords $25,000 for renovations in long-vacant low-cost apartments. In exchange, the landlords must agree to rent to a voucher-holding tenant. Because the city already offers a $4,500 bonus to landlords who accept CityFHEPS vouchers, this payout is closer to $30,000. This is a sensible way to approach the problem: landlords get the money they need to repair units; homeless households get a place to live; and the cost to the city for the voucher is lower than it would be if it were subsidizing a tenant living in a more expensive apartment. And yet landlord lobbyists have urged landlords to reject the payments and instead hold out for legislation that would deliver massive rent increases.

​​Press coverage 

https://bronx.news12.com/housing-advocacy-groups-push-for-nyc-to-keep-landlords-accountable-of-deteriorating-vacant-units

https://gothamist.com/news/how-many-nyc-apartments-are-vacant-no-one-actually-knows

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/city-leaders-rally-against-vacant-rent-stabilized-apartments/

https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/6/6/23751783/housing-apartment-vacancies-rent-stabilized

https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2023/06/07/landlords-say-council-wasting-its-time-with-warehousing-bill/