hakimjeffries42011.jpgAssemblyman Hakeem Jeffries is a man on a mission, a mission to stem the tide of broker-named neighborhoods like “ProCro” and “Greenwood Heights”! According to City Room, Jeffries is going to introduce a bill next week that would require new names for neighborhoods get approved by community boards, the City Council and the mayor. The bill calls for fining brokers who use unofficial names in their listings and, perhaps, suspending their licenses. City Room quotes Jeffries as saying that real estate agents “are allowed to essentially pull names out of thin air in order to rebrand a neighborhood and have the effect of raising rents or home prices.” A senior vice president for the Real Estate Bard of New York, meanwhile, says it would be “difficult to legislate the use of an official name when these neighborhood names are not legally defined.” Still: BoCoCa, we hardly knew ye.
‘SoBro’ and ‘ProCro’ No Joke to Assemblyman [City Room]
Assemblyman Wants To Prevent Realtors From Renaming Neighborhoods [NY1]


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  1. Acajou, he’s my assembly rep too, and I wrote him an email this morning telling him to stop wasting everyone’s time with this nonsense. There are so many better things he could be publicity-seeking about.

  2. I love Hakim but as a lawyer, he should know better than to legislate speech.

    You would think the phenomena of intentional mis-labeling of neighborhoods is a more realistic target.

    For the record – owners and Landlords probably abuse boundaries more than Brokers do.

  3. “It’s a shame that with all of the serious problems in today’s world, that Jeffries elects to focus on this.”

    Would have to agree. On the thought that CPC is doing a rezoning, then it would seem appropriate to survey the neighborhoods and propose modernizing the names, but that’s during a process that’s already in place, not pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

  4. So, MM, just because “artists” named an area, their selected name should stand? Great logic.

    It’s a shame that with all of the serious problems in today’s world, that Jeffries elects to focus on this. Makes me sorry that I voted for him.

  5. This is ridiculous grandstanding by Jeffries. Notwithstanding that the bill purports to regulate commercial speech, it likely violates the First Amendment because it’s not directed at misleading descriptions, just at neologistic descriptions.

    Moreover, I’m holidng out for renaming Park Slope as Squeago — the Square East of Gowanus.

  6. As I’ve written before, I’m trying to get my mother-in-law in Bensonhurst to talk up the names “BenHo” or “BenHur” – I’m flexible. Such names are necessary these days to give a neighborhood some cachet.

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