Loft Law Causing Headaches for Some
The NY Times looks at the struggle tenants are going through to apply for the recently-passed loft protection law that extends residential rights to those living in illegal lofts. Residents at 360 Jefferson were kicked out after applying for protection, only to return to a bricked-over fire escape, no hot water, and shower drains full…
The NY Times looks at the struggle tenants are going through to apply for the recently-passed loft protection law that extends residential rights to those living in illegal lofts. Residents at 360 Jefferson were kicked out after applying for protection, only to return to a bricked-over fire escape, no hot water, and shower drains full of concrete. (Bushwick BK covered this a few days ago.) The landlord claimed they were renting the units out as work spaces and that the showers were built illegally. The battle reveals the limbo – and shaky legal grounds – tenants find themselves in when applying for protection. 32 applications have been submitted to the Loft Board so far, and while some landlords are discouraging their tenants, others have applied for protection themselves.
Seeking Protection, Loft Tenants Instead Find Grief [NY Times]
Photo by elegyofgreenwood
Do check out http://www.illegalliving.com, my new book, co-authored with SoHo architect Shael Shapiro. It is the biography of 80 Wooster, the first successful artist coop in SoHo organized by Fluxus founder George Maciunas. Published by the Jonas Mekas Foundation, the book includes art happenings and the zoning battles and community activism in SoHo, that enabled artists to become legal live/work residents of the neighborhood.
@mopar:
“A few years ago, Bloomberg promised to set aside and protect existing light manufacturing industrial zones to keep them as manufacturing and not turn them into residential areas. Then this loft law passed. I think both are in effect simultaneously, although they contradict each other. Small business and light manufacturing is really a huge plus for the city, because it provides JOBS.”
The law doesn’t apply to the Industrial Business Zones (IBZ’s).
There’s plenty of light manufacturing space in New York City. Google: Brooklyn Navy Yard.
There’s also OLD manufacturing spaces, that aren’t really viable for manufacturing… on streets you can’t get trucks on, no garages, no elevators, no loading docks, undesirable locations for offices, etc…
A manufacturer doesn’t want to carry product up two flights of loft stairs… but a drummer will.
The idea that loft dwellers are driving manufacturing out of New York is ridiculous.
The famous men’s suit maker, Martin Greenfield, who manufactures suits the old fashioned way for Freeman’s, Rag and Bone, and many other famous New York designers, has been located in Bushwick for decades.
A few years ago, Bloomberg promised to set aside and protect existing light manufacturing industrial zones to keep them as manufacturing and not turn them into residential areas. Then this loft law passed. I think both are in effect simultaneously, although they contradict each other. Small business and light manufacturing is really a huge plus for the city, because it provides JOBS.
The sprawling manufacturing industrial zone between Brooklyn and Queens (of which the Bushwick loft area is a part) has a really interesting “forgotten New York” landscape and vibe. If you have a car, you can check it out by driving to the UPS center and Build It Green.
In addition to all the businesses mentioned by Montrose above, you will also find such things as wipers/rags/used clothing processing, meat processing, Chinese import warehouses for 99 cent stores, Gothic Cabinet Craft, a tile wholesaler, and a remarkable number of metal shops that make security gates and things like that.
Fashion design/sample rooms, interior design, woodcrafting/furniture/upholstery, printing, pottery and other crafts, photography, warehousing for mail order and other kinds of businesses, small manufacturing of all kinds of stuff, studio space for architects, artists, and just office space etc. There is a wide need for these spaces in places that customers and suppliers can easily get to. Ever since lofts became cool and edgy places to live, starting in Soho, these spaces wherever they are, are becoming scarcer and more expensive, even in places one would never have thought would be desireable. I hope landlords realize that small companies want and need these spaces, and don’t make them all housing. We need small businesses more than we need more residential lofts for a selected few. What good is everyone living in all of the spaces that used to be workspace?
“Is it just me… or is there a certain amount of irony associated with the “Williamsburg Loft Living” advertisement that was just posted?”
the only thing ironic about that ad is that it is not a loft building.
Is it just me… or is there a certain amount of irony associated with the “Williamsburg Loft Living” advertisement that was just posted?
Yes, indeed, any mattress hole that can be rented out for $800 pp will be. We gave up trying to find a small area w a loading dock for book processing and bought a house at $110 per square foot on the Bed Stuy Bushwick border instead.
If you want to see some really depressing loft squalor, visit the big buildings during Open Studios.
“The law requires landlords to make costly upgrades to bring their buildings into compliance with residential building codes, by installing sprinklers and fireproof doors and removing illegal partitions, among other things.”
Yeah, that’s gonna happen. Still, that’s the way it goes when you decide to live illegally in what is in essence a commercial building. Expect problems.