City To Get Tough On Negligent Landlords
While we’re not so sure about its constitutionality, a new bill to be proposed by the Bloomberg administration would give the city more power to take proactive measures to fix up derelict buildings whose landlords who fail conform to certain safety standards. Under the plan, HPD could go into a building with a minimum of…
While we’re not so sure about its constitutionality, a new bill to be proposed by the Bloomberg administration would give the city more power to take proactive measures to fix up derelict buildings whose landlords who fail conform to certain safety standards. Under the plan, HPD could go into a building with a minimum of 27 uncorrected code violations and redo everything from roofs to entire electrical systems and then stick the negligent landlords with the bill; if the owner didn’t pay up, the city would put a lien on the building. The goal is to restore the ailing portion of the housing stock at a time when demand for housing in the city has never been stronger; the goal is 200 buildings a year for five years. Sounds like a good move to us, though if they really wanted to fix the problem they’d get rid of all rent controls.
City to Seek Broader Power Over Buildings [NY Times]
Photo by humain
11:18 here again:
Can anyone on this board explain to me why any landlord would want to run his building into the ground on purpose? Isn’t it at all possible that some of these buildings fall into disrepair b/c the landlord simply can’t afford to maintain them? Providing rent stablized and rent controlled housing doesn’t affect the landlord’s tax rate doesn’t give him or her a break in heating or maintenance costs. If rents don’t keep up with these other costs it may become simply too expensive to maintain the building. Why is everyone assuming that if someone is a landlord they have some unlimited treasure trove of cash to make endless repairs? I have a friend whose parents are in this situation. They are immigrant working class couple who bought a building (which they live in) 30 years ago and who now own it free and clear. But b/c of rent regulation laws the building barely breaks even. If a major capital expense arose they wouldn’t even be able to get a bank to lend them the money to make that repair. What should landlords in that kind of sitation do? This law would essentially enable the city to steal the property that they worked so hard to buy. That’s shameful in a free society.
Since there are no commercial rent control laws – and commercial rents in this city are so reasonable and affordable.
Since such a unregulated market, city never has to give special breaks, incentives for corporations to occupy all these free market offices. Nope, never.
Eryximachus, you’re my hero. You’re right, let’s abolish all laws. Let the chips fall where they may, so to speak. You and I could stockpile enough tinned spam, guns and whiskey to see us through, and hole up in a brownstone to ride out the ensuing “adjustment”. Who needs laws when you’ve got whiskey, anyhow?
current HVS statistics:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/pr/vacancy.shtml
the vacancy rate exceeds the growth rate of the housing market
rent control is just a smokescreen over an inflated market
Iceberg:
There are no truths when it comes to human behavior. Economics is not a hard science, it is a social science. When it comes to matters of law, truth is irrelevant, ideals are what matters.
It should be obvious that a man is born free.
There are millions of laws in this country which no person can ever hope to completely understand. I think that part of the modern sickness is this tendency towards legalism.
Laws are generally bad and should be avoided.
Look around you, the problem with laws is someone has to enforce them. This entire thread highlights the absurdity of this in NYC. The Department of Buildings can’t enforce any laws.
We are overwhelmed with laws, and the pervisity of legalism is that while its proponents pretend it creates an orderly society it does the exact opposite. It creates pure anarchy.
So, prove to us that rent control does anything but buy votes for those whom it benefits. I’m a child of a lower-middle class family. My parents have no money. I have a decent middle class job in this city. I don’t have a rent stabilized apartment. What do I get out of supporting these laws?
If rent stabilized buildings were such bad investment why has price for them escalated so much. As in price used to be annual rent role times approx 8.
Try buying one at that rate now.
In Manhattan, many rent stabilized tenants pay well below market. However, in the rest of the city, I believe most rent stabilized rents are actually close to market. At least, this is what I recall reading in the NYTimes a few years back. Possibly, this has changed due to recent extreme run up in housing costs. However, this could be seen as a validation of rent stabilization laws — to the extent that the steep rise in housing costs in the NYC (and the rest of the country) is related to speculation, rent stabilization prevents speculative activity, with its attendant swings from high to low and back again, from causing massive disruption in people’s lives. The information posted at 11:14 is of interest, isn’t it? We live in a city with incredible extremes in wealth and income. Without rent stabilization, might we have seen a big rise in homelessness during this recent boom?
Anon 11:18am
“these people”. ‘Nuf said Imus.
I see a lot more foreclosures in the future. What i dont’ get is why the city doesn’t just take it a step further and just say its going to take the deed of any building with more than a certain amount of violations and run it forever? b/c that’s essentially what will end up happening.
btw brownstoner: Don’t bother wasting your time trying to explain logically why rent control and rent stabilization laws don’t work to these people. I don’t know why but for some reason when this topic comes up all logic and reason seems to leave certain people’s brains.