From the Daily News:
It’s hard to blame a landlord for trying to maximize the rent from a property, but when they resort to illegal subdivisions, it can have deadly consequences.
Just ask Rosendo Zaragoza, who still suffers from health problems after barely escaping a blaze that ripped through his Woodside apartment in November 2011, killing a fellow tenant and injuring three others.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Zaragoza, 63. “When I woke up in the hospital I still felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
City inspectors had tried to look into complaints about illegal conversions at his 61st St. apartment six times. But they couldn’t get in and the landlord didn’t respond to city notices, so nothing was done.
And Queens has the highest number of complaints of the five borough for these potential death traps, city records show.
The city has made some headway in curbing illegal conversions since it launched a campaign following a fatal November 2009 fire, also in Woodside.
But the problem is still pervasive, a Daily News investigation shows, partly because the Buildings Department must drop a case if inspectors can’t get access after a number of attempts.
There were 4,254 violations issued for illegal conversions on 15,675 complaints in Queens in 2009, according to records obtained by The News through a Freedom of Information Act request. In 2011, there were 2,837 violations issued on 9,083 complaints.
The rate of issuing violations climbed slightly, from 27% in 2009 to 31% in 2011, but local leaders say the drop in complaints is the more telling number because it suggests people are fed up with the complaint process.
8 comments:
It’s hard to blame a landlord for trying to maximize the rent from a property,
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horseshit - this is the kind of attitude in this city that gets us in trouble.
where are the rights of neighbors and the community?
NYC pols are subsidized...their campaign coffers filled...by the NYC real estate industry.
There will never be change until the cycle is broken.
But who will vote to change the law favoring developers?
Certainly not the spineless pols who make up the city council!
They benefit too greatly from the status quo.
GREED!
That landlord's property should be seized and padlocked!
That would serve as a very effective deterrent to all greedy landlords who think to ignore the building safety codes.
Get used to it!
During the Great Depression many homeowners converted their houses into boarding houses.
Everybody's just looking the other way because an immigrant's life isn't worth the same as a long time resident New Yorker's.
Even non-greedy homeowners are finding ways to keep the wolf from their doors during these hard times.
i.e.
Faced with a monthly $4,000 mortgage payments, plus utilities, etc. some homeowners are taking in cash paying boarders.
Why of course I blame the landlord. He or she acquired the property with walls and floorplan that conformed to both law and common sense.
Then to add walls, close up windows, etc. the property is now illegal and a death trap.
Painting the walls and upgrading electrical and bathrooms to attract a higher rent, that's "profit maximization" based on investment.
It's crap like these illegal conversions that gives the word "profit" an evil cast.
North Flushing will become the next headline when one of these illegal apartments unfortunately go up in flames one day. On my block alone there are five of these illegal divided up one family homes turned into "Queens Crap" !
so why don't you report this to the City and if you don't get the answer you want just call the newspapers -- they will get on it right away
Anonymous said...
so why don't you report this to the City and if you don't get the answer you want just call the newspapers -- they will get on it right away
Which newspaper ? I called the DOB many times and all they do is leave the LS4 forms on the violators door. Nothing gets done because the City cannot enter a home without court orders.
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