Friday, September 14, 2012

Stiffer fines for illegal hotels


From CBS New York:

The New York City Council announced plans to stiffen fines to try to further crack down on illegal hotels.

At a news conference outside City Hall on Wednesday, housing advocates and angry tenants joined some city council members to speak out against the increase in illegal hotels popping up in neighborhoods all across the city.

Some residents said their building’s landlord illegally converted some apartment for short-term rentals.

The city has been cracking down on the illegal conversions since a state law was passed last year. But the city council has plans to increase the fines on illegal hotel landlords to try to run the practice out of business.

The City Council measure would increase the fines to up to $25,000 for landlords with multiple illegal units.

Housing advocates said the illegal hotels take away affordable housing options for residents, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the illegal hotels are dangerous.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's what will happen 99% of the time when the D.O.B. answers your complaint on a illegal conversion.

Complaint Disposition History

Disposition Disposition Inspection Date
Date Code By
05/26/2011 C3 ACCESS DENIED ATTEMPT 05/20/2011
ACCESS DENIED LS-4 POSTED
06/01/2011 C1 INSPECTOR UNABLE TO GAIN ACCESS - 1ST ATTEMPT - 2357 05/18/2011
NO ACCESS LS4 POSTED
06/01/2011 C4 ACCESS DENIED - 2ND ATTEMPT - 2284 05/20/2011
ACCESS DENIED LS4

Anonymous said...

This is a big joke as Quin's money comes from the very real estate owners that do this.

Outlaw this in numerous ways - extend short term rentals to be beyond the 31 days to be considered legal. Lowe hotel taxes so that a hotel room is affordable and people stay longer spending more many in the NYC economy - this is a no brainer but POLS just TAX everything to give it to welfare recipients
.

The Flushing Phantom said...

I'll bet Flushing is exempted.

After all, we don't want to offend the Asian owners
of the illegal hotels and brothels that abound there.

Anonymous said...

More laws to hurt property owners and prevent others from ever buying real estate. People that are forced to live in those "hotels" cant really afford other living options. Lets crack down on it so we force even more people and jobs out of the city! Great work Pols.
If borough homeowners all had to vacate their basements and stop this room renting practice the number of foreclosures would quadruple.

FluShing Rezident said...

The locals suspect there's an Asian hotel on the NW corner of 164th and 29th - courtesy of Marino's (they own the house) - lots of people coming and going with luggage every day of the week. And they still haven't fixed their fence that someone drove into - shows real pride of ownership!