A state senator in Queens has announced his opposition to any attempt by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s to legalize basement apartments across the city, which was something which he proposed in his campaign for office and which many expect to be part of his much-anticipated housing report.
State Senator Tony Avella, D-Queens, is set to rally Friday with civic groups including the Queens Civic Congress against bringing thousands of illegal basement units, which are often converted spaces in homes that are also called granny flats, into the regulated housing system.
“These basement apartments are illegal because of the fact they are unsafe and usually don’t have adequate means of egress,” Mr. Avella said. “And, it is substandard housing. Why would we want to encourage that?”
Basement units are often rented out at a bargain all over the city, though Mr. Avella contends that is only because the units are illegal and not up to code. Bringing them into the mainstream, he said, would not only likely prove too costly for homeowners to take Mr. de Blasio up on his offer, but would also allow too many people into neighborhoods zoned for low density.
29 comments:
This is the worst thing that could happen to this city you will nearly double the amount of people in a neighborhood. You would need more cops,way more sanitation workers and not least,firefighters the infrastructure can't handle it. This would be one of the most crowded cities in the world. Add devblosios vision zero 25 mile an hor speed limits and overcrowded subways and you have a nice 4 hour round trip to work.
Why is Tony the only politician in NYC that actually talks sense and in realistic terms.
Too bad we do not have more Avellas.
I saw a basement apartment in North Flooshing that didn't allow cooking!!!! It was behind the Carvel at 29th and Francis Lewis.
And the presumably legit owners/renters (no habla Ingles!) required access to the basement to use the washing machine and dryer!!!
DeSleazio ought to look at what people are currently offering as basement apartments before he rushes in to legalize them. They're not fit for habitation.
Is it also expected that the people currently renting out parts of their rentals/condos/co-ops are going to now declare the $500 - $1500/month they make as rental income? Fat chance!
It's called due diligence!!!
Similar to Bloomberg, this mayor lives in an alternate universe. He's totally clueless when it comes to realities of Queens.
This is not nice, civilized, upscale Brooklyn - this is Third World Ghetto-mentality Queens!
Tony gets it - he's just so much better than Queens. The only honest politician that truly cares - Tony for mayor!
Yea Tony gets it... He opposes making it legal. OK what a big help that is.
The way things are with illegal conversions, it is damn near legal anyway. An illegal conversion is the same as jay walking.
I witnessed an explosion of new laundromats in Woodside and Sunnyside in the last 20 years - not matched by the creation of new housing. Why did that happen?
People threw out their washers and dryers and created an illegal apartment where those machines were.
Queens really needs to secede from NYC already. That's probably the last hope it has.
He should also oppose ID cards for all the illegals here in the City, and ask Obama to enforce the law and deport them.
You thinking I live enough on Sosa Security?
There goes the neighborhood. More people, more cars, less on street parking spots, you name it.
Clueless liberal chancellor Wilhelm Di Blasio wants to get re-elected and has begun his term by pandering to the ghetto voting block.
Throw the bum out! One term for this jerk wad!
If Wilhelm der1st wants to be king then let him reign in a 3rd world country in some other part of the globe!
I think the recent downpouring ny had on wednesday night should squash any consideration for basement apts.
I used to live in one,it had a kitchen and a bedroom but I wouldn't live there now or move to another one.
Why don't DeBlasio move his family into a Queens Basement Apartment?
See how he likes it when the sewer backs up in his place because the house was never built for so many apartments. See how he likes taking days off from work to let the plumber in and keep cleaning up the shit that gets all over.
See how Dante likes the constant leaks dripping down into his 'fro.
DeBlahBlah is pandering to illegal aliens who bought houses in Queens.
Tenants live in these horrible apartments. The sleazy third world, usually Indian or Pakastani slumlords harass the hell out of them, turn off water, electricity, kill their pets, call Child Protective Services on them as strategy. The slumlords are surprised when after all this they drag the tenants to housing court and discover that they can't recover back rents because it's an ILLEGAL APARTMENT.
They don't pay taxes on the income so why do they think they are entitled to any rent?
I had a friend who's Russian landlords wouldn't give him rent receipts. He was very ill and couldn't get food stamps because of this. The Russians wouldn't accept money orders from him. There was a rodent infestation that they never dealt with. bastards. they had a Mercedes Benz and a house in the country.
Slumlords renting out illegal apartments seems like a reason to throw some light on the whole operation, as in legalize them.
Why not work out a compromise, inspect the infrastructure in each block one at a time, and if it can support some extra people, then either upzone the entire block, or maybe sell rights to build a limited number of legal basement/garage apartments in the area, maybe one for every five houses. Then use the money on some local projects, maybe bustime displays at local stops, renovated park amenities etc...
As to overcrowded streets, a more efficient use of limited roadway space could help - dedicated transit lanes with frequent service can carry more people than general car lanes are capable of, so that becomes a non-issue in the long run, at least if you have a governor and mayor who support a more efficient use of limited roadway space. De Blasio seems to be open to the idea, Cuomo does not.
We don't need more sanitation workers. We need fewer more productive ones - I see two or three workers on a typical truck here, but in many other cities it's one because their truck can pick up the garbage cans. And that one worker seems to move down a block a lot faster than the ones here in NYC. An expired contract is a golden opportunity to change this. It takes time to replace the fleet, but start buying new trucks that can be operated by one person, who would be paid more than each individual on a larger crew, sharing some of the savings with the union, and can be done with no layoffs - just reduce the pace of hiring, and make the transition over time.
We don't need more cops. NYC has more police than it needs. Even if the city grows by ten percent by 2030 as it is projected to it won't need as many cops as there are today assuming there isn't a new crack epidemic or something of the sort. The overstaffed NYPD is already squeezing out needed spending elsewhere and driving up tax rates, don't make that worse.
Overcrowded subways? Properly funding the capital plan, which Cuomo has refused to do, would bring upgraded signal systems that would allow 40 trains per hour at peak assuming no other bottlenecks. On the L for instance tail tracks would need to be built past the Manhattan terminal for that level of service to be reached, but modern signalling has already increased the capacity of the line to 26 tph from ~15. What is needed is for Cuomo to get the union to tolerate lower staffing levels so running more trains is affordable.
Bottom line, all the problems I see mentioned here with regards to the inevitable growth of the population of New York City are manageable, but instead of throwing up your hands saying you don't want more people here you need to push for some smart changes to be made. Because the people are coming. And if you don't make changes to the city now, it will be more expensive to do so in the future.
Don't let Cuomo continue to borrow from the future to increase his prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
"Why not work out a compromise, inspect the infrastructure in each block one at a time, and if it can support some extra people, then either upzone the entire block, or maybe sell rights to build a limited number of legal basement/garage apartments in the area, maybe one for every five houses. Then use the money on some local projects, maybe bustime displays at local stops, renovated park amenities etc..."
This is what we were told would happen when all the other areas were up zoned under Bloomberg. The new residents will pay taxes that will pay for needed things. Aaand and that's not what we got.
So what's the answer then crappy? Just throw up your hands and complain whenever the city moves to accommodate the ~600.000 people expected to move into the city in the next fifteen years?
By the way, what's your opinion on the recent teachers contract?
The 1961 rezoning allowed for more than 12 million residents in the city. All of the small rezoning so since then taken together allow for more people, not less. So I fail to see why we need to allow basement apartments in order to accommodate a few hundred thousand people who may or may not show up by 2030.
Since 1961, as well as since 2002, more rezonings have reduced buildable capacity than increased it.
Do you have a source for how much current buildable space is still available in the city?
Long Island City
Downtown Flushing
Greenpoint-Williamsburg
Bushwick
Willets Point
Coney Island
Atlantic Yards
DUMBO
Lower East Side
Tell me again how we've lost buildable capacity? For every R6 zone that went to an R5, there was a mega upzoning that allowed M zones to become skyscraper territory.
Crappy more rezonings have reduced buildable capacity but the ones that have increased it did so more than the ones that decreased it, the net increase in residential buildable capacity has been less than %2 through 2007.
The burden of growth should be equitably distributed across the city. If there are areas with illegal basement apartments, it's worth looking into whether or not the area can support the new residents. If it can, the area should be upzoned to allow it. If they can't, then the property owners should be heavily fined if they don't support, financially if necessary, the relocation of their tenants.
The majority of downzoned lots under bloomberg were within a half mile of a rail station fwiw.
The real problem is this is all being done piecemeal, rather than part of a coherent system to ensure that citywide the needed infrastructure is in place to support what an area is zoned for.
And since the capacity is for 12 million people and there's only 8 million here now, what's the issue?
12 million people under current zoning would require dwelling sizes of about 500 square feet per person. Well below current averages citywide.
The majority of upzoned lots were mixed use, and the majority of downzoned lots were residential only. So the amount of space that can only be used for residential actually decreased, even though the amount of area that can be used for residential, though not exclusively, increased. If too much of that space is used for commerce or retail then the city ends up with less residential land that it had before the rezonings.
They are building 30 story residential buildings where there used to be 1 story businesses at Queens Plaza.
Where there were 1 family houses, there are now 12 story buildings in Flushing.
I can go on.
To argue that we have less space for residential is pretty ridiculous. The rezonings were part of planyc 2030 to accommodate growth.
>To argue that we have less space for residential is pretty ridiculous.
There is less space exclusively for residential. There is more space that can be residential. That was one of the conclusions of the Fruman report of the rezonings of 2003-2007. I can't find a more up to date study.
Who cares if it's exclusively residential or not? Can we accommodate the population we are expecting? Yes. There's no need to make more rezonings a priority. Are people moving here in the numbers anticipated when the planyc 2030 was created? No. There won't be a net gain of 1M by 2030.
If it's not exclusively residential then the buildable space could be used for something other than residential, say retail or office, so the idea that the rezonings added 1.7% buildable space to the city's residential sector and so can accommodate two hundred thousand new residents is misleading.
A problem with your twelve million number is that there are laws limiting the number of non family members who live in the same unit. So even if a lot can accommodate a 2500 square foot house, you might only get three people living there. Two parents and a child. To fit twelve million in the city under current zoning you need that house to have five residents. But if they aren't allowed to rent out their basement or a bedroom that can't happen. If an area is zoned for five people per lot, what's wrong with someone renting out room for two?
Many of the rezonings under Bloomberg were 'contextual' rezonings. They neither increased nor decreased the buildable space. Instead they limited what sort of housing could be built. Often removing the option of small multi family units and requiring that only single family housing be built. But the size of the units that can be built on each lot was unchanged. Unless you only allow large families to live in such units, which would be ridiculous, this effectively reduced the capacity of the new zoning regime.
"A problem with your twelve million number is that there are laws limiting the number of non family members who live in the same unit. So even if a lot can accommodate a 2500 square foot house, you might only get three people living there."
That's the funniest shit I have ever read on this blog. When the hell has the city EVER enforced this? Please sing your song somewhere else.
As for single family zoning, the vast majority of Queens is zoned R4, R5 or R6. A small percentage is zoned for less than that. There was no dramatic reduction in the amount of units that could be built.
Go on any real estate site and you'll see countless flipper houses showing pictures with finished basements with kitchen hookups, full bathrooms and enclosed boiler rooms, all of this is factored into the price since sellers know people will use them as rentals (a realtor once told us to rent it out), which is why they renovated it as such. the city does nothing about this even though it's easy to investigate. Just like listings show illegal driveways, windowless bedrooms, or extensions done without permits as features of the house, all driving up the sale price but the city can come in at any time and make you tear it down.
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