Residents of Dyker Heights are declaring war on illegal home conversions, and now local politicians are joining the fray with proposed laws to give the city more weapons for fighting the residential scourge.
Two civic groups are holding a town hall meeting on illegal conversions in Dyker Heights on Feb. 26. The practice of dicing one- and two-family homes into multi-family apartments is pervasive in Southern Brooklyn, locals say. The illegally altered buildings can lack light, fresh air, and safe exits — putting residents and firefighters in harm’s way. Because the subdivided homes increase a neighborhood’s population, they also tax city services and can contribute to school overcrowding.
State and local politicians have introduced several bills to help combat what they have characterized as “an epidemic,” and we have boiled them down for you ahead of next Thursday’s town hall.
Click the link to read about the legislation proposed.
15 comments:
Too late for broke-down Flooshing!
Well hello ! It took this long...
Can't find the link.
When and where is this meeting?
There has to be a new way to deal with these illegal conversions. You can't just call 311 and complain anymore. They all know how to work the system and what to do to keep the inspectors out of their homes.
The link is the first thing posted.
Anonymous said...
"Can't find the link.
When and where is this meeting?
There has to be a new way to deal with these illegal conversions. You can't just call 311 and complain anymore. They all know how to work the system and what to do to keep the inspectors out of their homes."
Technically, there is no gaming the system. If a DOB inspector comes knocking, absent some form of legal document/warrant compelling ingress, any owner/person living at the location may refuse to allow the inspector into the home--it's as simple as that.
The usual, if you do not enforce the laws, what good is it.
DOT is majorly to blame on this issue.
http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/owners/compliance-register-your-property.page
HPD mandates that when an owner does not live where he is renting, he must register with HPD. It appears that there is no enforcement policy for failing to register.
What's the use of making more laws if no one is going to enforce them? There are hundreds of illegel conversion violations already documented that have been sitting idle for years. The dirty little secret is the City does not want to shut them down because of the housing shortage. This has been going on since the Bloomberg years. If there were no illegal apartments there would be nowhere for the illegal immigrants to stay. Fire codes and quality of life be dammed, we need space for cheap labor to exploit
Queens has it figured out.
We will call a meeting with one of our elected officials, gush rapturously when they show up, explain our plight while they feign surprise and concern, and set up a second meeting with one of their interns who will file a report with him ... at ... some ... point ... in ... the ... future
while you wait to hear back secure in the knowledge that your elected official, like Con Ed, is 'on it'.
Notice this is happening in DiBlasio's borough. He wants to keep Brooklyn nice. Forget about Queens. You'd need to triple the staff at the DOB just for starters to combat all the illegal conversions.
I wish they'd do that in bayside on all these so called "two family houses" that house 4 families in it.
This is a big problem in most areas. There needs to be stronger enforcement . We need to preserve safety in our communities. Which community board is a part of this ? Thank you
Which community board is working hard to enforce these illegal conversions . It is a huge problem in many areas throughout the Boroughs. Enforcement needs to be taken seriously. peoples live and quality of life is at stake. I would like to go to this meeting as well. What is the date , place and time. Than you!
Middle Village, this has been going on since Koch. It hollows out strong communities, gets rid of Republican quality of life a-holes, and fills them with the ward of Democratic Programs.
I'd like to see similar rules for developers - in my neighborhood kids go to school in "container" classrooms, public transit is non-existent, combined sewer system is overloaded, and the City, god bless 'em, says we're underserved for recreation. But no problem throwing up a hundred or more homes; which, looking at the cost, will be quickly divided into additional dwelling units to support the mortgages.
Post a Comment