Check out this crap:
“Your neighbors can decide for themselves if the risk of living in these basements is worth taking. Given the current affordable housing emergency, they might genuinely be better off facing the small risk of a fire, rather than the large risk of not being able to find another apartment and becoming homeless, especially if they are undocumented immigrants who will not qualify for much public aid."
"This was written by a 'native NYer'. Some people in the comments section at least have sense." - Jon Torodash
Incidentally, Jake Dobkin was the keynote speaker for Historic Districts Council's Landmarks@50 event, for some strange reason.
28 comments:
Sounds like the only time he opens his mouth is to change feet!!!
The only reason why rrgular normal people are renting out their basements is because of high property taxes in nyc. The other reason is to fit all of their illegal family members into a "claimed to be" two family house. The government doesn't care that they are over burdening public services. The government in nyc sucks!!
Another version of Pajama Boy.
There must be something in the Park Slope water that turns you into a "progressive" shithead.
What an ass wipe! Hot plate cooking in furnished rooms went out with the depression era. Or has it? Get a. Real job fella.
I was involved in those discussions when the article was posted, and in general the majority of comments were pretty anti-conversion. Jake usually has an opinion worth reading, even if his writing can be a little "flowery" but he really should have kept this one in the archive.
I suggest that readers read the entire piece. There may be a touch of satire, don't you think?
Getting to know your neighbors is good advice!
The same hipster doofuses who don't care about regulations or illegal conversions will be the first screaming about how the NYFD didn't save their belongings or their family members when they have to run into a rats nest that is a blazing inferno.
At least the illegals know they and their living arrangements are illegal and just move on to the next hovel.
Headline:
"Gothamist discovers Queens. Shocked to learn of third Borough."
If something is broken our government puts a crappy band-aid on it and it never lasts they just create a bigger problem.
Queens is too crowded the only things that's left for the people to give up is fresh air, trees and sunlight.
Stop the madness if people can't afford to live in NYC then rather than create horrible/low quality living situations perhaps they should look to live at places they can afford.
What people calling for conversions of basement apartments into rentable units don't understand, especially owners of illegally converted units, is that the government i.e. Mayor Hot Air de Blasio is going to get his fair share of that money by inreasing property taxes!! Net net everyone loses: renters will end up paying higher rents since they are now legal, community has to deal with influx of more tenants - providing more services and landlords are paying more taxes, making the conversions not even worth the effort!
I suggest that readers read the entire piece. There may be a touch of satire, don't you think?
Though he writes with a snarky tone, Jake seems quite sincere about the opinion he expresses in his responses within the comments section.
It's amazing how insular and unaware New Yorkers (even native ones!) can be about the problems in the larger city.
I know. I was one of the knowledgeable "anti's" among the commenters. Ridiculous.
Besides the fire hazard and overcrowding, illegal apartments also serve to artificially raise house prices. Without the extra income the buyer market would be smaller and the prices would level to where they should be.
Look, when you see what the do in other communities in NYC, and how the Queens residents are simply stupid or lazy, the result is the current sorry state of Queens - while the rest of NYC moves forward.
Sure the rest of the city has some (to a lesser degree though) of the problems in Queens. But we have none of the good things that are elsewhere in the city.
Everyone treats the borough as a joke, from our elected down to people like this jerk.
So enjoy your Lonely (or should we say Loony) Planet designation - along with Western South Dakota.
Title should read: Gothamist Publisher has absolutely no respect for FDNY.
It's the firemen's asses on the line when some idiot sets one of these basements on fire.
If someone can't afford NYC rents, I'm sorry but they should live elsewhere - not rent some dangerous room in the basement of a flop house. There are many more affordable places to live in the USA where one doesn't have to live like a rodent in a hole.
The other day as I was leaving my house, a man made a beeline from across the street and asked if anyone was living in the basement "apartment" because if not, he would like to rent it. He said he never saw anyone coming or going through the basement door, so he assumed the basement was unoccupied. I explained that the basement is not an apartment in any sense of the word- and definitely not a legal dwelling; it is an unfinished space (concrete floors, etc) with a washer/dryer and some old junk. He looked unfazed and continued to ask if he could rent it. I'm surprised people don't live in garages too! (Or maybe they do? Anything goes in Queens, apparently.) I can't take it! Must every single square inch in every dwelling in Queens be filled to capacity? On my block, every house seems to be occupied by 10-15 people, at least (these are just the ones I actually see coming and going). It's incredibly unsafe- think of all these different renters with all their crap plugged into extension cords galore, personal fridges and hot plates or microwaves in every single room, not to mention all of their clothes and other possessions packed in tightly. Major fire hazard!!! If this Gothamist dude truly cared about the plight of his fellow human beings, he would not advocate for their right to live in unsafe conditions. Why doesn't he do what people do in Queens, and sublet a section of every room in his Park Slope apartment, let some dude move in and plug in his various appliances, etc.?- or, better yet, let a whole family move in to one of his rooms.
Another Liberal Liberal Leftist Liberal Liberal Leftist Liberal. There are a lot of these people in NYC now.
"Your neighbors can decide for themselves if the risk of living in these basements is worth taking."
As if fire could be guaranteed to stay confined to their building!
Corrected:
"Your neighbors can decide for themselves and everyone else on the block if the risk of fire from their own decision to illegally make extra money and not report it is worth taking"
I have been to more than a few of these houses after a fire (reported as a "one family house fire, 20 people are now homeless")
There's always damage to the adjacent houses.
What housing "emergency"? If you can't afford a legal apartment on Park Avenue in the 60's, find something else. If you can't afford a legal apartment in Queens, find something else.
As far as "if you can't afford to live in NY , don't"....I was born & raised in Queens, and I can't afford it! If I were to lose my apartment, the rent of which the landlord has kept within limits, I'd be unable to find anything. Except maybe an illegal basement, and if THEY get legalized I'm doubly out of the game.
"As if fire could be guaranteed to stay confined to their building!"
Exactly! I get the impression that the Gothamist reporter has never witnessed the horror of an actual house fire. Sadly, the house across the street from me caught fire last year, and the homeowner was killed. The people who lived in the house next door also lost their home, as the fire spread to their house. The houses were not even connected, but they were only a few feet apart. The fire department arrived very quickly, but even so they were unable to prevent the damage to that neighboring house. So basically, one woman lost her life, two others in her house were burned (but recovered, thank God!), and everyone in both houses lost their homes. I am pretty disgusted by this reporter's seeming flippancy about house fires. No, a homeowner does NOT have the right to decide whether he wants to risk a house fire. It's not just his own life, or the lives of his renters that he's putting at risk- he's also risking the lives of the people who live in houses on either side, and, oh yeah, of the FIREFIGHTERS.
"especially if they are undocumented immigrants who will not qualify for much public aid."
OH BULLSHIT, TYPICAL LIBERAL BS. THEY CAN GO HOME AND GET THE FUCK OUT MY COUNTRY. NOBODY IS STOPPING THEM !!
If you rent to ONE of them you will have SIX men (not including protected preggos & offspring)on your dollar in no time jackass!!
-Ned
www.nra.org
To whomever thought the author was merely being satirical, here's an exchange we just had on Facebook:
[Jon Torodash] "Jake, I do enjoy the Gothamist blog, but would it be entirely beyond the realm of possibility for you to reconsider the issue and admit that although you still feel ardently about expanding housing availability, perhaps you might have been incorrect in your initial response?"
[Jake Dobkin] "Jon Torodash I thought about it over the weekend, but I haven't changed my position. I think the majority of these apartments can be made reasonably safe, and it would be wrong to evict the current tenants short of an imminent threat.
I welcome suggestions for holding the landlords accountable, for shutting down the apartments that are imminent hazards, and for building more affordable housing so these people can find better homes, but right now calling the cops on every basement apartment is either going to do nothing (because the city already gets like 20K complaints on 114K illegal apartments every year, and it hasn't curbed the practice) or, on the off-chance that it succeeds, lead to a lot more homeless people."
The main reason people rent out their basements has nothing to do w/taxes -- it's just plain GREED!
To whomever thought the author was merely being satirical, here's an exchange we just had on Facebook:
[Jon Torodash] "Jake, I do enjoy the Gothamist blog, but would it be entirely beyond the realm of possibility for you to reconsider the issue and admit that although you still feel ardently about expanding housing availability, perhaps you might have been incorrect in your initial response?"
[Jake Dobkin] "Jon Torodash I thought about it over the weekend, but I haven't changed my position. I think the majority of these apartments can be made reasonably safe, and it would be wrong to evict the current tenants short of an imminent threat.
I welcome suggestions for holding the landlords accountable, for shutting down the apartments that are imminent hazards, and for building more affordable housing so these people can find better homes, but right now calling the cops on every basement apartment is either going to do nothing (because the city already gets like 20K complaints on 114K illegal apartments every year, and it hasn't curbed the practice) or, on the off-chance that it succeeds, lead to a lot more homeless people."
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Jon, unfortunately Jake lives in a bubble of his own making.
People like him are completely uneducable. They don't understand that not only are basement apartments illegal zone-busting disasters but a very direct way of increasing the burden on lawful taxpayers, not to mention our increasingly shaky infrastructure.
There's really only on solution: a swift kick in the balls for this asshat.
The Gothamist thinks this is Gotham, replete with Batman and Robin. He even looks like a cartoon himself. Wearing dark framed specs does not really make everyone look smarter. Here is just another geek with glasses mouthing off his self importance. Yawn....think I'll watch some Beverly Hillbillies reruns.
I liked the olden days better. Getting on a soapbox on a corner in winter to speak your piece meant freezing your buns. Now I can sit at my laptop sipping a hazelnut latte and spout "wisdom". It sounds impressive, doesn't it? I think about writing online articles about New York all the time. How about, "Hermano Urbano speaks out on urban life manno e manno"?
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