Despite some of the most extensive rent regulation laws in the nation, a bureaucratic entanglement is leaving New York City tenants at the mercy of developers’ illegal and unpunished abuse of tax breaks, according to a report.
The developers and landlords of several glassy new luxury condo towers have been swindling residents out of thousands of dollars each month by illegally increasing rents beyond regulated caps, found a new investigation by ProPublica and WNYC.
In luxury apartment buildings like Williamsburg’s The Driggs, pictured above, generous 421-a abatements give property owners massive tax cuts in exchange for designating a certain number of those apartments rent-stabilized. The Driggs received a 93 percent property tax reduction this year through the program, from $678,000 to $47,000, according to ProPublica.
The city hands out more than $1 billion in tax breaks every year through 421-a, yet ProPublica found many developers are not carrying through with their part of the deal. The government does little to ensure landlords are not overcharging tenants, the report said.
9 comments:
What a shame. I am sure these were model tenants...
What does anyone expect? Landlords are the definition of parasite.
They finance a building with money from a bank and spend the rest of the time trying to connive more from the residents.
When confronted they invariably city 'regulations" and "taxes" as excuse for for the fact that New Yorkers are now, on average, paying more than 50% of their income on rent.
Ironically, landlords have the same "gimme" mentality they blame welfare recipients for.
What are the penalties, if any?
2700 is affordable huh. And it's not enough for these aforementioned parasites and predators.
Too bad there isn't proactive enforcement to stop this abuse and exploitation for the supposed laws are on the side of these criminals, who run these buildings and apartments like the drug trade. Emboldened by our gutless developer sycophant of a mayor, a despotic unscrupulous governor and all the elected pawns in city council and the state senate and assembly. This all lies in the temporary 6 month extension of the antiquated and loophole plagued 421a "rule"
The bottom line of avarice has become the default excuse for this immorality. No one is safe or secure in this city, for tenant and civil rights can be oppressed and are virtually dead. These low-lifes see themselves as too big to fail. They are vulgar pussies who assume (rightly) that they can get away with rent gouging and physical threats (or has that shitstain Isaac told mark, making a forecast).
A lot a shitty laws have to be overhauled and some sort of enforcement unit must be created to investigate and lock these scoundrels up or at least put them in fear of reprisals. Most of all there has to be an end to these bogus LLC's. These organizations are absurd and have to cease. Most of them are P.O. Boxes and have more rights than actual living beings.
and where is OCCUPY on this? That high end slumlord basically put up a challenge to them.
Ah! The benefits of crony capitalism!
How is it that the same government that's so eager to hand out endless fines to the working class for petty violations won't give big fines to those stealing our tax dollars?
When A-Rod pays less tax on his luxury apartment than I do on my small Queens home you know something is rotten in the state of Denmark (NYC) !
Billion dollar tax breaks and they offer cops a 1% raise,I'm not a cop but that is disgusting and all other services are to give back
New Yorkers will never be able to stop the theft because the Poor are Bribed to come here to insure 1 party rule is never threatened
Giuliani good or bad made NY livable
DiBlasios the communist prickly destroyed NY in 1 term
I'd vote for Bloomberg for 10 terms,didn't like him but I do miss him now
Speaking of that juicing peice of shit now fox sports hack A roid, Actors like Michelle Williams, Jake Gyllenhal and Jessica Chastain are actually renting their apartments too.
Housing as become quite the cash cow in New York for some types.
Post a Comment