A group of Queens officials who have lived in basement apartments themselves said Wednesday that calls to remove such units are not realistic.
Critics who want the city to crack down on illegal basement apartments and end their use say the units are unsafe and lead to overcrowding. They point to the 11 New Yorkers who died last week when flooding from Hurricane Ida turned their subterranean homes into death traps.
However, advocates of basement units and elected officials such as Queens Borough President Donovan Richards say the city should find a way to legalize the units, while increasing safety standards. They note the city has little choice but to adopt this approach.
Richards, who held a media roundtable with Congress Members Grace Meng and Hakeem Jeffries Wednesday, said people will continue to live in basement-level apartments as long as there’s a housing affordability crisis in the city.
“One of the reasons people in Queens County live in basements is because we’re in an affordability crisis and basements play a key role in providing affordable housing,” Richards said. “… We’re going to need some real solutions moving forward on how we bring these illegal basements into compliance with the city.”
The three elected officials said the city needs to have a serious conversation and come up with a plan to address the multitude of basement apartments across the city.
There are 312,658 such units that could potentially be converted to safe, legal and affordable homes, according to NYC BASE Campaign, a group formed to fight for the legalization of basement apartments in New York City.
Richards said he has lived in basement apartments himself.
“I’m a basement baby I like to say,” he said. “A basement apartment helped get me through college as well to an extent.”
Meng said she also spent the early years of her life in a basement apartment.
“I too am a basement baby,” she said. “I spent the first six years of my life in a basement in Queens and Donovan’s right, people are going to live in basements whether we like it or not — whether we legalize them or not, they are going to live in basements.”
Likewise, Jeffries said he lived basement apartments in college, graduate school and even during his first four years as a Congress member in Washington D.C.
“Basement apartments are a reality because we have a housing crisis that exists here in New York City and the United States of America,” Jeffries said.
Meng said that she met a seven-month-old “garage baby” Tuesday while out surveying storm damage and assisting constituents in her district. The garage was converted into a small two-bedroom apartment, which was flooded in the storm.
She said the family didn’t know it was illegal for them to be housed in a garage. In fact, most tenants of basement apartments who she spoke to didn’t know their homes were illegal, Meng said.
37 comments:
Stop focusing on building "Luxury Condominums" and focus on building more affordable housing people can actually afford.
Stop punishing those who work for minimum wage and can barely afford to live in a basement apartment.
Instead of spending part of $ 4 million dollars to build new basketball courts for young people and gangbangers to play, sell drugs, and kill others on, they should build new environmentally friendly affordable housing, community centers, trade schools that offer job training programs.
People who better themselves and have the proper training will earn more money so they don't have the excuse of only being able to afford to live in an basement apartment.
If you make basement apartments legal, the foreign investors will be force to report the income and pay more taxes.
But since they pay off politicians, lawyers and businessmen to get their way, they will probably figure out a way not to pay more for taxes anyway.
Noticing they all said BASEMENT. None of them said CELLAR. To a large extent what we have here I Queens are ILLEGAL CELLAR apartments. Cellars should never be legalized as living spaces. And if they want to legalize basements the COSTS to do so should be paid for by the property owner not on the city's dime. Are they really "affordable" housing or are they just "available" housing?
Politicians do a great job at keeping poor people poor. Very consistent.
Basement apartment = undeclared income for owner
I too am a basement baby
As am I!
The three elected officials said the city needs to have a serious conversation and come up with a plan to address the multitude of basement apartments across the city.
"A serious conversation" - Whenever they say this, they really mean: You're going to sit quietly while we harangue you, and you will do what we say.
Votes it's all about votes, for the most part illegals live in basement apartments and if they're forced to vacate, where will they go?
Or we can end rent regulations and then people could afford legal apartments. Maybe that's a better and saner approach?
Does anyone care about the tax evasion being committed? How about the fact that these people all cause overcrowing/overtaxing of sewers, schools, sanition, police, not to mention the fact the people in these death traps, are subject to instant death thorough floods and fires?
Solution - Any house that refuses inspection after complaint, will have their real estate taxes raised, their insurance company notified of the danger and will be required to submit to inspection.
This will clearly stop the illegal renting.
Well said chico0100!!
Any one live in a luxury basement apartment? There must be some.
Quote: "The city should find a way to legalize the units"
Here it comes we go with Section 8 blackmail.
Agree to the city's offer of a sec-8, jailbird or homeless tenant of its choice and expedited rubber stamp or cough up huge fines, home forfeitures/leans on that undocumented private apartment.
The city's been gearing up for this for a long time that quote "find a way" is a narrative for the setup that's been in the works all along.
These illegal apartments haven been enforced because democrats wont risk pulling such a move until after the November election.
Spread the word, Vote right people because the socialists now want both INSIDE your private home, UNDER your roof. And if you have a garage THAT TOO !!
@“ Solution - Any house that refuses inspection after complaint, will have their real estate taxes raised, their insurance company notified of the danger and will be required to submit to inspection.”
That might work in Europe, but not here. Chamber Of Commerce, big business, right wingers and politicians hate any regulations.
Ignorance has been Weaponized by desperately pathetic politicians.
This won't end until we organize and remove these demons from office.
Gardens in front of Queens homes serve a purpose ,to absorb rain water. When the new owner concretes over the front garden to make parking spots they garuntee there will be flooding as the rain water has no were to go but into the basement. By renting out a subdivided cellar, creating a four & five family home out of a legal two family home they are increasing the risk of flooding. The house was meant for 2 families - now there are five families in the house. They are using so much more water, showers, flushing the toilet, washing the dishes, there’s more sewage than the pipes can handle. First chance during a rain or snowstorm, the house’s sewer backs up. The flooding was caused by those landlords who are not paying taxes on the rental income- make them pay for the damage to the street and press charges for the deaths of those tenants
Stop the shit!
You all know all fines for prior violations, real estate taxes, insurance fraud, etc. etc.... will be passed along to the taxpayers.
It literally pays to be a criminal.
Does anyone care about the tax evasion being committed? How about the fact that these people all cause overcrowing/overtaxing of sewers, schools, sanition, police, not to mention the fact the people in these death traps, are subject to instant death thorough floods and fires?
Solution - Any house that refuses inspection after complaint, will have their real estate taxes raised, their insurance company notified of the danger and will be required to submit to inspection.
This will clearly stop the illegal renting
Makes sense to do but the foreign investors don't care about how much they have to pay in taxes. Look at other housing markets that tried to sway foreign investors out of the market by hiking up the taxes on them. This pretty much did little damage. Look at housing markets in Canada who tried this but it did practically nothing. We need to completely ban foreign investors from buying residential houses in already overcrowded cities like New York. And crack down on the zoning laws in these neighborhoods and actually STOP the construction of houses that look like they will hold more than one or two families in it. The DOB should send inspectors around right before someone is about to move to in just to make sure there is no illegal shit going on. But unfortunately, this will never happen since everyone in politics are so greedy and corrupt. So it will never stop since its A) too hard and B) too much corruption. The politicians in ny, will NEVER give a shit about the actual taxpayers who live here.
Grace Meng😂Now there’s a do nothing phony. Her dad , convicted criminal and former state assemblyman, gets caught by the FBI carrying $80,000 on cash that was hidden in a gift fruit basket in behalf of a friend seeking to
Bribe a judge.
Some pedigree Meng. Far from being a basement baby!
Now Grace is a potential Comgressional lifer!
Cellar or basement....if it’s below ground level it fills with water. Making them safe?
Submarines are watertight. Basements and cellars are not!
The city should also require the owner of any house to file and pay for a zoning variance if a basement is legalized that makes a house have more that its allowable dwelling units. If a basement apt makes a 2 fam into a 3 or more, it would not comply with zoning. Make the owner pay the freight for a zoning variance.
Vibrant NYC needs basement apartments for the un-washed !
It literally pays to be a criminal Bingo we have a winner !
"Does anyone care about the tax evasion being committed?"
Be carefull what you ask for Shepple !
Beijing Biden Moves to Spy On Everyones' Bank Accounts Using Tax Evasion as an Excuse !
Never believe a RICH politician promising to tax the rich.
They also know how you vote. The Taxman is watching Republicans.
Isn't the answer to "housing crisis" is to building affordable housing that is safe. This is the problem with the USA whether it be Republicans or Democrats. They are all about putting money in their pockets and doing NOTHING for the country. I mean when was the last time under a presidency, that something BIG was done, you know like the highway system, Medicare, Social Security, building tunnels through mountains for trains, affordable housing built after WWII.
NOTHING even comparable to any of this has NOT been done in many many decades. What about high speed trains, making products in this country, etc. AMERICA has not been great for a long time and it is due to money hungry politicians, constant infighting with elected officials, graft, consultants, etc. It is all about how elected officials can pocket the most money and making the rich richer and FUCK the rest. Government is good when it actually does big things for everyone.
Too bad those "electeds" didn't die in those deathtraps-then they wouldn't be aiding the killing of NYC in general currently taking place.
This is why you will never get anything done. Right wingers (Self professed freedom types) want to outlaw basement apartments.
Someone comes up with the idea of regulating and or taxing them. Suddenly the right wing plays the freedom card again. oh no, big bad government, you can’t come near my house. Tyranny! Taxes, no, no, no.
And we’re back to square one.
"It literally pays to be a criminal" NYC is a shit place to live sheeple.
Why was Tyrik Mott allowed to drive his car in NYC ? He racked up 160 traffic violations, including more than 90 for speeding in city school zones. Thirty-five violations were from this year alone. Go ahead tell me something you stupid bastards.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/13/bill-de-blasio-blames-albany-for-fatal-nyc-hit-and-run/
Politicians will stop at nothing to try to identify with the working poor. The city and state reps in City Hall and Albany are making nearly $150k per year. Who cares if they spent a few weeks as a baby in a basement? What are they doing to change the lives of working poor adults that weren't able to snag one of the couple hundred NYC Council/NYS Assembly/NYS Senate gigs?
As the city and state government become more progressive, the poorer get poorer and the tale of two cities continues to thrive!
Where is Assembly member Cathy Nolan on this? Wow Cathy that bag of cash you got from real estate developers and school construction contractors is mighty heavy, full of cash.Thank God the Woodside Irish Mafia machinery is still going strong.
"It literally pays to be a criminal" NYC is a shit place to live sheeple."
That is why so many criminals wind up being politicians for too long in NYC.
Just look at Cuomo, Heastie, Jumanne Williams, Eric Adams, Hevesi, Sheldon Silver, Comrie, Meeks and many more.
Open your eyes people!! Realize they do not care about Law-Abiding citizens. They only fight for the rights of other criminals, gangbangers, convicted felons, sexual predators, and illegal immigrants.
It is time to DUMP NYC for good!!
@"Open your eyes people!! Realize they do not care about Law-Abiding citizens. They only fight for the rights of other criminals, gangbangers, convicted felons, sexual predators, and illegal immigrants."
Is this really true? I'm shocked.
❝Laws are created to be followed by the poor. Laws are made by the rich to bring some order to exploitation. The poor are the only law-abiders in history. When the poor make laws, the rich will be no more.❞ ――Roque Dalton García
❝It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions――you take orders from above, and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.❞ ――Noam Chomsky
❝The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way――and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.❞ ――Frank Zappa
❝Always beware of the fact that the only thing hindering an all out revolution is your fear of losing the scraps they throw at you.❞ ——Gore Vidal
❝Blind belief in authority, is truths greatest enemy.❞ ——Albert Einstein
❝Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking——so as not to offend the imbeciles.❞ ——Dostoievski
❝The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults.❞ ——Chris Hedges
❝The system cannot be fixed by the system.❞ ——Tom Morello
❝Sometimes, we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the know.❞ ——Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts
❝We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty.❞ ——Benito Musselini
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