Tuesday, October 24, 2023

The City Of Yes wants SRO's ASAP

 https://newyorkalmanack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jacob-Riis-Five-Cents-Lodging-Bayard-Street-c-1889.jpg

 Crain's New York

Ray Ray Soto’s apartment on the Upper West Side has hardwood floors, ceramic counters and city views. At first blush, it’s not so different from many other units in newly built towers.

“This is a beautiful building,” said Soto, 66, who moved there in March after a years-long search. “I love the place I’m living in. I really do.”

Her studio, however, is not inside a conventional rental development. It’s actually located in a single-room occupancy hotel, commonly referred to as an SRO, one of the few remaining examples of a once-common type of dwelling that served as a lifeline to generations of New Yorkers without much money. But their often dark, drecky and dangerous conditions led to a ban on SROs decades ago and prompted officials to allow most of the remaining ones to be razed.

But as homelessness and housing costs hit record levels, Mayor Eric Adams is considering allowing the controversial properties, with their unusually small unit sizes and shared kitchens or bathrooms, to be built for the first time since the Eisenhower era. Soto’s digs could be a glimpse of things to come.

“We have to try something new, and that’s when old ideas become new again,” said Muzzy Rosenblatt, chief executive officer of the Bowery Residents' Committee, a nonprofit housing provider that operates a handful of the city’s few surviving SROs.

But several housing providers who support the mayor’s SRO push said they would tweak a few details this time around, such as getting more buy-in from nonprofits and insisting on regular inspections to make sure living conditions stay up to code. “When SROs were run by private landlords, it was very hard to make them a successful business, because their customers were the poorest of the poor,” Rosenblatt said.

The set of pro-housing zoning changes that Adams proposed in September includes measures that would eliminate rules that have long prevented the construction of new SROs.

Specifically, the mayor would amend zoning laws that set a minimum average size for apartments in new developments to encourage more studios and, the thinking goes, more small-unit apartment buildings.

In the push to get more shared housing in general, City Hall would also loosen rules that prevent developers from adding rooming-house-style units in low-density areas and converting offices into the properties.

Although the City Council would have to approve these zoning changes and likely pass additional legislation for SROs to make a full-fledged return, the need for cheap housing options no longer seems as controversial as it had been for decades. Gale Brewer, a City Council member whose Upper West Side district was the epicenter of the SRO fight in the middle of the last century, told Crain's she “absolutely” supports the mayor’s idea.

So does City Planning Commission Chair Dan Garodnick. “Zoning should not act as a bar to different types of housing that meets the needs of lots of current and future New Yorkers,” he told Crain’s. “We want to allow for a level of creativity within buildings and to explore new ways of living.


SROs may still be a lightning rod. A preview of the possible resistance came in March, when some observers reacted with outrage when Adams hinted at his eventual plan by floating the idea of allowing bedrooms without windows.

But if the City Council were to vote for the reforms, it would represent a remarkable full-circle moment for a type of housing once seen as an island of affordability in a pricey metropolis.

Instead of shelling out for a full-size apartment, tenants—especially single men—with reduced means could fork over much less money for a private bedroom alone and then share a bathroom and kitchen with their neighbors, a model not dissimilar to the increasingly popular co-living communities of the past few years.

 

56 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, it's a city. If you don't like it, get your butt off to Ohio.

Anonymous said...

Can't we all just get along?

Anonymous said...

Jeez, imagine having to share a unit with some crazy dude like NRA Ned, Crazy Joe or the QAnon Creep?
Not for me.

NPC_translator said...

It's pretty impressive how the Democrats have invented a time machine, bringing us back to the crime and drugs of the 70s and the tenement housing of the 19th century. Trust the Science!!

Ned said...

This is the same shit they have in Sweden, Denmark and Amsterdam. 14-20 hobos per floor, drug addicts living in 20 8X10 rooms with shared kitchen and bathroom at end of hallway.
They also have a near 60% tax vig on the average working middle class people to pay for it.
What about the rich one may ask ?
A: They have no upper class in those shit socialist country's, everybody equal no matter how hard you work or how successful you made yourself!
Being wealthy or having a nice private owned car is frowned on, they toss all sorts of stones and tax shit at you.

It sounds like the bastards that be want to ram this commie shit down our throats by creating situations to invoke "crisis" and "emergency". This to shit on our rights, local and federal laws, shit all over the US Constitution.
What mayor Adams and colored City Council of ghetto trash is doing is ILLEGLE and pure commie-socialist!!

-Ned
www.nra.org

Anonymous said...

Homelessness is big business in crooked NYC, Does anyone actually believe politicians want to solve the problem? Not while they can dole out contracts for shelters to their political supporters (Read "Campaign contributors) they don't.

WAKE UP STUPID!

Joe said...

get your butt off to Ohio.

F_ Ohio !
All the food sucks, its too quiet, housewives will feed you frozen bread, butter and frozen bagels. (Frozen & microwave defrosted everything for that matter)
For Italian you'll get shopping mall crap or Spaghetti with Ragu sauce.
Forget Chinese or a good Pastrami sandwich
Ohio's citys are worse then NY and you must drive miles for anything. Great fun in the winter.
Places like Ohio, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampsire is where people go to die. And And if you do get sick good luck at the hospital, most don't even have a CAT or PET scan to save your life.
I been to Cleveland in February, for John Entwistle RR hall of fame exhibit ceremony. Holy crap what a freezing, dreary, depressing and dead shithole. Dam cab drivers takes you, drop you off down in some place called the "flats" get you killed faster then anyplace in NYC.

Worse then Tulsa where they literally roll the streets and booze up at 6PM, you cant even get wine or beer in a restaurant. You walk blocks & blocks and not see one soul. (only get stopped by the cops in cowboy boots)

Cops: "Lights and sirens, drive up on the sidewalk, IDs please then "what are you people doing?"
A:We are looking for a bar to get a drink and listen to live music, maybe meet some women.
Cops: OH NO YOUR NOT New Yorkers, Get back to your hotel tour bus whatever and stay there, if we catch you out again this evening ya'll will be arrested.
.
Id rather die then live in Oklahoma or Ohio

-Joe

Anonymous said...

Aw hell yes! And while we're at it, let's bring back flophouses (<<<< there's a term millennials have never heard of) a sure solution to homelessness and the housing crisis...
And Mr. Mayor hows about NYCHA frees up some of those vacant city owned apartments?

Hypocritical mofo...

MAGA Mike said...

Ned’s the man!

Anonymous said...

@NRA Ned
You need to relax a little before you explode! Maybe take a vacation to somewhere quiet and peaceful, like Maine.
Just stay away from the schools.

Anonymous said...

Thank corporate greed.

Anonymous said...

@Joe said

Sounds like Ohio is another glorious Republican police state.

Anonymous said...

@“ imagine having to share a unit with some crazy dude like…”

Yeah, and don’t forget the NPC_doofus.

Anonymous said...

Here in the great red swamp of Florida we'd call that a trailer mansion.

Anonymous said...

We already have flophouses- chopped up houses or apartments owned by immigrant landlords, no living room - it was made into 2 bedrooms. They rent out rooms & the tenants share the kitchen & bathroom. It’s called an illegal boarding house. They cram the tenants into basements and attics with no windows. Try Jackson Heights, the Indians & Pakastanis are getting rich off their slummy fire traps. And no , there’s no tenants rights in China,India or Pakistan. Don’t call the city about no heat, no hot water, mice, bed bugs , the landlord or their pretend landlord will harass you every minute to force you out

Anonymous said...

That's it. I'm packing my bags, hitching the trailer up to the old pickup, and moving to the great red state of Maine. There's a state with plenty of space and lots of freedoms.

Anonymous said...

Liberalism has been trying to destroy this country for centuries. Gen Z is their golden child.

Anonymous said...

I wish people would stop calling politicians our "leaders". They're not. They're managers, nothing more. We hire them to manage the affairs of the City/State/Country, so we don't have to.

Kitara said...

@"That's it. I'm packing my bags, hitching the trailer up to the old pickup, and moving to the great red state of Maine."

Watch out for good ole NRA Ned while you're up there. He'll be the one driving the rusty old pickup and wearing spandex.
Tell him Kitara says hello.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson can help the Commie Trolls here !

Anonymous said...

"Woke" Liberals are trying to force their views on everyone else (using the government, if available). Conservatives just want to be left alone.

Anonymous said...

Mental midget sheep trolls don't like hearing the truth from ~Joe and -Ned.

Anonymous said...

Well, nobody has said "Woke" brainwashed NYC voters were intelligent! They are merely naive & useful idiots who’ve been taught buzz words and phrases.

Anonymous said...

That old photo looks like a nest of commies.

Chief BigEars said...

I blame immigration. NY has never been the same since the Dutch were kicked out.

Joe said...

"Maine. There's a state with plenty of space and lots of freedoms"

Huh? Lots of freedoms?
Well yea if you want to live like a hillbilly, no police.
As we just seen in Maine they needed to fly police, detectives & SWAT in from Boston over 1 shooter as over 20 people were shot dead as scared country police didn't know what to do.
Anyway I don't see how living quiet, isolated, is freedom. It make one lazy, I was imprisoned in Maine several times as a kid visiting an Aunt, it was THE WORST.
The highlight of the day for those people was dragging us bored city kids a near 45 minute drive to this "Kimball farms" to get ice cream.
Then for the cherry on the cake was us all vomiting the ice cream, banana splits and sodas up in the back of some ugly green Rambler station wagon driving all the winding, twisting country roads back home.
It was hell!!
A 30+ mile trip to get decent f*_cking Ice cream cones, Sundays, Banana Splits is normal?

The worst was people from Maine (Most of them)
They keep these LOUSY stupid barking untrained inbred dogs out all day, they don't fix or maintain anything "oh its not necessary" "oh its not necessary" until the whole house, tree or barn falls down.
Freeze your ass off 10 months a year too, it cold at night by August 1st.
In winter average homeowner needs to walk 200 plus feet to a roadside mailbox to get mail.
Well F_ all that Id rather be sent to Attica.
I don't believe any normal NYC person could adjust to living like the Walton's or worse.

-Joe

Anonymous said...

Yesterday's Fool said...
Is this WHOLE thing a SCAM...has it been from the start ?

Anonymous said...

@"Here in the great red swamp of Florida we'd call that a trailer mansion."

You'd better be careful down there. Not only is crime through the roof, but Meatball Ron has stepped up his "Cancel Culture" efforts a lot lately. He's cancelling everything, from colleges, to books, to student groups, to..., well who knows what next. Maybe he'll even cancel TrumpTurds.

Anonymous said...

Opening the Roosevelt’s 1,225 rooms for shelter and its lobby for a “welcome center” was the biggest mistake of this saga.

Anonymous said...

Lots of excitement in Queens this weekend I guess?

Anonymous said...

It will take a generation for New York to recover....However,there are no guarantees..

Anonymous said...

Where’s all the nyc progressives suggesting that socialism will provide for all. I am surprised that none of them are happy that the wealthy capitalists are leaving their city. The decline of America’s cities in the name of progressive liberal ideology is astounding.

Anonymous said...

New York is in a death spiral. It’s so obvious that leftists will destroy it like they did to Venezuala.

Anonymous said...

Started with Warren Wilhelm.

Anonymous said...

@ "Here in the great red swamp"
Where to you come up with this Crap ?

Anonymous said...

Ooga Booga said...
Hey NYC, it it works keep doing it...

Anonymous said...

@"Where to you come up with this Crap ?"

Silly question. From the great red swamp, of course.

Anonymous said...

@"Is this WHOLE thing a SCAM...has it been from the start ?"

Take a hike, commie Troll!

MAGA Mike said...

@Joe,
Ya don't like Maine, Florida, Ohio, or New York? You are running out of places. How about the Great Red Swamp of Louisiana?

Anonymous said...

@"Well, nobody has said "Woke" brainwashed NYC voters were intelligent! They are merely naive & useful idiots who’ve been taught buzz words and phrases."

You're using a lot of buzz-words there, yourself. Must be the Fox News, Newsmax brainwashing machine.

Anonymous said...

@"Mental midget sheep trolls don't like hearing the truth from ~Joe and -Ned."

Joe says Ohio is a police state and Maine sucks. Ned is chasing after spandex clad cyclists in his old pickup with a Blunderbuss stashed in the back. He's still furious that they don't have any "Upper Class" in Sweden, Denmark or Holland. Those places must be hell on earth without an "Upper Class"
I just can't take these "truths" anymore.

Anonymous said...

@"Dr. Jordan B. Peterson can help the Commie Trolls here "

I don't think he's a doctor. Anyway, I get my medical advice from the renowned Dr. NPC_doofus.

GopGeorge said...

Another tax cut for the rich will fix this issue. It's so easy.

Anonymous said...

@ "Meatball Ron has stepped up his "Cancel Culture" efforts a lot lately"
Not only are you showing bigotry for using that term but you are spreading blantant lies.
Narrow-mindedness spread by trolls to opposing opinions leads them to shocking behavior.

Anonymous said...

Is stopping drag queens from performing in kindergarden "Cancel Culture" ?

Anonymous said...

@“ It will take a generation for New York to recover....”

The sooner you leave, the sooner it can recover.

Anonymous said...

Mortgage rates are cruising toward 8% as the median home price hovers near $420,000.
"Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up"

Anonymous said...

@"Mortgage rates are cruising toward 8% as the median home price hovers near $420,000."

You must be living in the great red swamp of Florida. Highest inflation in the country. Most expensive cities in the country. High crime.
Sad ...

Anonymous said...

@"Is stopping drag queens from performing in kindergarden "Cancel Culture" ?"

Who stopped you?

Anonymous said...

@"Hey NYC, it it works keep doing it..."

Sure.

Anonymous said...

@ "Meatball Ron has stepped up his "Cancel Culture" efforts a lot lately"

Yeah, I hear you can go to jail in Florida now for mentioning the word Palestine. Must be something to do with Meatball's high heel shoes.

Anonymous said...

@"New York is in a death spiral. It’s so obvious that leftists will destroy it like they did to Venezuala."

I thought America destroyed it. It's also destroyed Iran, Iraq, Palestine, most of South America, Cuba and Vietnam.
Way to go USA.

Anonymous said...

@"The sooner you leave"
Not going anywhere WOKIE, I lived thru the bads time before and I'm not a snowflake like you.

Anonymous said...

@"Not going anywhere WOKIE"

You'd rather stay here and whine than move to some backwards red swamp, right? You know that you could never handle living with all those self-righteous "Conservative" religious freaks.

Anonymous said...

What's the connection between Marilyn Manson and Donald Trump? Are they really the same person? Ever notice how you never see them in the same room?

Anonymous said...

@"What's the connection between Marilyn Manson and Donald Trump? Are they really the same person?"
I think Marlyn Manson is his long-lost son from some unknown Trumpanzee lady.

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