Filling the void

From Crains:

The city rejected a challenge to a planned Upper West Side apartment building that contains large empty spaces between several floors—a gambit meant to boost the overall height of the project and make the upper units more valuable. But Extell Development's planned tower at 50 W. 66th St. is not quite in the clear.

City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, who represents the neighborhood, was part of a contingent that opposed the project and supported a challenge, arguing that the excessive mechanical voids were contrary to the city's building codes. On Thursday, however, she announced that the neighborhood's objections had been overruled by the Department of Buildings, which found that the cavernous spaces conformed to building and zoning codes.

Tenants forced to use fire escape to enter building

From PIX11:

Tenants of an Upper West Side five-story walk-up were briefly forced to use the fire escape to access their apartments after their landlord told them about plans to renovate the building’s only staircase.

The Department of Buildings has since issued a stop work order on the West 83rd Street building after the tenants, some of whom are elderly, had an emergency meeting with Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal.

The situation was even worse for some tenants. They don't have access to the fire escape from their apartment.

City Council wants to crack down on AirBnB

From CBS:

Proposed legislation aims to rein in landlords who evict tenants in favor of Airbnb renters.

The current fine for renting out an apartment for fewer than 30 days without an owner present is $1,600.

The proposal by City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal (D-6th) would increase that penalty to between $10,000 and $50,000, WCBS 880’s Ginny Kosola reported.

“You’re living in what you thought was a residential community in your building, but now you have a revolving door of suitcases going in and out next door to you, disturbing your quality of life,” Rosenthal told 1010 WINS. “So the law exists for a reason, it’s illegal to rent out your apartment.”

Rosenthal said landlords on the Upper West Side are tossing out tenants and renting out the apartments at a high, daily Airbnb rate.

The law does not apply to owners of single- and two-family homes.

Then there was this priceless quote from Paul Vallone:

“The underlining and continual concern is that Airbnb makes a profit while turning our community into Animal House,” Vallone said.

(I think he meant underlying...)

AirBnB not happy with council bill

From the Daily News:

Airbnb has come out swinging against a bill that would hit homeowners who rent out their pads on home-sharing sites with fines as high as $50,000, saying it’s “bad policy” that could bankrupt New Yorkers looking to make a quick buck.

The company sent a three-page letter to City Councilman Jumaane Williams on Wednesday, a week before the Brooklyn Democrat, who chairs the Housing and Buildings Committee, holds a hearing on the bill.

“A fine of this size being imposed on middle-class families would lead to bankruptcies,” the letter from Christopher Lehane, Airbnb global head of public policy, states.

The $50,000 fine for repeat offenders is larger than fines for other serious infractions — including the $500-a-day penalty for not providing a tenant heat, the $10,000 maximum fine for lead-paint exposure and the $2,000 that landlords pay for rat violations.

The bill appears to be “promoted for only one reason: to scare middle-class people out of their homes,” said Lehane.

He called it the “Freddy Krueger of bills” and said holding the hearing around Halloween was particularly appropriate.

But Williams said it’s Lehane who is trying to frighten people.

He conceded that the $50,000 maximum fine might be a little steep, but said that it wouldn’t be levied against the occasional Airbnb user. “This isn’t about people going on vacation,” he said. “Any time someone gets caught (illegally renting out their apartment), it’s because they are doing it repeatedly.”

Both Williams and City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, who is the prime sponsor of the bill, said it’s targeted at greedy landlords who illegally rent out regulated apartments, which exacerbates the city’s housing crisis.

Regulations on drones and helicopters proposed

NYC Council/William Alatriste

From Gotham Gazette:

Pointing to insufficient efforts on the part of the Federal Aviation Administration, New York City Council members are taking regulation of the city’s skies into their own hands.

In asserting their authority with respect to helicopters and drones on a turf traditionally maintained by the federal government, council members may find themselves in ambiguous legal territory. But they tell Gotham Gazette that they are acting in the interest of public safety and in part to push other levels of government to act.

Council Members Carlos Menchaca, Helen Rosenthal, and Margaret Chin introduced a legislative package of two bills last month that would prohibit the operation of sightseeing helicopters, citing concerns about noise pollution. The council members are supported by “Stop the Chop NYNJ,” a group of community members who complain the noise from sightseeing helicopters are diminishing quality of life.

“What we’ve tried to do is approach this issue from the perspective of the FAA, from the federal body that’s required to regulate this industry. And we’ve tried so hard to regulate this industry to some avail, but not totally dealing with the problems,” Rosenthal said a press conference in July. “What we’ve done at the City Council is identify a different way to deal with the problem, and that is through the issue of noise. And in fact what the city can do is to ban tourist helicopters...they are responsible for this incessant noise.”

The City Council does not have the authority to regulate airspace over the city in terms of flight patterns— that’s under the purview of the FAA. But the council does have some regulatory power, as Rosenthal referenced.

City Council members have introduced two bills looking to curb the use of drones. One, introduced by Council Member Dan Garodnick would ban drones from the city’s airspace with the exception of NYPD drones that had obtained a warrant. In an interview with Gotham Gazette, Garodnick acknowledged that his bill starts from the “strictest possible place.”

Garodnick said that he believes there is reasonable place and time for drone enthusiasts to operate their unmanned aerial systems, but doesn’t want to “open the floodgates” before tools to enforce regulations exist.

The second bill, introduced by Council Member Paul Vallone, would seek to impose a series of regulations on drone usage.

Vallone’s bill would prohibit using UAVs for surveillance purposes, at night or operating them within five miles of any airport and within a quarter mile of schools, houses of worship, hospitals and “open-air assemblies.” Importantly, it also would require users to operate their drones within their line of sight, a requirement also suggested by the FAA.

Bill drafted to stop the chop

From the Daily News:

The City Council is preparing a bill to ban helicopter tourism from the five boroughs, saying the flights are so noisy their wings should be permanently clipped.

Councilman Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn) is drafting the bill to nix the business, which employs around 200 people and operates out of the lower Manhattan heliport, his chief of staff confirmed.

The bill has not been introduced, but Council lawyers have already reached out to the industry — which some studies have shown adds about $33 million a year to the city’s economy — to say the ban bill is imminent, tour group representatives say.

And several Council members — including Corey Johnson, Helen Rosenthal and Mark Levine — have said they support a ban on the tourist flights, citing noise concerns from constituents.

City Council plans to go after AirBnB

From CBS:

Landlords who illegally rent out their apartments as hotel rooms through services such as Airbnb would face tougher fines under a new City Council proposal.

The fine for a first-time offense would skyrocket from $1,000 to $10,000 and the maximum penalty would be $50,000, said City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, who is co-sponsoring the legislation. Violators could also be fined an additional $2,000 per day for each day the original fine is not paid, WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported.
Rosenthal said the current $1,000 first-time fine does little to deter property owners.

“They treat it as the cost of doing business,” she said.

“We’re going to move to a system where there’s no financial incentive to behave as an illegal hotel operator. And that’s the goal of increasing the fines,” Rosenthal added.

In October, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said nearly three-quarters of the New York City listings offered by Airbnb violate city or state laws. Some opponents have argued the service shrinks the city’s stock of affordable housing.

DOB not tracking repeat offender contractors

From the Daily News:

With construction accidents on the rise, the City Council Monday pressed the Buildings Department to aggressively pursue "bad actor" contractors.

“People who are doing bad things are not being stopped,” Housing & Building Committee Chairman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn) said. “We want to make sure we’re doing a lot more of connecting the dots.”

From 2013 to last year, the number of building permits rose 10% while the number of accidents jumped by 24%, Buildings Commissioner Rick Chandler said at a housing committee hearing.

That’s an 80% rise from the 128 accidents in 2011, and there are indications it may get worse this year.

To date there have been six fatalities, including worker Christian Ginesi falling down an elevator shaft last week. At that pace, the city will exceed 2014's eight fatalities.

At the hearing, Chandler blamed the spike on better reporting and a rising number of big projects: “The larger the project, the more inherent the risk.”

But council members took issue with his agency’s ability to track repeat offender contractors who constantly cut corners and endanger workers.

The city Housing & Preservation Department, for instance, puts contractors with spotty records on an “enhanced review” list to build taxpayer-subsidized affordable units.

Councilmember Helen Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) said she was “surprised” Chandler seemed unaware of that list.

Trying to get a handle on idling

From CBS:

Leaving a car idling is annoying, smells bad, and at the end of the day is hazardous to your health.

The law is already pretty clear.

“You can’t idle for more than three minutes anywhere in the city and if you’re in front of a school you can’t idle for more than one minute,” [Council Member Helen] Rosenthal explained.

She is proposing a new program to train citizens to spot illegal idlers.

“You can see if the car behind me is idling all you would need to do is videotape the license plate, and then load it onto a website at DEP and then DEP would issue a summons,” she said.

The program would require citizens to attend special training. An initial offense would result in a warning, next come a summons and a $350 fine.

The person reporting the violator could earn up to 50 percent of the money once it’s collected by the city.

Stopping harassment of tenants

From the NY Times:

Buyouts have long been part of the city’s real estate lore, complete with only-in-New York stories of tenants who made millions relinquishing apartments they did not own. But as offers have become more common at the lower end of the ravenous housing market, buyouts have become instruments of illegal harassment and a growing threat to the stock of affordable housing, tenant groups and housing officials said.

In fast-changing neighborhoods, like Chinatown and East Harlem in Manhattan and the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, offers are often anything but amicable and rarely are generous enough to help tenants settle elsewhere in the city, they said.

Richard R. White, who leads the state’s Tenant Protection Unit, said some landlords failed to make repairs, declined to cash rent checks or threatened illegal evictions “to force tenants to accept what are often unconscionably meager buyouts.”

Helen Rosenthal, a councilwoman from the Upper West Side of Manhattan who is sponsoring a bill to allow tenants to collect compensatory and punitive damages from landlords for harassment, said landlords’ motive for pushing out tenants was obvious. “They can make a killing in the market,” she said.