The City Of Yes wants SRO's ASAP

 

 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.

 

Long Island City luxury flophouse tower under new management

 

The Real Deal

 One co-living operator is out and another is in at a Long Island City rental complex.

Simon Baron Development announced that Common will take over operations for the co-living units at Alta, its 419-unit tower at 29-22 Northern Boulevard.

Until recently, those units were operated by Ollie, another co-living startup. But that company had a tumultuous year: In February 2020, its co-founders, brothers Andrew and Chris Bledsoe, left the company. And in December, yet another co-living startup, Starcity, acquired Ollie’s assets, which reportedly included its management contracts.

Matt Baron, president of Simon Baron, declined to elaborate on what had transpired since Starcity’s acquisition of Ollie’s assets. In a statement, he praised Common, which he said “has built up the reputation to successfully manage on behalf of institutional owners.”

Alta has both traditional apartments and 169 shared units. According to Alta’s website, rents for an Ollie-operated co-living unit started at $1,300, while traditional studios in the building start at around $2,700.

A Common spokesperson declined to comment on the building’s current occupancy rate, but said that the company aims to bring it above 90 percent.

Founded in 2015 in New York City, Common has expanded its reach beyond co-living in recent years. The company now operates about 900 units in New York — mostly shared units as well as some traditional apartments — with another 1,500 in the pipeline. The company said it expects to open more than 20,000 units across the U.S. in the next few years.

Last year, it added former New York City housing czar Alicia Glen to its board of directors and raised $50 million in a Series D funding round.

Kathryn Garcia wants to upzone us into oblivion

"Former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia is running for NYC Mayor this year. Below is a portion of her plan to address the affordable housing and homelessness issues. I received this today via email. She was soliciting for campaign contributions.

These two issues are important to work on, however, some of her proposals are rather shocking and reflect the increasing attacks on our contextual rezonings and our fight against dangerous illegal conversions. Again, this is a portion of Ms. Garcia's Policy Statement.

Is this what we can expect to hear from other candidates for Mayor this year?" - anonymous

Housing supply has not kept up with demand. We added 500k New Yorkers over the last decade, but only 100k units of new housing.

Public dollars cannot fund all affordable housing, but we can make it easier and faster for private partners to build.

That means comprehensive upzoning to ensure all neighborhoods - particularly those rich in transit, jobs, and great schools - have their fair share of affordable housing.

We need to get creative: end apartment bans and legalize basement apartments, accessory dwelling units, and single-room occupancy apartments (SROs).

Accelerate approvals for new housing construction by streamlining the ULURP and environmental review process, especially for affordable housing projects.

Here she comes to save the day!

Citywide Administrative Services office worker plans to convert her Rockaway Beach home into an SRO shelter.

The Wave

When Manhattan resident Mimi Fuhrman placed a winning bid of approximately $550,000 in a public auction to purchase a dilapidated 1-family home at 174 Beach 120th Street back in 2017, local homeowner John Karalis could only guess if the winning bidder would end up making the edifice a permanent residence or turn it into her summer home.

But what he later discovered was equal parts perplexing and disheartening.

 “I don’t mind renovating it; I don’t want it to be a 12-room shelter,” said Karalis at The Wave’s recent visit to the outside of the 3-story structure in question.

According to applications unearthed by Karalis and Maureen Walsh of Walsh Properties, the current proprietor of the 40’ x 100’ lot is looking to gain approval from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) for a Certificate of No Harassment (CNH).

 The document — according to www1.nyc.gov — is what’s required by the NYC Department of Buildings before the buyer can attain a permit to alter, demolish or change the shape or layout of single room occupancy (SRO) dwelling.

Two of Fuhrman’s attempts to get the necessary approval were denied, with the city’s most recent objection occuring on May 15.

While the home was once an SRO, as per Democratic District Leader Lew Simon, it previously served as a summer facility. A year-round site, he states, won’t get the city’s endorsement.

When contacted by The Wave, Fuhrman — herself a city employee, who works as a senior lease negotiator for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) — insisted that her plans for the abandoned home are still in the preliminary stages. She further related that she has no intentions of doing anything that would compromise the safety of the neighborhood.

She claimed that she originally viewed her purchase as an opportunity to open a beachside bed-and-breakfast getaway given her educational background in hotel and restaurant management.

Those projections, however, were quickly dashed when the longtime real estate professional realized she couldn’t afford the expenses involved with being a homeowner of the 12-room residence.

“I’m working with somebody else who’s going to help me with the project. They’re going to own more of it than me of course. But I’m not relinquishing any say. I’m going to make sure things are nice,” said Fuhrman when asked about her partnership with Steven Kates, a noted landlord and real estate investor.

The luxurification of SRO's and the mindless demographic they attract

NY Post


Across from Kimberly Chexnayder’s bed (which folds out from the wall) and above her flat-screen TV (which came with her small but sparkling new apartment), she’s posted a slightly faded Polaroid of her mother.
The picture was taken 30 years ago, during what her mom described as her NYC “wild days,” when she flitted between apartments, owned a record store and was friendly with Andy Warhol.
Chexnayder, a 23-year-old junior analyst for the NFL, always coveted even a small slice of her mother’s New York life. But her experience moving to the city has been far different — and easier: 

She pays $1,700 per month for her 152-square-foot room through co-living startup Ollie (a shortened version of the resort-reminiscent term “all-inclusive”) in Long Island City’s Alta building. The move makes her one of the hundreds of young New Yorkers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who are turning to co-living as a solution to frustrating and expensive apartment searches.

Co-living companies aim to disrupt traditional apartment life — just as coworking spaces did for staid office life — by borrowing the concept of resource-sharing. Tenants trade personal space for a fully furnished bedroom, shared common areas and sometimes group social events, all under a prix-fixe cost structure.
 
Say goodbye to frantically searching Craigslist for roommates, arguing over the internet bill, running to the bodega because you ran out of toilet paper, taking trips to Ikea or playing bed-bug roulette with the couch you found on the street. Say hello to, well, life in an adult dorm. Residents still have to deal with security deposits and income requirements, but the whole experience is much less Wild West than a classic New York apartment hunt.

The trend — which some treat as a half-step between college housing and the dog-eat-dog rental market — is growing in popularity, with companies like Ollie, Common, Roomrs, WeWork’s WeLive and Dwell gobbling up square footage from East Harlem to Midwood. Advocates say co-living is the future of housing in an increasingly cramped city, allowing people to trade privacy for shared amenities, a no-chores lifestyle and fun (if chaperoned) group outings. Critics say it’s a sanitized approach to city living for the generation that trusts Silicon Valley companies to solve problems, akin to eschewing the subway to take Ubers everywhere.
 
Chexnayder and her mother are fans. “As much as [my mom] loves New York, I think there is still an inherent concern that raises in your mind when you think, ‘Your new college grad is just moving to the city and starting a new life,’ ” says Chexnayder. “She got really emotional when I [found Ollie]. It was just a huge sigh of relief: ‘Ugh, we found a place, we are safe.’ ”

 Alta is on the higher end of the spectrum: The slick 43-story development opened last year and feels more like a hotel than a starter home. For rents ranging from $1,300 to $2,300, residents get a “microsuite” with a bed that folds into the wall to reveal a couch and mini living area, plus a shared kitchen and bathroom. Ollie, which partnered with Simon Baron Development to add its co-living spaces during construction, kitted out the units with brand-new appliances, dishware, furniture and TVs; it refills soap dispensers, drops off paper towels and offers weekly housekeeping and linen services. The building itself — a mix of rooms operated by Ollie and 297 traditional apartments — offers a full gym, a lap pool, a golf simulator, a yoga studio; a common room offers a ping-pong table and stadium seating that is set up during “Game of Thrones” and other screenings. Ollie’s studios in the building average 516 square feet.
 
For comparison, Chexnayder’s $1,700 room in a two-bedroom apartment on the open market might cost about $2,031, without utilities and furniture, according to data from brokerage MNS, since the average price of a two-bedroom as of March 2019 was $4,063.


The co-living idea has received its share of mockery — after all, the name sounds like a spiffy rebrand for the generic concept of “roommates.” But Ollie CEO Christopher Bledsoe says real estate developers need to break the mold to address the affordable housing crisis.


“There’s a large subset of the population that has either been priced out, or is feeling the pangs of loneliness, or is just looking or a more all-inclusive experience,” he says. Co-living companies can use economies of scale to save renters (or “members,” as some companies call them) money, since they are furnishing hundreds of rooms at a time.

Adds Bledsoe, “It’s counterintuitive, but we’re adding costs to improve affordability."

And this is why the subways are packed, the streets are congested with Ubers and Lyfts, landlords are weaponizing renovations in buildings with rent-stabilization, the rents are obscenely high and why the homeless population is going up. 

"Feeling the pangs of loneliness"???

"Improve affordability"???

 The marketing diarrhea that guy is spewing from his faceanus can't be any more tone-deaf.

Update:

I got a name for this mindless demographic of millenial urban professionals:

Muppies

DOB verifies that Elmhurst death house was illegally subdivided

From the Daily News:

The Queens building where a man was found dead in the attic — a day after the fire was put out — was illegally subdivided, according to the Buildings Department.

There was an apartment illegally created in the basement, and multiple Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units illegally added on the first floor of 40-46 Case St. in Elmhurst, inspectors said.

The Buildings Department has ordered the property owner to board up the vacated fire-damaged building. The owner has also been hit with multiple violations for the illegal conversions.

On Sunday, a city lawmaker who represents the area demanded a full investigation and for stricter penalties for similar illegally converted houses.

"Similar illegal conversions are common practice in Corona and Elmhurst," said Councilman Francisco Moya.

The home in Jackson Heights that caught fire also has a history of being an SRO.

Brooklyn building illegally converted into shelter

From Kings County Politics:

The city announced today it removed all its resident clients from a four-story Bedford-Stuyvesant walk up illegally converted from a 14-unit apartment building to a 42-unit single room occupancy (SRO) shelter.

But the entire incident, in which the owner of the building at 529 Monroe Street appeared in some form of collusion with both the city and the non-profit organization that has a contract with the city to house homeless in an illegally converted building has local officials deeply concerned.

According to Community Board 3 District Manager Henry Butler residents have filed complaints about the building with CB3 as far back as the spring of 2017 when construction first began on the 4-story walk up.

Despite repeated complaints that the construction was illegal, the owners Monroe Lewis LLC, one of the shadowy landlords that operate out of 199 Lee Avenue in Williamsburg, was able to not only complete the illegal work, but secure a contract whereupon the city contracted with the non-profit Core Services to turn the site into a SRO homeless shelter.

The owners were able to do this even after the DOB slammed them with several fines including one for occupancy exceeding nearly three times the building’s Certificate of Occupancy and for altering plumbing without a permit.

Then, since September 2017 – around the same time the city passed legislation that would ramp up penalties as well as allow the Department of Buildings easier access to buildings suspected of illegal home conversions, the city began to illegally fill the building with tenants.

Despite the DOB leveling fines at the building’s owners for the illegal conversion, the HRA continued to house the homeless there, netting the landlord and Core over $40,000 a month in guaranteed city funding to split up as the city pays $1,047 per SRO unit.

Great report!

SROs: not just for poor people anymore!

There are now "luxury" SROs in this town as reported by the NY Times.

I gotta get outta here.

Manhattan landlord fined for illegal hotel

From the Daily News:

The city has slapped an Upper West Side landlord with the first $5,000 fines under a new law passed to crack down on illegal hotels.

Hank Fried was whacked with a dozen fines totaling $60,000 for advertising rooms in the Marrakech Hotel on Broadway near 103rd St., which the city says is operating illegally in what is supposed to be a single-room-occupancy and apartment building.

A state law signed last fall prohibited the advertising of illegal units — ones that violate a prior law barring the renting of entire apartments for less than 30 days.

The law was pushed as a way to go after illegal listings on the home sharing site Airbnb. But Fried is not a host on that site, and instead advertised his units on Hotwire.com, Booking.com and other websites, city officials say.

Flushing SRO vacated

33-07 153rd Street MLSLI Listing

And the beat goes on.

1-family home turned into 16 unit SRO

33-07 153rd Street MLSLI Listing

"Hi Crappie,

Check out the attached MLSLI listing for a house for sale in Flushing in which the owner has made 15 bedrooms and if you rent out the owner’s bedroom you could make $7,295/month in rent, and as an added bonus if you pave over the front yard you could park two cars there. WTF??? Last I heard that was an SRO and paving over a front yard for parking is illegal. This house is also in an R2 zone, which means only single family homes. How is Success Team Realty located at 41-60 Main Street, (718)888-9115 getting away with this? The life and safety factor alone in this type of living situation is extremely dangerous and criminal. Who is going to stand up to these liars who are selling out our neighborhood?"

- Anonymous

Possible SRO created in Brooklyn

From Crains:

The city will inspect a 19-person co-living space in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, operated by Common, a startup that aims to shake up the rental market and has amassed $7.35 million in venture-capital funding.

The Department of Buildings said it will pay a visit to the townhouse, located at 1162 Pacific St. near Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, in response to an Oct. 29 complaint that Common had illegally converted the four-story home into a single-room occupancy residence where rooms rent for $1,800 to $1,950 per month.

"We are looking forward to working with [the Department of Buildings] to resolve this," said Brad Hargreaves, the founder of Common, which is working on launching its second co-living building.

In single-room occupancy buildings, residents typically rent an individual bedroom and share a kitchen or bathroom. In the 1950s, a law was enacted prohibiting the creation of new SROs. As a result, strangers renting a multibedroom apartment are required to co-sign a single lease for the entire unit.

Hargreaves insists that his building is not an SRO, and that Common actually functions a lot like any other landlord who rents an apartment to roommates: At 1162 Pacific St., there are four apartments divided into 19 furnished rooms. Tenants must stay for at least 30 days—to ensure the building is not classified as a hotel—and the roommates in each apartment must together sign a lease with Common.

So it's come to this

From the Daily News:

So, you thought you’d look to live in happenin’ Harlem? And you hoped to find a pad for, say, ballpark of $1,300 or less?

If you’re lucky, you might land one of a handful of newly refurbished cubes that’s just big enough for a party of one, with a common washroom just down the hall.

Developers Matthew and Seth Weissman are lifting the curtain this weekend on their second set of five recently completed mini-apartments ranging from 150 to 450 square feet at 2299 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, at W. 135th St.

It’s called a Single-Room Occupancy, or SRO - a vanishing segment of city real estate that was long associated with tenants who were down on their luck.

The Weissmans have identified an opportunity to market the minis to a new, up-and-coming niche even as housing advocates bemoan the loss of affordable options for the lowest-income residents.

Two of the building’s four residential floors are occupied by tenants with rent-stabilized leases with rents of $350 to $600 per month, but the landlords are asking $1,200 to $1,550 for the renovated units.

They’ve sunk more than $500,000 into facelifts at the building, which they bought for $1.4 million in 2013.

But not everyone supports the brothers’ rare move to preserve the building’s 20 tiny SRO units, which are grouped five to a floor and share 2 1/2 bathrooms.

Housing advocates have long bemoaned the loss of SROs, which have declined from 200,000 units in the 1950s to as few as 15,000, according to a 2014 report published in the CUNY Law Review.

The authors acknowledged the relative affordability of refurbished minis but said they did nothing to stanch the rise in homelessness that has long been correlated to the decline of SROs.

SROs in a 69th Street hovel

I'm not sure they have enough "for rent" signs on this property at 59-15 69th Street, but they slightly beat the giant "TUTORING" sign that used to hang from the second floor

Now you gotta wonder if it's even possible to drive a vehicle down that ramp to the garage. I guess we don't need to find out since this complaint was recently called in.

And back in 2008, a vacate order was served after SROs were found there.

Thank you "Baron Development, LLC" for ass-raping the neighborhood.

More Ciafone fun!

14-55 Broadway. He owes quite a bit on this property. There's also a partial vacate order from 2011 when the basement was found to have SROs in it. (Complaint says 2-family house, though, perhaps an error.)

He makes it so easy to find his properties.

The stucco work is just sublime.
and the HPD violations on this are astounding.

Rockaway hotel housing sex offenders

Danny Ruschillo.  Photo from Daily News

From the Daily News:

ROCKAWAY civic leaders are livid that sex offenders have moved into a troubled SRO on Beach 116th St. after the owner promised to upgrade the property.

Danny Ruscillo, the president of the 100 Precinct Commnity Council, said he spotted notifications that two registered sex offenders recently moved into the building, which served as a halfway house before it was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

The community successfully blocked efforts by a tenant of the building owner, Jay Deutchman, to turn it into a homeless shelter last year.

Ruscillo said Deutchman pledged in meetings he would put something there to benefit the community, so long as it paid his mortgage.

“Once again our community was misled,” said Ruscillo. “It will adversely affect the Beach 116th St. corridor and make it potentially an unsafe condition for the residents, especially the children, businesses and shoppers.”

Deutchman, however, said he had no idea that sex offenders were living in the building. One of the individuals was classified as a potential high risk to the community.

“It doesn’t necessarily please me, but I don’t have children (living) in the building,” he said. “It’s just an SRO and we are only renting to working people.”

Deutchman noted that he renovated the dilapidated front of the former hotel. He said he would like to overhaul the site, and has only been allowing short-term leases.

“We’ve been in talks with politicians and we’re open to be a part of any development that goes on over there,” he said.

Sad abandoned house on 53rd Street

This house at 53-02 Flushing Avenue (aka 60-11 53rd Street) was found to be carved up into SROs in October 2005.

Then the owners were cited multiple times for failing to vacate and repair the property.

By July 2006, the property was vacant. It has stayed that way since, with the occasional squatter having taken up temporary residence now and then.

You can levy fines until kingdom come, but forcing someone to fix up their property is a different story. The sad thing is at one time this was probably a nice-looking house. It may have even had an open porch. It's listed as a legal 2-family.

SRO sold to hostel owner

From DNA Info:

A notorious SRO hotel with hundreds of building violations that sits blocks from the waterfront has been sold to a former hostel owner who is considering demolishing the building, DNAinfo New York has learned.

The Greenpoint Hotel — an SRO with more than 200 units of affordable housing for formerly homeless men — has been in a state of severe disrepair for years, said residents and their lawyers, who have sued longtime landlord Jay Deutchman over its condition.

But last month Deutchman sold the Manhattan Avenue building to Gal Sela, whose former Harlem hostel was shuttered by the city for overcrowding and improper zoning in 2010. Sela said he plans to clean up the beleaguered Brooklyn structure to get it up to the city's necessary code before either demolishing it or changing its use next year.

"I may knock it down and build another building," said Sela, who spent $6 million for the deed and $26 million for control over all the tenants' leases, according to property records. "We're keeping the tenants there now...but if they want to be bought out, we want to do that."

Sela said he "obviously" thought the property — which sits across the street from popular cafes Milk and Roses and Champion Coffee — was extremely valuable, but noted he would not decide his ultimate plan for the spot until spring, after he had fixed up and cleaned the building.

Gentrification can only go so far

All it takes is one rotten property to bring down an area. Case in point: The house on the right. Among the restored buildings and not-too-out-of-character new one next door, 510 Lafayette Ave sticks out like a sore thumb.

Ah, rodents. Let's see what else is going on here.

In 2007, an illegal SRO was found inside. A later complaint called it a "rehab center". One of those halfway houses that the city authorized, then shut down, perhaps.

Then there was a complaint of termites.

Then work without a permit in 2008 followed by a shaky building.

In 2009, an illegal SRO was found inside yet again. Also, exposed electrical wiring.

Then in 2010, squatters moved in though it was boarded up and this went on for at least a year.

Total violations: $66,450

This exists in 2013?

From the NY Post:

It’s a human kennel.

Less than a 10-minute walk from Soho is the Sun Bright Hotel — where men pay $10 a night to live in tiny cells bounded by chicken wire.

It’s a single-room-occupancy hotel that has been operating since the late 19th century and where today men live side by side in filth.

Nestled on the edge of Chinatown between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, the hotel on Hester Street is minutes from Balthazar, where the $135 côte de boeuf for two would cover half a month’s rent at the Sun Bright.

Only men are allowed in the units on the third and fourth floors, the hotel’s most hellish. The accommodations there measure 7 by 5 feet, smaller than the average 8-by-10 solitary-confinement cell in a state prison.

Roaches, bedbugs, fleas and other vermin infest the building. Hot hallways reek of rotting trash, sweat and urine.

More than 100 men on the floor share one bathroom with two shower stalls, four toilets and one urinal. Wet, moldy spackle peels off the ceiling like snakeskin. Black mold spreads over filthy walls in two shower stalls.