Affordable Housing

Discussing:

• Rent Guidlines Board Rent Rollback
• Affordable Housing Registration and Universal Applications
• Protecting Renters from the Tenant Black List

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News of the 80-story, 260,000 square foot proposal broke last April, and sent the comparatively squat and sleepy Sutton Place neighborhood into a panic. Community Board 6 voiced its objections, and Councilmember Ben Kallos came out strongly against the building’s height and social implications.

But it wasn’t just community opposition working against Bauhouse principal Joseph Beninati. Michael Stoler, a managing partner at the investment firm Madison Realty Capital, said Beninati’s background also played a role. Antares Investment Partners, the firm Beninati co-founded with a prep school classmate that at one point boasted $6 billion in assets, was accused of overleveraging investor capital. Beninati and his partner, James Cabrera, were sued for millions after the firm’s collapse, and Antares was stripped of most of its assets in the late-aughts.

Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) was the sole council member to attend Tuesday’s rally. He pledged to fight for “deeper affordability” and safe labor standards, but did not specify his agenda.

"We are asking for this affordable housing plan to have deeper levels of affordable housing," said Kallos, who also called for workers constructing the buildings to be paid a living wage "so that those who build our affordable housing can live in that affordable housing."

City Council members want a new system and fines to be sure that landlords are complying with rent limits at up to 200,000 unregistered apartments.

Council Member Ben Kallos has proposed a new system requiring landlords to register rent-stabilized apartments with the city or face fines. (Bryan Anselm for ProPublica)

Apartments should be offered for people making less than the average 60% of area median income — $46,620 for a family of three — currently targeted in the plan, says the 18-member group, which represents about a third of the Council.“We believe in having deeper levels of affordability,” said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), the vice chair for policy.

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• Multiple layers of government are partially responsible for the lack of enforcement.
  Kallos: You have Housing Preservation and Development, which has a duty to deal with [affordable housing] registrations. You have the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, which is the state entity. Everyone must register with the DHCR, and that information should be shared with HPD – which theoretically should have a duty to do the enforcement. … Currently we're not seeing that happening. As of 1993, the state of New York stopped charging fines for people who don't register, which is partially responsible for what happens. If you're a landlord and you do not register, nothing happens to you.
• ProPublica’s reporting pushed Council Member Kallos to introduce his bill.
  Kallos: The affordable housing registration problem is something that I've been looking at for quite some time, but it wasn't until ProPublica did this intrepid reporting that really uncovered what was going on and what was wrong. That really helped me finalize legislation that I introduced. … It requires every owner of affordable housing, whether it is subsidized or rent-regulated, to register with HPD in addition to DHCR. And it has steep fines for people who do not register – and that would be per apartment, per month, up to $2,000, indexed to inflation.

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Since the 1990s, New York City has published, and public officials have quoted, an estimate that there are 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the city, giving some 2 million tenants protections from eviction and unlimited rent increases.

The estimate comes from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, or HPD, which publishes a survey on which the number is based. Rent-stabilized apartments are vital to affordable housing and thus an important gauge of the housing market.

There’s one problem with the figure, however: It could be off by as much as 20 percent.

Data provided to ProPublica by the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) — which oversees rent-stabilized apartments — shows that, as of 2014, New York City had 839,797 rent-stabilized apartments registered with the state. For that same year, HPD’s survey estimated 1,029,918 units.

Public Advocate Letitia James announced today she would introduce two bills that would expand the city’s power to penalize property owners with outstanding code violations—and expand the power of her own office and its annual “Worst Landlords List.”