New negotiations on 421-a were reported this morning. The latest rumors involve a 45 year tax benefit with a minimum wage of $60 an hour for 300-plus unit developments in luxury neighborhoods and $45 an hour elsewhere.
Buildings over 25,000 square feet will have to file energy benchmarking reports under legislation signed by the Mayor, Monday, but the effective date is unlikely to be before 2018. The law says that the City must first ensure that utility companies can directly upload individual building consumption data to the EPA Portfolio Manager before the law will be enforced. The Mayor also signed bills requiring energy efficient common area lighting in residential buildings by 2025, and electric submetering of commercial spaces by 2025 as well.
Flood zone rules are ebbing and flowing. Mayor de Blasio announced a deal with FEMA to reconsider expanded flood zones that would have increased multifamily construction costs far inland in Brooklyn, Queens and lower Manhattan. At the same time, however, HUD proposed a rule that would limit FHA insurance on multifamily projects in areas 2-3 feet higher than the 100 year flood line–essentially the same area of expanded flood zones the City protested.
The City Council is considering legislation targeting “predatory equity,” but even the administration doesn’t know what that is. Essentially, the bills want to make it easier to charge tenant harassment where owners have high debt to income ratios, on the assumption that those properties are owned by speculators who have to drive tenants out to get higher rents. Practically, the highest debt ratios tend to be on affordable housing projects…but Council members at a hearing didn’t want to hear it.
Airbnb is expected to settle its case against new legislation barring the advertisement of illegal short term rentals if the State agrees not to fine them for hosting the ads. The State is expected to agree because the law is targeted at the advertisers, not the medium, in any case.
DHCR this week announced updates to several fact sheets and to the policy statement on decontrolling rent controlled apartments. As discussed at yesterday’s CHIP Compliance seminar, the decontrol policy now says to serve the first decontrolled tenant with an RR-1a instead of an RR-1 Initial registration form, but the new policy is legally questionable. The RR-1 contains an important notice that gives tenants 90 days to challenge the Fair Market Rent and both forms should probably now be served, several attorneys agreed.
Fact Sheet #7 – Sublets, Assignments and Illusory Tenancies: http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/FactSheets/orafac7.pdf
Fact Sheet # 20 – Special Rights of Disabled Persons: http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/FactSheets/orafac20.pdf
Fact Sheet # 21 – Special Rights of Senior Citizens: http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/FactSheets/orafac21.pdf
Policy Statement 2014-1 “Filing Requirements Upon Vacancy of Rent Controlled Apartment”: http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/PolicyStatements/ORAP20141.PDF
Finally, in case you missed the news, Tuesday is election day. Vote.