Mayor de Blasio, yesterday, pledged to have 500 Sandy-damaged homes rebuilt by the end of 2014. More than $1.2 billion is available for single and multifamily acquisition, repair and redevelopment. Contractors who want to get in on the projects have to be registered with the Choose-Your-Own-Contractor program under the Build-it-Back plan.
Earlier in the week, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District sued the Durst Organization for allegedly failing to comply with the Fair Housing Act in building the Helena apartment building in 2005. Durst insists that complying with New York City Local Law 58 meets the FHA requirements. The U.S. Attorney brought a similar action against the Related Companies a few weeks ago.
A State Appellate Term decision reported this week was also a head-scratcher. In Ansonia Assoc. vs. Unwin, the court rejected summary judgment in a non-primary residence case where the tenant filed taxes that listed her home upstate as her primary residence. The court noted that while otherwise State law held that “[a] party to litigation may not take a position contrary to a position taken in an income tax return” (12 NY3d at 422),” that reasoning could not necessarily be applied to “a primary residence analysis under rent stabilization, in which ‘no single factor shall be solely determinative’ (see Rent Stabilization Code [9 NYCRR] § 2520.6[u]).” In other words, one law for rent regulation and one law for everything else.
The Beechwood Organization, developer of Arverne by the Sea in Far Rockaway and other area projects, collected more than $60,000 in rebates on building supplies in 2013 from the NYSBA Member Rebate Program. You can too.
ConEd Solutions announced yesterday that it was dramatically increasing incentives this summer for demand response systems in buildings that could reduce electric use during peak load times. The example they gave was a 1.4 million sq. ft. office building that saved $178,000 last summer that could save about $300,000 this year.
Save even more with the ABO-FS Energy group purchasing plan for gas and electricity. Contact Thom Devlin for details today, the Spring aggregation is only weeks away.