Happy New Year and be careful about those e-cycle fines. As of yesterday, New Yorkers cannot put electronic waste out for regular collection…and if your tenants do not dispose of it properly, you will have to. The city does offer a special e-waste pickup program for buildings with ten units or more, but you have to sign up.

The costs of environmental clean up were on Governor Cuomo’s mind when he vetoed a fifteen month extension of the brownfields tax credit law and $300 million in new bond authority on Monday. The Legislature rejected his earlier proposal for a ten year extension and $100 million, and Cuomo said he would try again for a long term reform of the program in next year’s budget.

The Appellate Term, First Department, decided in a case reported this week that a property owner had a good claim for deposit of rent totaling $52,000 in a proceeding dating to 2007, and that the tenant couldn’t raise warranty of habitability issues after admitting that she intentionally did not tell the owner about alleged issues. 72A Associates vs. Mercado.

Because Congress ended the year without extending the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, you may want to check with your broker. The issue is supposed to be a high priority when Washington resumes session next week, but it was before. Here is a brief from one insurer that outlines the issues you might want to go over with your carrier.

It was a bad week for real estate investors in the Southern Tier of New York, with a State fracking ban and  a decision to allow three new casinos in Schenectady, Tyre (between Syracuse and Rochester) and Thompson in Sullivan County (near the old Concord hotel)…but, of course,  those casinos, with their free spins slots lv and poker games, are supposed to be development opportunities in those other upstate areas.

Back in the City, the City Council this week was investigating two new ways to discourage real estate investment. A bill sought by hotel unions would bar hotel conversions to condominiums, solely to protect hotel jobs at the expense of permanent housing. And the Council received an analysis from the Independent Budget Office estimating a net cost to the City of $100 to $200 million for providing free legal aid to tenants facing eviction. The IBO noted that 10 percent of cases against tenants represented by lawyers resulted in eviction vs. 44 percent of cases against unrepresented tenants. The IBO calculated  savings on homeless services, but ignored the cost to owners who can’t collect the rent and the ensuing loss of property taxes, among other negatives.

The Council was surprised by one cost of housing: plumbing. They took the Housing Authority to task for paying five plumbers salaries and overtime totaling over $210,000 each. Comptroller Scott Stringer also scolded the Authority this week for blowing about $700 million in federal aid.

Even the Mayor, as property manager, got into hot water this week when he ordered a privacy fence built around Gracie Mansion without bothering to get any permits — site design, landmarks, nada. If it were only that easy.

The State Court of Appeals balked at one City request this week. In Trump Village  Section 3 vs. New York City it ruled that terminating participation in the Mitchell Lama program did not amount to a sale subject to transfer taxes.

There will be no news update next Friday, so have a very happy holiday season and healthy new year. See you in January.

As of yesterday, it looks like the Congressional deal to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act beyond the end of the year has fallen apart.

The Housing Authority this week announced a plan to sell a 50 percent interest in about 900 units to two private developers. The deal was negotiated quietly as an outgrowth of controversial proposals solicited by the Bloomberg administration for infill development in public housing projects. The developers would invest in renovations and get federal funds for the difference between market rents and what the tenants pay, along with tax credits.

Meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio also announced a plan to help fill the Housing Authority’s $13 billion capital spending gap by creating a non-profit and seeking private donations, a la the Central Park Conservancy.

Plans to reduce the cost of providing housing with property tax reform have hit a wall, according to Capital New York. The City Council announced that it would create a Property Tax Reform Commission last April, but it did not happen because, as one Council member put it, “the politics of it are so messy,” i.e., someone’s taxes would have to go up if others got relief.

The City is looking for up to three construction managers for $750 million in post-Sandy repair work. The Build it Back Program has multiple opportunities for work on single and multifamily homes.

Councilman Donovan Richards wants office buildings to turn off the lights after sunset. Coincidentally, this week had the earliest sunsets of the year: 4:38 p.m. His proposed legislation would allow regulators to make special exceptions if people were still at work after that.

The 9 percent Low Income Housing Tax Credit rate, bonus depreciation provisions, and several energy conservation tax credits important to housing developers were renewed for one year by the House, Wednesday, in a bill expected to be passed by the U.S. Senate next week. All negotiations for longer extensions fell apart.

It was one step forward and two steps back on City development policy this week. Early in the week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission announced it would consider dropping 96 buildings and districts that had been languishing in limbo on its calendar – 80 of them for more than 20 years – from consideration as landmarks. This morning, however, the Times reports that the Commission agreed to politicians’ demands for more delay.

Also this morning, the Housing Authority was reported to have given up its “right-sizing” policy to force single residents  from one -bedrooms into studio apartments, including smart tv bed – again due to political pressure.

Meanwhile the de Blasio administration moved to lease a 105,000 square foot site on First Avenue and East 99th Street to an affordable housing developer for $100,000 a year. The rent was based on an independent appraisal, apparently by someone who has not seen the development market or heard about the Second Avenue subway.

Brooklyn Borough President  Eric Adams issued a Housing Brooklyn report identifying mostly city-owned properties he believes ripe for development. On the other hand, he wants to revisit the Bloomberg-era upzoning in some neighborhoods to require mandatory inclusionary zoning for affordable housing.

Micro-units are less costly to tenants, but return more profit to developers per square foot, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute. The authors wonder, however, if the market for such units wouldn’t be quickly saturated in many areas.

Tenants can bring class actions for rent overcharges if they waive claims for treble damages, according to a decision this week by the State Court of Appeals. The dissent noted that statute prohibits tenants from waiving their rights and bars class actions for penalties, but the majority ruled that refunding overcharges with interest was compensation and not a penalty.

A State Senate Republican spokesman is promising no new taxes, particularly not the increased mansion tax or pied-a-terre tax that have been floated by the City administration and Council members. Meanwhile, the City updated its 2015 Financial Plan, indicating that property tax receipts are $189 million more than anticipated.

How many new skyscrapers are planned in New York City? The New York Post has a photo rendering of 30 new buildings planned between now and 2018, and that is just south of Central Park.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, ABO members have until December 5th to file claims for rebates on building supplies purchased since April:

The ABO office will be closed Thursday and Friday for the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving.

A Rent Stabilized Lease is a Public Assistance Benefit, the State Court of Appeals ruled, yesterday, in a case involving whether a stabilized lease could be sold as part of a bankruptcy estate. Using a simplistic analysis, the court said that rent regulation was public, in that it was created by law, and provided assistance. The scathing dissent  noted that by the same analysis, minimum wage laws and antidiscrimination laws, and worker safety requirements would be public assistance…and that most rent stabilized tenants would be surprised to learn that they are on the dole.

While further eroding property rights in the area of bankruptcy the decision creates new constitutional questions about how and why “public assistance” should be paid for by random building owners

The third area the City expects to rezone for higher density housing, after East New York and Cromwell-Jerome, is West Flushing, according to testimony at a City Council hearing this week.

The City Council announced plans to revisit manufacturing zoning, in another attempt to save jobs by restricting local land use. Manufacturing employment has dropped to ten percent, which, coincidentally, mirrors the national average.

Apparently desperate for affordable housing, the de Blasio administration is planning to sell a $110 million developments rights package in Clinton for $1 to a non-profit affordable housing developer, which will, in turn, develop the property and sell some of the rights to a for profit project nearby.

Meanwhile, the Economic Development Corporation has issued an RFP for affordable housing and related development of about 495,000 square feet of air rights from bridge ramps in Long Island City. The rights may be free for the right proposal.

At the same time, the City administration is still looking to raise money from luxury development. An increase in the transfer tax for property over $1 million was floated this week. Any change would require approval by the State Legislature.

Finally, the International Codes Council, author of the International Building Code on which New York City and State Codes are based, agreed this week to a policy long sought by NAHB that any proposed changes come with an analysis of what it would mean to construction costs.

The City Council, Wednesday, approved a land use plan for Astoria Cove in Queens that highlights the project-by-project dealmaking it takes to get new housing plans approved under the de Blasio administration. The developer will have to use union labor for construction and later building operations in a sweetheart deal for Local 32BJ; donate land for a ferry dock; and make 27 percent of the apartments affordable–5 percent for families at 60 percent of AMI, 15 percent at 80 percent, and 7 percent at 125 percent–instead of the 20 percent previously required in exchange for tax incentives.

In other action the Council approved a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, mostly by modifying public buildings and creating incentives for private developers.

They also passed a bill creating new fines for owners of buildings who get multiple hazardous violations in a 12-month period as the result of tenant complaints. As a result of comments by ABO, several tenant-cause violations such as missing smoke detector batteries and illegal locks were excluded.

Topping the ironic news for the week, DNA Info noted that the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a non-profit tenant organization that has picketed landlords on the “worst landlords” list, made the list itself this year for a building they acquired in partnership with the Settlement Housing Fund ten years ago.

Four New York multifamily properties were among the first seventeen nationally recognized by EPA as Energy Star certified apartments. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, both built in 1947, both made the list, along with two 1925 tenements and one 2012 building. See, being old is not that bad.

If you have any issues with State environmental laws or State Department of Environmental Conservation regulations, the New York State Builders Association wants you to join their environmental conservation committee. Call Dan Margulies in the ABO office or reply to this email if you are interested.

Republicans won a slim majority of 32 out of 63 New York State Senate seats in the election, Tuesday. Several pundits opined that this means the Urstadt law may not be repealed when current rent laws expire in June, but  as Sen. Brad Hoylman told the Daily News “In Albany, it’s all about what you are willing to trade.” Modifications in luxury decontrol will also be on the table and, when it comes to housing issues, Governor Cuomo will probably be focused on tax incentives to burnish his moderate credentials and all sides may see rent regulations as “tradeable” as they have in the past. In the meantime, Senate Republicans will have to turn to some Democrats on votes where any one member of the Republican caucus has a problem. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Silver increased his lock on the Democratic majority in that chamber by winning 106 out of 150 seats there, up from 98.

In Washington, the Republican victories in US Senate races have pluses and minuses for housing development, some of which are outlined in a detailed analysis by NAHB. One possible result is a threat to mortgage interest deductions. Housing finance reforms may further restrict lending.

One election result was a big surprise, to New Yorkers. Bayonne, New Jersey, residents voted 58-42 to keep vacancy decontrol.

Back on this side of the Hudson, the law and courts are still pro-regulation. In Mexico Leasing vs. Jones, the Appellate Term, 2nd Department, allowed succession to a stabilized apartment despite the fact that the prime tenant hid the fact that they moved years earlier.  The Court found that “RSC § 2523.5 (b) (1) focuses on the remaining family member’s having resided in the apartment “as a primary residence” within the two-year period prior to the tenant’s permanent vacating of the apartment, and does not insist upon the tenant of record’s having so resided during that period.”

The Citizens Housing and Planning Council debuted a new interactive map of the City this week, showing how neighborhood demographics changed from 2000 to 2010. Headlines noted how the Black middle class shrank across the City, but the map just shows results in City neighborhoods: it does not indicate if, for example, people simply lost income or, perhaps, moved to the suburbs.

The New York State Builders Association Member Rebate Program for building supplies now includes a special program to maximize any rebates available from local utilities for buying everything from appliances to windows. You can apply yourself, or let this new service streamline the process for you.

The US District Court in San Francisco found that City’s requirement for large payouts to rent controlled tenants when owners wanted  to get out of the rental business unconstitutional, in a decision on Levin vs. City and County of San Francisco. As we reported a few weeks ago, the San Francisco ordinance strongly resembles New York’s demolition policy. The judge found that an attempt to make landlords pay tenants the difference between their current regulated rents and the market rents they would face if evicted was unconstitutional because there was no nexus between the landlord’s action and market rents generally. No single landlord had as much effect on market rents as City policies, he noted.

In New York, the Fortune Society is suing a Queens apartment complex for rejecting ex-cons as tenants. The Society is arguing that  the policy has a disparate impact on minorities. Criminals are not a protected class, yet, and landlords have potential liability for the safety of other residents and the property. Civil rights attorneys, however, have been broadening the use of disparate impact claims and the US Supreme Court may rule on an unrelated disparate impact case this year. That case involves whether the impact has to be intentionally discriminatory. The high court has taken two previous cases on the subject but both were settled before a ruling was issued.

Moving from legal theory to basic skills, HPD this week acknowledged misreading a zoning map and says the proposed Astoria Cove project has to include affordable housing for residents at 60 percent of Area Median Income rather than 80 percent. Then an HPD spokesman demonstrated questionable math skill by suggesting that  the deeper subsidies that might be required for lower income tenants would have no effect on the bottom line.

ABO submitted testimony opposing two proposed City Council bills this week. Intro 222 would require 72 hours notice for all non-emergency repairs. We noted that the proposed law was extremely vague and could create emergencies while, say, small leaks grew. There are also concerns about getting work done while repairmen are available. Intro 433 would require safety covers on all electrical receptacles in common areas. We commented that tenants could easily remove the covers for their own use, creating another headache with tenant caused violations such as removed smoke detector batteries, and that existing electrical codes for new construction were dealing with any potential hazard issues over time, in line with national standards.

Finally, Tuesday is election day. Use it or lose it. Here is a link to who is on the ballot across New York State.

The pattern of building less housing for more money continues according to the latest Construction Outlook from the New York Building Congress. While residential spending is expected to rise by 60 percent this year, the number of new dwelling units produced is expected to increase by just 22 percent, from 18,400 units in 2013 to 22,500 this year. The Building Congress forecasts a total of 23,250 new dwelling units in 2015 and 24,000 units in 2016. By comparison, the industry managed to produce 33,200 housing units for $5.9 billion in 2008. Increased land and construction costs and the numbers dictating building mostly luxury housing were blamed.

Any new housing may have to be more than 75 feet from a school if Manhattan City Councilman Mark Levine gets his way. He introduced legislation this week to bar construction within 75 feet of about 2600 public and private schools if it produces more than 45 decibels of noise in the classroom…for reference, that it is enough noise to wake someone who is sleeping, but less than typical office noise or a conversation.

Want to build the most possible energy savings into your new building? The National Institute of Standards and Technology just announced an online tool to provide detailed recommendations for different structures and uses. The tool lets developers analyze whether it pays to go beyond specific code requirements.

The Cuomo reelection campaign yesterday released a 245 page manifesto for a second term: “Moving the New New York Forward.” It has one paragraph on housing, promising more.

Beechwood Housing in Queens got $6300 in rebates so far this year from the NYSBA Member Advantage Program for construction materials and supplies they were buying anyway. What did you get? Apply before November 21st to get rebates for stuff you bought last quarter.

Join us Wednesday for an ABO Seminar:

“What Price Energy? Buying It, Saving It, Making It”

at 12:30 during the NYARM Expo at the Hotel Pennsylvania on 7th Avenue and 33rd St.

Speakers include:

Thomas Devlin, ABO FS Energy Buying Group

Ahmed Ibrahim, Ecosystem

David Singer, Original Energy

Arthur Rosenfield, Red Apple Group

They will be talking about how you can save money, so be sure to attend.