Housing News Roundup

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Today, we will take note of the new debate surrounding the SAT exams. Did they get a bum rap? Some colleges that made SAT scores optional as a criterion for admission are now making them mandatory again. There have been two recent articles in The Times that maybe you've seen, one a policy piece by columnist David Leonhardt and the other a personal essay by the writer Emi Nietfeld arguing that the SATs actually enhance the chances for diverse and marginalized high school students to get into good colleges, not the other way around as has been previously believed. We'll talk to Emi Nietfeld and take your calls coming up.

Also former US Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller. Even as the focus in this country is mostly on college protests, and the response to them right now, obviously, there is a serious push for short-term ceasefire and a longer-term peace that Secretary of State Blinken is in the region trying to broker right now. Aaron David Miller will talk about how maybe to get all sides to yes.

Did you move yesterday? May 1st is one of the biggest days of the year for moving. In our insane housing market around here, we will ask where you moved and why, did you more move to or more move from, if you know what I mean and do you have any tips or tricks to share now that it's behind you on how other listeners can find a decent, affordable next place to live? That's all coming up.

First, I'm joined by David Brand, the WNYC and Gothamist housing reporter to talk about various pieces of housing news, including how HPD, the city's housing department, wants to you might say borrow the plot of a Joe Pesci movie to get repairs done by one of New York City's landlords who has been officially labeled one of New York City's worst landlords. Hey, David.

David Brand: Hey, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: We will also want to hear the latest on the annual process of setting increases for rent-stabilized tenants. We know the preliminary numbers are out for those, and that's a million apartments in New York City, so people are obviously paying attention, a lot of listeners to that. Let's start with the story of this landlord who is currently being held at Rikers. Who is he?

David Brand: Well, his name is Daniel Ohebshalom. He is notorious landlord, you mentioned it, officially regarded as New York City's worst landlord, at least according to the public advocate's annual watch list of bad landlords with a lot of dangerous conditions in their buildings. Tenants at a number of his buildings have been suing for repairs for a number of years. The city's housing agency stepped in and sued for emergency repairs as well.

After a few years of very little progress on those, and things actually seemingly gotten worse, a judge sentenced him to jail, to 60 days jail for contempt of court for failing to make those court-ordered repairs. You mentioned it, he's at Rikers right now. In the meantime, Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, is bringing criminal charges against him for, what he calls tenant harassment, for falsifying property records and endangering the welfare of children at five of his buildings.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get to the thing that some of our listeners have heard in our newscast about the unusual punishment that they're looking for, you might say borrowed from a Joe Pesci movie, my question before that is, how often does it ever happen that a landlord goes to jail for failing to make repairs in a building because just the part that you already described, just the fact that he's at Rikers, a lot of people are probably thinking, "Wow, that can happen?"

David Brand: It can happen, but it's very rare. When it does happen, it's not because conditions are so dangerous, not necessarily, because you see a lot of bad buildings and tenants at risk, but it's really because the city steps in, and judge orders the repairs, and then the landlord still doesn't do them. When it happens, it is rare, but that's why it happens. It's contempt of court. The judge says, "You need to do this," and the landlord just doesn't do it.

Brian Lehrer: Every year the public advocate, currently Jumaane Williams, puts out a list of the city's worst landlords, and this year number one is listed as Johnathan Santana, but then I see there's a note that the same guy Daniel Ohebshalom is the officer of record for those buildings. What's the story though?

David Brand: Well, that points to one of the things that Alvin Bragg mentioned yesterday in a press conference following the arraignment for Ohebshalom that people can mask their identities or their true ownership of buildings through limited liability companies where they list other associates as owners. It could be just someone who signed some documents, it could be someone who's considered the agent or the property manager or something. That adds these layers of opacity to the whole ownership structure.

In the case of Ohebshalom, according to prosecutors, it went beyond that normal LLC shielding to he was getting the children of associates to sign on as building owners. That added yet another potentially fraudulent layer of opacity to this. Like you said, it's not uncommon though. Most large buildings in the city are owned by limited liability companies that can make it really hard to tell the true owner.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Now the reveal. Now that we teased it in the intro and a couple of times already, they're asking him to be moved from Rikers to house arrest in?

David Brand: In one of his buildings. You mentioned a Joe Pesci movie. It's not Home Alone, it's not Goodfellas, it is 1991 film called The Super where a judge does order the building owner to move into his derelict property and make repairs or risk jail. This is actually separate than the criminal charges, this happened before, and this relates to why he's at Rikers now.

I guess according to the city attorneys, he is starting to make some of the repairs that are needed. Tenants in the buildings are saying actually, it's just the bare minimum. He's slapping paint. He's in jail, but he's hiring contractors to slap a coat of paint on top of water damage. It's nothing major yet, but city lawyers are saying, "See, putting him in jail is actually starting to get some work done." He still has 400 open housing code violations at two of these buildings in Washington Heights, so asking the judge to either A, keep him in jail for 60 more days to take things seriously and get the work done or this unique form of house arrest where he could potentially be sentenced to live at one of his buildings.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. I'll ask you in a minute if he's saying, "No, I'd rather stay at Rikers. That's more pleasant for me than living in one of my own buildings." Before that, though, I'll say that that Joe Pesci movie, The Super from 1991, is a comedy, nothing funny about this in real life, but here's a clip from the film of the judge sentencing that landlord or super to house arrest.

Judge: Mr. Kritski, it's within my prerogative to sentence you to one year in the county jail.

[applaud]

Judge: However, I'm not going to do this. In my opinion, threats of jail won't move you to bring your building into compliance. Therefore, I'm sentencing you to house arrest in one of the apartments of your own for a period of 920 days or until the building is brought up to [unintelligible 00:08:25] that's required by the State of New York.

Brian Lehrer: All right. As I said, it's a comedy, and so we can all imagine how it turns out even if we didn't see it, which I didn't. He comes to appreciate his tenants and repairs the building, I gather, but has this ever happened in real life before, that a landlord has been sentenced to living in their unrepaired building?

David Brand: I've yet to see this happening in New York City. Even in the court filing from the city lawyer, he actually references that movie The Super. I don't know if it's happened in New York City before. I tend to think it has not. I have seen examples from 20 years ago, it happened in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C. This could be interesting bit of restorative justice, maybe, in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: What is this "worse landlord" asking from the court? Is he asking to remain at Rikers so he doesn't have to move in to his unrepaired building or not sufficiently repaired building or what's his argument?

David Brand: Well, his lawyers filed a petition in court last week asking to release him from Rikers saying it's just too dangerous. They cite a lot of past decisions from judges and also news reports and I think some data on the number of deaths and violent attacks in Rikers. It's personal for him because within 24 hours of arriving for intake in March, he was actually attacked and somebody punched him in the face and broke his eye socket, and he had to go to the hospital for treatment.

Brian Lehrer: Having anything to do with him being a landlord or some other reason, do you know?

David Brand: I think that's unclear. I think it's probably more likely that Rikers is just really dangerous and that anyone is at risk of getting assaulted, and that was the case for him.

Brian Lehrer: Couldn't any person incarcerated at Rikers make that same argument? Of course, we've done many segments on this show, and there's been so much news reporting about how dangerous Rikers genuinely is. Is this landlord arguing, it's too dangerous for him? Don't worry about everybody else.

David Brand: Well, [chuckles] I think anyone could make that argument, and it seems to be a compelling one. If a judge were to order his release, I would imagine other attorneys would make that same argument or cite that as precedent because even in that filing, it cites a lot of data about just how dangerous and violent Rikers Island is.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls and texts on this in various ways. First of all, if you have successfully fought for repairs against one of the worst landlords from the city's worst landlords list, what worked for you? Call or text, 212-433-WNYC. Has anybody had an experience like that? Has anybody wound up seeing your landlord go to jail for, I guess it's contempt of court technically, around failure to repair or harassing tenants? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Tips and tricks for what has worked for you to fight for repairs that a landlord has been reluctant to make, and really they don't have to be on the worst landlord's list, the official one. Give our listeners who may be in that situation right now, some tips and tricks on what has worked for you. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text, and alternatively, maybe to have a little fun with this. You could call in and say, "What would you like to see a worst landlord sentenced to?" In this case, the city is looking for this guy to have to live in his own building.

What do you think a landlord that fails to make repairs might be sentenced to by a court other than just marching them up to the building with a handyman and standing over him while the repairs get made? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Even though, David, obviously, this is not funny at all for the people living in those buildings, but I wonder if they've done anything like what I just said, in any case, that you've ever covered or heard of where they literally physically take a landlord to the building with a handyman or whatever you want to call that person, a plumber or whatever the right person is and supervise the repairs getting done.

David Brand: I haven't heard of that happening. Inspectors are supposed to check in periodically, and when these cases are before a judge, the Judge will order repairs to be done and specific dates where the owner and the contractors they hire to make repairs is supposed to show up. Judges take that pretty seriously if they don't show up. The situation here, the apartments are so bad that it's going to take some pretty intensive work, I think, like just looking at photos and visiting the buildings and talking with tenants and even listening to the prosecutors.

Then later DA Bragg talked about things yesterday. A ceiling collapsed on a toddler's bed. One tenant contacted the landlord to say the ceiling was so waterlogged that it was bulging, and the landlord's response allegedly was, "Put a hole in it to release the water." Instead, fortunately, the tenant called the fire department. The doors don't lock, so people are just entering and staying in some of the vacant units makes it a dangerous situation there.

I was talking to a tenant yesterday who said that some of the plumbing seems to be leaking into an alley next to one of the buildings, and so it just smells like feces. Rats are roaming free. It's pretty bad. I think just having someone stand over handyman could take care of some things, but this is going to need some pretty intensive work.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Well, maybe that should have been my question. How bad is it at the buildings of this officially designated worst landlord? By the way, some people are writing in with some other examples. Another one from Fiction, listener writes, "Not just the Joe Pesci movie, also a Golden Girls episode where Dorothy and Stan were forced by a court to stay in their apartment building that was run down, and they were seen as slumlords."

Another person writes in with a real-life example. [unintelligible 00:15:20] writes, "In 1988, the famous reptile landlord was sentenced to spend a week in one of his crummy buildings, check the Daily News from 1988." [chuckles] Do you happen to know that one? I haven't heard that term Reptile Landlord. Maybe that was a tabloid headline in 1988.

David Brand: No, I'm not familiar with that but just shows how awesome our listeners are, because I'm going to look that up immediately and and find out more about that. Thanks for sharing that.

Brian Lehrer: How awesome are our listeners a retired housing court Judge is calling in on this. Mark in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling.

Mark: You're welcome. I just wanted to point out that in fact, Judge Gustin Reichbach did sentence the landlord to live in an apartment in this building. I believe it's the same case that you were just talking about, the reptile landlord.

Brian Lehrer: Do you remember any other details, like what the conditions were or what happened when and if he actually moved in?

Mark: No, I wasn't a judge at the time. I knew the judge. I don't know the details. I was just speaking to someone who was his court attorney, and she remembered very clearly when that happened.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have any legal analysis of this case as to whether they can sentence him to live in his own rundown Washington Heights building?

Mark: Well, Judge Reichbach did it, and it was never appealed, never reversed. The answer is, I believe, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Mark, thank you very much for calling in. It looks like we have one of this landlord's tenants calling in. Michael in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling. Hi Michael.

Michael: Hi. Hi, everyone. Thank you really very much. I just pulled out some files to see exactly what year it was, but this landlord bought our building. It's this exactly landlord. There's a family of them actually. He bought the building going back to 2005, probably. Shortly thereafter, within six weeks, he cut the gas pipes in our building, except he had done a similar thing around the corner on 62nd to another building.

Of course, he said we accidentally cut gas pipes, which he can't do. We immediately, because we're very organized, filed a harassment action because they needed to open all the walls, and they did. They replaced all the gas pipes, but they had to cut lines that allowed everything to come out of the walls, all the way up in your apartment, from apartment to apartment.

Inevitably, everybody in my building settled, but I did not have to. I kept the lawsuit going, and we were able to just positively prove that he had been using this tactic among many others. As recently as this week, our building was cited as one of the worst listed two years ago in our local neighborhood's paper. It was the worst building during the pandemic, and we're the ones that had the rad infestation that vaguely referred to-- We had a whole colony.

The fact of the matter is our hot water yesterday is 198 degrees. They've spent more money on the boiler in our building, maintaining it broken than it would've cost to replace the whole thing over the last 15 years. They still have no intention of making the repairs. Everything they do is to maintain the status of the building in a deteriorating way, and it's done with purpose. They have another agent, her name is Robin. She's the person that signs our leases and does these things.

In one conversation to the detective, I said something vaguely nice about her. She cut me off, and this is on the phone. She said to me, "Mr. [unintelligible 00:18:56], you have no idea what that woman has done." It's an appalling situation, but I will say they moved, and this is another problem. In January, they moved our building from the normal 311 complaint center that would get directed to the [unintelligible 00:19:11] housing and community renewal. They moved it into something called the Alternative Enforcement Bureau.

Since they've done that, we've gone a week without hot water, and then most recently, like two weeks ago, again, no hot water for almost a week. The reason is the city's agency that they created to deal specifically with landlords of this type, of which, thank God there's not many, but there's enough, isn't connecting 311 calls directly. We went longer without getting city inspection since January than we've ever gone, because even the city's instrumentality of helping us has become intensive.

Brian Lehrer: Let me jump in, Michael. I want to do two things. I want to ask you a follow-up question, and I want to invite David Brand, our housing reporter, since, David, this is your beat to ask Michael who's a tenant of this "worst landlord." Any question that you might want to ask him? Michael, I'll say that since you're involved in litigation, need to say things that you've stated are allegations, but assuming they're true, and you said the landlord is doing all of this with purpose, what is the purpose? Is it just to save money, make more profit on the building without having to pay for repairs and maintenance, or what do you think is ultimately up with why all this happens?

Michael: I'll tell you because real estate in New York is no longer a landlord-tenant business, they’re investments vehicles. This person has no intention of being a landlord. I have friends that are landlords. I went to law school in New York State. I had a friend, her family owns 20-some-odd buildings. Her dad was a reasonable landlord. The only time he went to court when somebody didn't move out, or they did move out and owed him a lot of money, kind of thing. He represented himself. Our landlord is, "This is an investment vehicle." This plot of land I live on 61st and 1st, with the rest of the block, could be worth $20, $30 million inevitably for development. It can cost him $10 million. He doesn't care.

Brian Lehrer: David, anything for Michael?

David Brand: Thanks for calling, Michael, and sharing that. I hope we could talk offline after this. I think he's exactly right about buildings being seen as investment vehicles before they're seen as homes for actual people. That's something that the Manhattan prosecutors said explicitly in court yesterday, that there was really no intention to maintain these buildings, and it was actually a deliberate plan to have them deteriorate to drive tenants out. That's the tenant harassment that the prosecutors are talking about. Just to let things fall apart, people leave, and then you can combine their units, re-rent them or just sell the entire building.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you very much for calling in. Very interesting, very revealing. I hope everything works out for you and your neighbors. David and listeners, we talked briefly about the 1988 case where this actually happened, where a landlord was sentenced to live in his own building. Somebody wrote in about the daily news coverage of that in 1988, calling that landlord the reptile landlord. Then the retired housing court judge called in to confirm that that was real. Now, it looks like we have the law clerk to the judge who issued that sentence calling in. Marsha in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marsha.

Marsha: Hi. Actually, the case that Judge Reichbach was involved in was a different case. It wasn't in 1988. It was after. He was a civil court judge sitting in the HP part in Brooklyn, the building with a lot of violations. This specific tenant had a U-toll in his bathroom ceiling, so the tenants above him could look in. After giving the female landlord many opportunities at the contempt hearing for failing to do repairs, her excuse for not doing them was that she had tickets to the Olympics in Atlanta, and she was busy.

At that point, the judge had the marshal come, she was taken to Rikers. She spent two weeks at Rikers, and every day I got a call from the nun who was helping the women in that unit saying, "She's so nice. Why is she here?" I told the judge she still wasn't doing the repair, so he called the Department of Probation. He got her an ankle bracelet. He sentenced her to live in that specific apartment and told her she could come out on Sundays to go to church and to go to Home Depot for supplies. Not that she was actually doing repairs herself. Within less than a week, all the violations were corrected in that apartment. Apparently-

Brian Lehrer: Effective.

Marsha: -it was more onerous than being at Rikers.

Brian Lehrer: What a story. In that case, Marsha, and having worked in the legal system with some relevance to this, why do you think this hasn't happened more?

Marsha: I think it's because it takes guts on the part of a judge, and there's a lot of paperwork. It's something that doesn't happen every day. Judge Reichbach was a pretty amazing guy, and he did other things that were innovative and unusual to help people.

Brian Lehrer: It's an amazing story. Marsha, let me extend your goodwill here for one more question, and this actually comes from another listener who wrote in a text, "I'd like to know, is it possible and how, to remove an owner, a landlord, building ownership their license?" Can a court just take away a building from somebody?

Marsha: The tenants in the building can move to have a receiver put in place in the HP part, and many legal services offices will help tenants and represent them in doing that.

Brian Lehrer: Marsha, thank you so much for your call. Really fascinating stuff. Maybe especially if this landlord does actually get sentenced, if the city wins its case getting him sentenced to live in his own building, David, maybe this will set a precedent where it happens more often. If we have to reach back 35 years or so for another example, and it seem to be effective, and this is in the news again, maybe something's changing.

David Brand: Maybe. It's really great to hear these past examples, and I got to look that one up. It sounds like it's from '96 if that was the Olympics in Atlanta. Maybe it will. Like she mentioned, judges have to have the courage to do that type of sentence because it's unique and maybe has only been tested a few times, and it sounds like those judges took a chance doing that. We'll see what happens here. That's really interesting.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listener rights, because I asked for suggestions for what should happen to landlords who don't do the repairs on their buildings and keep them in at least decent shape. Somebody brought in that question. That's another example of the creative strokes of our amazing listeners. Listener writes, "The same way landlords should live in their buildings, I suggest the politicians should live for at least three months in the poorest neighborhoods of their districts." From Regina in northern Manhattan. Regina, thank you for that.

David Brand: Good idea.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see. We have a few minutes. I could take one more call from somebody who's got more lawsuits. I don't know if this is the same landlord or a different landlord, but it sounds like Victoria in Manhattan has an interesting story about how to mobilize the neighbors to become effective. Victoria, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Victoria: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for having me. I love your show. It's amazing because you are talking exactly what I've been going through. Yes, I do have two lawsuits against my landlords. One is for repairs, another one they sued me for non-payment because I said, "I need repairs first. I have the escrow account. I'm not going to pay until then." Also, I sued them in civil court for money damages for 15 years that I've been living in this building. I'm on the upper West Side, the landlord is Mayflower Corporation. Basically, we have no heat. Every time the temperature hovers above 55, 50, we're freezing because the boiler is not on.

Another thing is that we have structural issues. They installed the roof deck, and they didn't seal it properly. My neighbor, I'm on the 16th floor on Riverside, her ceiling literally collapsed in a bathroom, and she had a wall fall out in the kitchen. They would just send people to do the patching work. I had a leak for years, and they'd been doing the patching work. Until I brought them to court, and the judge said they have to do major repair, they finally did it.

You know what? The lawyer is saying in the defense that it's my own fault, it's negligence. The woman who had her thing loud, they said, "Maybe it's because your heater is scheming up," but we don't even have heat. What that gentleman said, it's exactly because the building is rent-stabilized, but they flipped it in 2019. They're trying to get rid of tenants who've been there for three, four decades.

Brian Lehrer: Trying to get you out.

Victoria: Trying to flip it in market.

Brian Lehrer: I'll say again that since you named the particular company, these are allegations. You have lawsuits and saying that because it's due process.

Victoria: May I just say. We pursued them for the same thing four years ago, and we won.

Brian Lehrer: You won.

Victoria: I'm the only one complaining.

Brian Lehrer: This can even happen on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. It's one thing to talk about a building in a low-income part of Washington Heights, you're saying this can even happen on Tony Riverside Drive.

Victoria: Yes. We're on 115, right across from Columbia, and it's the only building not owned by Columbia, and they basically do whatever they want. The boiler is turned on three times a day, and we're literally freezing. I started measuring the temperature because every time I invite an inspector, they would heat up the building like it's a sauna in my apartment. Now, I have five other tenants justifying to the same. That said, I have hearings in May and then the money lawsuit in August.

They literally just do it on purpose. It's very interesting that you can have their license removed. Another thing I found out, there's a program where you can install sensors for heat, and then the city controls them. Then I don't have to measure temperature by myself like I do taking photos of it because it's only 64, 66 during the day, and the norm is 68.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Victoria, I'm going to leave it there for a time but thank you very much for telling your story. David, the petition to have this landlord released from Rikers without having to live in his building. The petition to have him released says, "He "offered" to execute quick claim deeds that would have given HBD the city immediate possession of these properties. However, that was unreasonably rejected." That's a quote from the landlord's lawyer. He offered to give up the buildings to avoid making these repairs?

David Brand: Yes. It's complicated I think, and I don't know what's going on behind the scenes with the negotiations there. I know he owes a lot of property taxes on the buildings. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. I imagine before the city agrees to take the buildings, they want some type of financial penalty or commitment to fund those repairs, cover the back taxes. I think the other part of it is that he owns a number of buildings, and so if he were to give up these two specific properties in Washington Heights, he would still own those others. I'd imagine the city probably wants the entire portfolio.

Brian Lehrer: Our housing reporter David Brand with us for another few minutes. We're also going to get to the rent guidelines board recommendations for how much the rent and all the rent-stabilized buildings should go up in the next rental year, the next rental cycle but let me take one more call. I think to the point that you were just making, Fred in Brooklyn who says he's a tenant attorney at one of the Ohebshalom buildings. Fred, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Fred: Hi, Brian and David. Thanks for covering the story. I work at TakeRoot Justice. We represent the tenants at [unintelligible 00:32:54] I just wanted to first just uplift all the tent associations including ours and the Ohebshalom Tenant Coalition who reformed to try to put pressure on the city to hold this landlord accountable. It's good to see that things are happening now, but tenants have been living with these conditions under this landlord for years. I also just wanted to point out that the city needs a mechanism to take these buildings away from the landlord because even though he's in jail, he's still not making the repairs.

Brian Lehrer: Fred, thank you very much for weighing in on that. By the way, here's another creative connection that one of our listeners made. David, are you ready for this in a text?

David Brand: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: A landlord was sent to Rikers for contempt of court in a case about falsifying business records to cover up a different crime. Hmm, sounds like a precedent to me. Do you get it?

David Brand: I was at Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday. I definitely can get that reference.

Brian Lehrer: For people who didn't get it, that's obviously a Trump analogy. Hmm, somebody sent to Rikers for contempt of court related to falsifying business records to cover up a different crime. That's exactly why the hush money charge against Trump is a felony and not a misdemeanor. All right, in our last few minutes with our housing reporter David Brand, this week, the rent guidelines board met and voted on ranges of increases for rent-stabilized tenants as they do every year this time up to 6.50%. As listeners are probably aware, this is an annual process that outrages either landlords or tenants or both. Predictably, who do these rent increases apply to?

David Brand: These are two tenants in about a million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Who makes up the rent guidelines board and how do they get to these numbers?

David Brand: It's a nine-member board. All of the members are housing experts appointed by the mayor. Eight of the current members were appointed by Adams. One I think is a de Blasio holdover. There's five "public members" who are neutral and consider data and perspectives from either tenants or landlords. Then there's two tenant representatives and two landlord representatives, so in this case two landlord attorneys and then attendant attorney and attendant organizer. They consider data that's provided by board staff, it's a year or two-year long lag, but it's, on the landlord side, expenses, rising cost of insurance, rising cost of labor, the cost of fuel and water and then their incomes from rents.

Then on the tenant side, the financial impact of inflation and other economic challenges. Even some of the status still the lingering economic impacts of the pandemic because it's a little old and how tenants, for example, in rent-stabilized buildings, have a much lower median income than the city as a whole. These are majority lower middle-income renters paying more than 30% of their income on rent, which is what the federal government considers rent burdened. They take that info.

Brian Lehrer: The inflation argument cuts both ways. The tenants can say and especially because the rent-stabilized tenants, they tend to be people who are spending-- It's ironic, if there are rent-stabilized apartments, you would think they're not spending the biggest percentage of their incomes on rent compared to other New Yorkers, but I think you just said in many cases they are.

David Brand: Yes. I think that data really shows that even in rent-stabilized apartments where rents are lower than the rest of the market, the people living in them tend to be lower income. In about half of the cases, they're considered rent-burdened, so they're lowering the people paying a higher portion of rent.

Brian Lehrer: They get hit hard by inflation, so that's an argument to keep the rent increases low. The landlords will say, "Hey, inflation hits us very hard because it costs a lot to maintain the buildings, and those costs are going up." Inflation gets used as an argument by both sides, yes?

David Brand: Yes. I think one other compelling argument on the landlord side is something we've been covering pretty closely here is just the skyrocketing insurance rates on rent-stabilized housing, on affordable housing where rents are capped based on tenant income and on housing for people with Section 8 or other housing vouchers. Insurance has doubled in just the past--

Brian Lehrer: Why? There was no supply chain interruption for insurance in the pandemic?

David Brand: That's a great question and something that I've been reporting on that some of it seems to relate to just discrimination. If landlords are running to lower-income New Yorkers, then insurance companies don't want to provide insurance. There's some other issues as well, like the risk of flooding is a big one that doesn't just affect coastal areas. All of that is combining to really spike insurance rates.

Brian Lehrer: That's the climate change, insurance tax on renters and landlords alike.

David Brand: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: The ranges they approved were 2% to 4.5% for one-year leases, 2% to 4.5% for one-year leases and 4% to 6.5% for two-year leases. Why this step of setting ranges that are not final and not just setting the final amounts because even if they wind up affirming something in these tentative ranges that they said, well, people don't know if they're going to get a 2% increase or a 4.5% increase more than twice as much.

David Brand: I think it sets the terms of the negotiations that go on and that prepares people what to expect and what to sound off on on the upcoming public hearings they'll have. It also gives politicians a chance to say, "That's unreasonable, the highest end so it needs to come down a bit." We see that from Mayor Adams this year and the past few years, too. He immediately released the statement focusing on the highest level of that range for the two-year leases which was 6.5% saying that's unreasonable. Then if it's lower could say, "See, it's not as bad as it could have been."

Brian Lehrer: Oh, so that's interesting that the mayor weighed in on that on the tenant side because he likes his image to be for the small landlord. I think he is one, and he says he identifies not just with tenants but with small landlords and the burdens they have. Yet he's weighing in on the 6.5% for two-year lease part of the range as being too high.

David Brand: That's right. He appointed the board members here. I think they are going to follow his lead and approve some type of increase for the third year in a row. He's fine with that, but he gets to say like, "Well, that would be too high, so I'm empathizing with the tenants." Also, we need something sympathizing with the landlords like you said, he is one.

Brian Lehrer: Right. This is known, obviously, to people who live in rent-stabilized apartments, but some of our listeners may be wondering, well, if you just renew your lease for one year, why does your rent go up less than if you renew your lease is for two years?

David Brand: That's a good question, I guess because you don't know what the next year brings. You could hedge your bets, I guess, if you're a renter and say, "Well, okay, if the board, for example, approves a three-year increase or 3% increase this year and 5% over two years, well, next year, they might do another 3%." That's 6% but actually higher because it compounds. I guess it's gambling.

Brian Lehrer: For the second year. It's taking your best shot. All right, last question. The Mayor's City of Yes housing plan goes out for review by the borough presidents, community boards and council members now. He wants a lot more housing construction within the city. Just give us 30 seconds, and then we're at a time on what that process entails and what the biggest obstacle is to a lot of new construction that everybody wants in theory, but nobody wants in their neighborhoods.

David Brand: Sure. 30 seconds. This is a sweeping change to zoning rules that determine what can be built where. These changes would include getting rid of parking requirements in new development and instead using that space that might go to parking for more housing to allow more residential development on top of low-rise commercial spaces. You think of a single-story laundromat. City wants to be able to build apartments on top of that.

This would affect every part of the city, including some of the lower-density areas like Northeast Queens, Staten Island, where larger apartment buildings aren't allowed right now. It wouldn't be major, major development, but it's definitely getting pushback, especially in those areas of saying, "Well, we don't want this type of housing here. That's why we moved here," or using the example of, "Well, our sewer system is going to be overwhelmed." You're going to hear a lot of that. This is now going before community boards. It's going to be public hearings all across the city, so it's going to be interesting to watch how that plays out.

Brian Lehrer: As ever, the two laws of affordable housing politics in New York City, everybody says we need a lot more affordable housing, and everybody says, "Just don't build any near me." With that, we leave it with WNYC and Gothamist's amazing housing reporter, David Brand. Thanks, as always.

David Brand: Thanks a lot, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We turn the page. Much more to come.

 

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.