The City Council has proposed eighteen new bills aimed squarely at the back of property owners. The bills are wide ranging and address vacate orders, grounds for denying building permits, sanctions for errors in documents filed with the Department of Buildings, more specific and greater DOB review of tenant protection plans during construction, personal liability for false permits or plans, audits of process servers, inspections of vacant buildings before permits are issued, providing rent histories to regulated tenants and audits of corrections of violations. Many of these bills come with significant monetary sanctions or preclusion from obtaining permits. While many of the bills seem aimed at addressing real problems, many also seem to fall in the “Gotcha” category – as if hoping to find some easily correctable error and turning that into a vehicle for significant punitive sanction.
Two bills are particularly interesting. One would require HPD to report on median market rates by community district and number of bedrooms and then mandate that the median market rent, for a dwelling unit with the same number of bedrooms located in the same community district as such dwelling unit, be set forth in any buy-out offer made to a regulated tenant. The offer would then need to break down the number of months such median market rent such money would cover; calculated by dividing the value of such offer, or if such offer includes valuable consideration other than money, the value of the money portion of such offer, by such median market rate rent, and that there is no guarantee that such person will be able to rent a dwelling unit in the same community district with the same number of bedrooms for such median market rent and that the number provided is calculated based solely upon such median market rent and does not include broker fees, security deposits or any other costs or fees associated with renting a dwelling unit.
The second, would require owners to file buyout agreements with HPD or suffer monetary penalties. Of course, nothing is said as to why this information is needed by HPD, other than stating that HPD will report the filings to the Council and the Mayor.
Sherwin Belkin said: “The Council’s last foray into buyout offers required a notice to tenants that they could bar the owner from approaching the tenant for 180 days. Having previously slapped a gag order on owner’s communicating with its tenants, the Council now proposes to circumscribe what must be said between the parties. Moreover, the doom and gloom language required by the Council seems intended to push regulated tenants against accepting any such offer. Finally, parties – both owners and tenants – often prefer that their agreements be confidential, rather than being forced into the public domain.”
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