New York City Cracks Down on Slumlords

The New York City Council on Thursday passed a bill called the Safe Housing Act to force landlords to make repairs to some of the worst buildings in the city, according to the New York Times.

If the landlords refuse to make repairs, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development will make the repairs for them and send them the bill.

Each year, for the next five years, the Department will identify 200 buildings with the worst histories of housing code violations for a total of 1,000 buildings at which time the bill will be evaluated.

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker said, "This bill is a full-out, governmental full-court press against slumlords in the city of New York. I hope the message this bill sends is that if you're a slumlord, your days are numbered. If you're a slumlord, you'd better get your building up to code. If you don't, we're going to go out there and bring your building to code for you, and we're going to charge you for it."

She added that if landlords refuse to cooperate and refuse to pay they could be taken to court and have liens placed against their property. This could lead to their buildings being confiscated. She further explained that the city does not want to, "but we will take a landlord's property if they don't pay."

The bill does not allow for patchwork, but calls for complete overhauls of major systems such as plumbing, electrical wiring, and boilers.

Once notified that they are on the list of the 200 worst buildings, landlords are required to make repairs and pay all outstanding charges within four months. If they do so, the building will be monitored by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development at least every three months for at least a year.

The most common problems include rat and other vermin infestations, broken windows and doors and a lack of heat and hot water, according to housing advocates.

A tenant advocate described a building she has lived in for the last two years as a "dump."

She said, "We had no heat for most of that time. Our windows are still broken. There is no electricity in most of the building. Our floor is covered in towels because there was a water main leak. There have been several fires in the basement. It's great that our city government is finally doing something about this so that my children don't have to live like this anymore."

Landlord and tenant groups support the Safe Housing Act Bill sponsored by City Councilwoman Letitia James. And Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign it into law within the next month. It would go into effect five months later.

Source: The New York Times -

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/nyregion/31building.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1180671106-jq0BQhhxz4e/Vn/lQo/faA