The Rent Guidelines Board has approved a nearly 4 percent hike for rent-stabilized apartments in the city, affecting some 1.1 million apartments by 3.75 percent for one-year renewals and 7.25 percent for two-year contracts, the New York Daily News reported. The hikes will take effect October 1.

“It’s very disappointing,” said Jesse Duperon, who lives in a rent-stabilized unit in the East Village. “They’re turning their backs on the New Yorkers that stood through the crisis of 9/11.”

The increases are more substantial than those of the past two years, the Daily News said. Last October, the board approved increases of 2.25 percent for one-year lease renewals and 4.5 percent for two-year deals.

There some good news for tenants: The board vetoed a 1 percent surcharge for oil-heated buildings to compensate owners for rising prices.

Source: The Real Deal

The Rent Guidelines Board will hold a final vote tonight on how much the tenants of more than one million rent-regulated city apartments will pay this fall.

Board members are gathering at Cooper Union’s Great Hall at 5:30 p.m. to consider a hike of 3 to 5.75 percent for one-year lease renewals and an increase of 6 to 9 percent for two-year lease renewals.

Buildings heated by oil would be hit with an extra 1-percent surcharge.

The Rent Stabilization Association, which represents some 25,000 property owners in the city, says raising rents are necessary to help keep up with the higher costs of running a building, such as fuel oil and rising taxes.

“The value of buildings has actually dropped this year, but tax assessments continue to go up, tax rates continue to go up, and water and sewer costs are right behind them,” said said Frank Ricci of the Rent Stabilization Association.

Tenants’ rights advocates say if there is any increase, it should be on the lower end of the range being considered by the Rent Guidelines Board.

Source: NY1 Continue reading this Article here

A new state law cracking down on illegal hotels is already getting results. The city says it has taken action against 15 illegally converted hotels since the law took effect two weeks ago. The mayor’s office released video of some of the residences located in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Investigators say the buildings were overcrowded, and many had no fire alarms or sprinkler systems. One three-family home on Lafayette Avenue had 45 people living inside. Vacate orders were issued at eight of the 15 locations.

Owners have been fined between $800 and $2,500 per violation.

Source: NY1 Watch the Video Here

The man in charge of demolishing the calamity-prone Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero slipped and broke his wrist Tuesday while leaving the construction site, dnainfo.com reported yesterday.

David Emil, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., was hospitalized for the injury and may require surgery, the website said.

“He’s obviously still thinking about the job, if for no other reason than [the injury], LMDC chairman Avi Schick reportedly told board members at a meeting Emil, 60, missed because of the injury.

Source: AMNY Continue Reading The Article Here

A New York real estate group has agreed to pay $1 million to settle allegations that it harassed tenants as part of a campaign to replace them with people paying higher rents.

Vantage Properties owns 9,500 apartments in the city.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the settlement Thursday.

He had accused the company of trying to push out rent-regulated tenants so it could convert their apartments to market rates.

As part of the deal, the company agreed to change the way it verifies that people in rent-stabilized apartments are in the units legally.

It will pay $250,000 to tenant groups and up to $750,000 to residents who can demonstrate that they were evicted unjustly.

Vantage Properties says it hopes the settlement will set new standards for the industry.

Source: AP

The West Side Rail Yards project will go on, despite the loss of one of its partners.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Monday that financial giant Goldman Sachs has pulled out of the $1 billion deal to redevelop the Hudson rail yards.

However, the plans are expected to go on unchanged. The MTA is delaying the project by two more months to get the paperwork in order.

A spokesperson for the developer, Related Companies, says they are committed to the project and are in the process of refining their contract.

Related has also agreed not to start building on the 26 acre site until economic recovery goals are met.

Goldman Sachs has not said why it pulled out of the deal.

Source: NY1

If Donald Trump has his way, orphaned Manhattan apartment complex Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village could one day be called TrumpTown.

The Post has learned that the real estate mogul and TV personality has thrown his hat into the ring to either buy or manage the massive apartment complex, whose fate was cast into doubt this week when owners Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock said they would hand over the keys to the 11,000-unit property to creditors after defaulting on a loan payment earlier this month.

“People have asked us if we would get involved in running it or buying it,” Trump said in a telephone interview. “We are looking at it right now very seriously.”

“No one has a better track record running properties,” he added.

Meanwhile, The Post has learned that Boston-based WinnCompanies, the country’s eighth-largest apartment manager, is vying to be StuyTown’s property manager. Such an assignment would give Winn entry into the New York market, said a person close to the company.

Both Trump and Winn join a growing list of real estate firms interested in getting their hooks into StuyTown, which has become a high-profile symbol of the real estate market’s boom and bust.

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross was among the first to put his name into the ring, teaming up with investment shop Centerbridge Partners and real estate titan Richard LeFrak, whose properties include Newport in New Jersey and LeFrak City in Queens.

“Richard has more experience managing rent-controlled and rent-stabilized properties than anyone else,” Ross told The Post earlier this week.

Tenants are also hoping to get in on the action, while Ofer Yardeni’s Stonehenge Partners, an unsuccessful bidder in 2006, has been mulling a bid to manage or acquire the complex, a source said.

Rose Associates, Related Cos. and Prudential Douglas Elliman are each said to be interested in managing the property.

The potential for a bidding war caps what has been a wild ride ever since Tishman and BlackRock bought StuyTown for $5.4 billion. Tishman had hoped to convert what were rent-regulated apartments to market rates, but ran into trouble as the credit markets collapsed and tenants resisted the higher rents.

Then in October everything fell apart when the state’s highest court ruled Tishman could not raise rents on the apartments.

Regardless of who takes over the property, the new owner could be on the hook to pay back an estimated $200 million in rent overages tied to that court case.

Alex Schmidt, the attorney representing the tenants in the case, says the new owners will be responsible for the back rents unless they hammer out a deal with Tishman and former owners MetLife to foot the tab.

“There’s no doubt that the subsequent owner has to assume this liability,” he said.

Source: NY Post

A Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled Monday that the special minimum increases imposed by the Rent Guidelines Board in 2008 were illegal.

The law said tenants paying less than $1,000 a month had to pay an increase of either $45 or 4.5 percent on one-year leases — whichever was higher.

For two year leases, those figures jumped to $85 or 8.5 percent.

The judge said the dollar increases were often significantly higher than the percentage increase.

The judge says in effect, the law penalizes low income New Yorkers who cannot afford to move because of a lack of affordable housing.

The ruling could lead to millions of dollars in refunds.

Plaintiffs, backed by City Council leaders, applauded the decision.

Meanwhile, the outgoing head of the Rent Guidelines Board told NY1 he believes the Board’s decision will be re-instituted after an appeal.

Source: NY1

Capping a slow and steady financial fall, two real estate giants are handing Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village over to creditors.

Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty were unable to maintain their financial commitment to the sister properties.

A spokesman for the partnership says transferring control became the only viable alternative to bankruptcy, after it couldn’t make a $16 million loan payment earlier this month.

Tishman and BlackRock bought the apartment complexes in 2006 for almost $5.5 billion, in what was the most expensive deal in real estate history.

The developers planned to convert many of the rent-stabilized units into luxury housing, but they were unable to keep up payments as the venture was hit hard by the slowing real estate market.

The partnership was also dealt a blow recently when a state court ruled $200 million in rent increases were not legal.

The complex includes 11,000 apartments, housing around 25,000 tenants.

Source: NY1

The head of the city board that sets rent hikes for a million New Yorkers has resigned – putting landlords and tenants on alert for who Mayor Bloomberg appoints to replace him.

Marvin Markus, a municipal finance expert, oversaw the Rent Guidelines Board’s raucous annual meetings to set increases for rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments during all of Bloomberg’s eight years in office.

The board approved 3% hikes on one-year leases last year, despite the recession, drawing hundreds of angry protesters to Markus’ final meeting.

“His resignation will be effective at the end of February, and we are in the process of searching for a new chair,” said Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent. “The cycle for the Rent Guidelines Board begins in March.”

“I think it’s an important job, and I was happy to do it,” Markus said. “I was proud to serve the city, and I wish my successor good luck.”

Markus previously chaired the board for five years under Mayor Ed Koch.

Markus has said he believes the city’s rent-setting process is flawed – and has been pilloried by angry tenants as a tool of real estate interests.

“We don’t call him ‘Marvin Markup’ for nothing,” said Michael McKee, executive director of advocacy group Housing Here and Now. “Marvin takes the position that rent stabilization is bad for landlords.”

Source: NY Daily News Continue reading this article here