The City Council passed the Safe Housing Act yesterday, which ups the ante against landlords who neglect their properties. The new law requires that the Department of Housing Preservation identify 200 deliquent property owners per year and force them to repair their buildings. Should property owners choose not to make repairs, the city will step in to fix the problem and then bill the owner.
The NYTimes says:
The bill goes further than current regulations in requiring not just repairs of the immediate problems, like a leaky pipe, but also overhauls of the entire system causing the problems, like bad plumbing and boilers or faulty electrical wiring.
So, we're talking potentially major repairs. This is good news for tenants in some of the more run down buildings in PLG, such as those on Ocean Ave. (99 Ocean Ave. pictured above). Get the word out about the new law - if HPD is up to the task, the law should lead to substantial quality of life improvements for renters.
I honestly don't believe that any of the buildings on Ocean Ave., or any of the other buildings in PLG, would make it onto this list -- there are far worse buildings out there in other neighborhoods. You could probably get 200 worse buildings elsewhere in Brooklyn alone.
Posted by: babs | May 31, 2007 at 08:05 PM