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City is now doing what it does best: going around after the fact saying what ”shame” people died in these properties. All of them have histories of open violations going back years. What fines were assessed are puny and obviously not much of a deterrent.
A fine of $1200 don't mean Jack when property owner is getting that or more each month in rent from just one illegal tenant.
Same happens after a fire in an illegal apartment causes death, up to and including FDNY. City makes lots of noise for a while, beefs up inspections, etc... But not long after the dead are cold in their graves it's back to business as usual.
All my family, friends and nearly everyone else I know or knew on Staten Island that owns has a finished basement. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, people on my block, etc.... We're taking fully finished off with kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms.
The rules governing basements are convoluted. Apparently a family member can live in a basement. I own a 1-family house. I have a finished basement with only a small half-bath. I use it mostly for storage now.
I notice that many new S.I. 2-family homes sometimes come with basement kitchens and enough space for a bedroom. Also occasionally a second exit. If you look at the C of O for one of these houses their is a caveat about not being able to use the basement as an apartment.
From a random C of O for a new 2-family house in New Dorp (which sold for $1M) -
Quote:
TWO FAMILY DWELLING WITH ACCESSORY OPEN PARKING FOR THREE CARS.... THE THREE FIXTURE BATHROOM LOCATED IN THE CELLAR SHALL BE USED SOLELY IN CONNECTION WITH THE DWELLING UNIT ABOVE. NO LIVING, SLEEPING OR COOKING IS PERMITTED IN THE CELLAR, AND IN NO CASE SHALL THE CELLAR BE RENTED INDEPENDENT OF THE DWELLINGS ABOVE.
This is the builders way of winking at the zoning laws which do not permit 3-family homes in the Grant City - New Dorp - Oakwood areas, or in most of SI. In the unlikely event that there is ever an upzoning this house can quickly become a legal 3-family house if the owner chooses. Though owners of $1M homes don't usually rent out their basements.
A friend lives in a 1-family-only zoned area. His 1-family home comes with a finished basement that includes a kitchen and bathroom. Same deal, if ever upzoned he can have a legal 2-family home if he so chooses, which I know he won't.
This belies the fact that nationwide there are probable seven figures of people living in them.
This is one of those things that if banned is just, in this case literally, driven underground. I've looked at properties to buy and found illegal basement apartments in them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightcrawler
Basements were not made for human habitation.
No one should ever live in a basement for so many reasons.
They were not meant to be lived in.
The rules governing basements are convoluted. Apparently a family member can live in a basement. I own a 1-family house. I have a finished basement with only a small half-bath. I use it mostly for storage now.
I notice that many new S.I. 2-family homes sometimes come with basement kitchens and enough space for a bedroom. Also occasionally a second exit. If you look at the C of O for one of these houses their is a caveat about not being able to use the basement as an apartment.
From a random C of O for a new 2-family house in New Dorp (which sold for $1M) -
This is the builders way of winking at the zoning laws which do not permit 3-family homes in the Grant City - New Dorp - Oakwood areas, or in most of SI. In the unlikely event that there is ever an upzoning this house can quickly become a legal 3-family house if the owner chooses. Though owners of $1M homes don't usually rent out their basements.
A friend lives in a 1-family-only zoned area. His 1-family home comes with a finished basement that includes a kitchen and bathroom. Same deal, if ever upzoned he can have a legal 2-family home if he so chooses, which I know he won't.
So many are renting out not just illegal basement apartments, but again just "apartments" in general out on SI. Attics, second floor, entire house carved up into illegal units....
In some areas like Port Richmond, West Brighton, St. George, New Brighton, etc... every other house on a block has some sort of illegal housing.
You've got people who maybe inherited a house or maybe one they own, but area has changed so no one wants to live there. Seeing they can make money (again good amount of it not reported in taxes), illegal housing becomes a no brainer I suppose.
Other end of it are people who own but either from get go or maybe later on cannot afford their house. So like days of old when our grand parents or great grand parents took in "lodgers", these people create either entire illegal boarding houses, or at least illegal apartments.
There are as many as 114,000 illegal basement apartment units in New York City, according to estimates. On Wednesday night, five of them became death traps where people drowned in floodwaters caused by historic downpours from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
These basement homes are now front and center in the city’s reckoning after the storm, which brought more rain in a single hour than the city has ever recorded.
They also represent a persistent issue that the city has tried and failed to address in recent years. A pilot program to legalize the dwellings had a minimal impact, and housing advocates worry that efforts to catalog basement units would result in evictions and increased homelessness.
At a Friday news conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged the city’s struggles to address basement units, and said that both locating and updating all the dwellings so that they meet city building codes would be costly and take many years.
In 2018, the city began a pilot program in East New York to legalize basement units. However the program, initially funded with $1 million over three years, was cut during last year’s city budgeting process, and its funding was not restored this year. Only nine homeowners received money from the program.
“We saw a little progress. We didn't see anywhere near the progress we hoped for,” de Blasio said of the program. “It turns out trying to take an illegal basement up to code is incredibly difficult, very costly, and takes a lot of cooperation with the homeowner.”
Besides preparing a comprehensive plan for cataloging and updating basement units, de Blasio said the city would create a new storm warning system, including mandatory evacuations, especially of basement units, when forecasts were most dire.
How about fixing the city’s drainage infrastructure so that the water wouldn’t come into the basements in the first place?
That would be too logical
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