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Thursday, March 12, 2020

McKee's Media (excerpted) - 3/12/2020

ARTICLES OF INTEREST TO TENANT ADVOCATES:

END MCIs
ANTI-WAREHOUSING BILL
MANHATTAN DA: INVESTIGATING LANDLORD FRAUD?
UPSTATE RENT REGULATION 
ZONING




Queens Daily Eagle: Real estate industry floods Donovan Richards campaign for Queens Borough President with contributions

NON-PROFIT DONORS MAY BECOME PUBLIC
City & State: Defeated in court, Andrew Cuomo again floats bill to require nonprofits to make public disclosure of their donors

Brendan Lyons: Lawmakers seek to bypass Cuomo, win constitutional amendment to replace weak JCOPE ethics agency (Albany Times Union)




Kingston Daily Freeman: Assembly Member Kevin Cahill doubts accuracy of study that found Kingston vacancy rate exceeded 5 percent




City & State: Last Week's Winners & Losers
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/winners-losers/winners-losers/weeks-biggest-winners-losers.html-5

Bill Mahoney: Despite Cuomo's statement that U.S. Census is a priority, state has not yet released outreach funds from last year's budget (Politico NY)
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/03/07/state-slow-to-start-its-census-prep-efforts-1265981

City Limits: Emergency grants can help stop homelessness -- if you have a lawyer
https://citylimits.org/2020/03/11/emergency-grants-can-help-stop-homelessness-if-you-have-a-lawyer/

Patch: Three-way race for Brooklyn state senate seat heats up
https://patch.com/new-york/prospectheights/three-way-race-brooklyn-state-senate-seat-amps  

Erin Hudson: Brokers can charge fees at least until June as state asks for extension to respond to real estate industry's lawsuit (The Real Deal)
https://therealdeal.com/2020/03/06/three-more-months-in-limbo-broker-fee-ban-lawsuit-delayed/

Matthew Haag: Tenant advocates say brokers & landlords are violating state's new rent laws (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/nyregion/nyc-rent-laws-broker-fees.html

Rich Calder: Bronx D.A. investigates anti-tenant City Council Member Mark Gjonaj for misuse of campaign funds (New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2020/03/09/bronx-district-attorneys-office-probing-councilman-mark-gjonaj/

Amanda Luz Henning Santiago: Mark Gjonaj's many unflattering headlines (City & State)
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/news-politics/councilman-mark-gjonajs-many-unflattering-headlines.html

Walter Mosley & Alex Fennell: 421-a tax subsidy fuels gentrification (Brooklyn Eagle OpEd)
https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2020/03/04/opinion-this-state-tax-break-helps-fuel-brooklyns-gentrification/ 

Wall Street Journal: Master plan to develop Sunnyside Yards envisions $14.4 billion deck over the train yards to make room for 12,000 affordable apartments
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-queens-project-to-include-12-000-affordable-apartments-11583244000

Mike Jaccarino: "There's nobody left to lay off." How the once-great tabloid New York Daily News sank into decrepitude (Vanity Fair)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/how-onetime-tabloid-king-new-york-daily-news-sank-into-decrepitude

The Intercept: Working Families Party endorses Bernie Sanders for U.S. president
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/09/working-families-party-endorses-bernie-sanders-president/

Common Dreams: Bernie Sanders crushes Trump by 18 points among independent voters in national poll
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/11/sanders-crushes-trump-18-points-among-independent-voters-new-national-general

Danny Katch: Can Bernie Sanders make the Democratic Party a Democratic Party? (The Indypendent)
https://indypendent.org/2020/02/can-bernie-sanders-make-the-democratic-party-a-democratic-party/  

Mother Jones/ProPublica: The benefits of being Joe Biden's brother
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/02/the-benefits-of-being-joe-bidens-brother/  

Nathan Robinson: Democrats, you really do not want to nominate Joe Biden (Current Affairs)
(A long but thoroughly documented & reasoned article about why Joe Biden would be a disastrous Democratic nominee, and why Democrats should support Bernie Sanders)
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/democrats-you-really-do-not-want-to-nominate-joe-biden/

Albany Times Union: A century after women's suffrage, state legislature is one-third female
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/A-century-after-women-s-suffrage-female-15111289.php 

Joseph Spector: Coronavirus scams: How to protect yourself from being ripped off (Journal News)
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/05/coronavirus-scams-how-protect-yourself-being-ripped-off/4964505002/ 

City & State: Everything New Yorkers need to know about the 2020 U.S. Census
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/policy/everything-new-yorkers-need-know-about-2020-census.html

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

End Major Capital Improvement increases!

Will Albany end MCI increases?

Come to 50 W. 97th Street's Community Room on

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2020 at 8 PM to learn how we can make it happen. 

WHY should Albany end Major Capital Improvement increases?


Some highlights:

Landlords have plenty of other reasons to improve buildings (other than collecting MCI increases).
  • Energy efficiency saves landlords money.  So new boilers, roofs, windows, plumbing, electrical wiring, etc., can save landlords $$$.
  • Preserved or increased value of their property.  Why should tenants pay for that?
  • Legal obligation to provide tenants with safe, habitable apartments and common areas. NYC ordered that our balconies and facade be maintained, for example.  (The rest of us don't need to get paid to obey the law; why should landlords?)  
The Rent Guidelines Board already calculates in the costs of maintaining a rental building when it sets the rent increases (if any) each year. Why should landlords be compensated twice?

MCI increases benefit mainly large landlords. From 2000 to 2014, 70% of MCI applications received by the State's housing agency came from landlords who owned more than 150 units.

It won't hurt the construction industry since MCI jobs are a tiny slice of the pie. In 2014, MCI costs were only 3/10ths of one percent of the total amount spent on construction.  So they won't affect construction jobs. 

https://www.housingjusticeforall.org/mcis