ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Register to vote on or before October 26, 2024 to vote in this year's November election. You can also check whether you are registered to vote here.
- register to vote
- update your voter record
- check your voter status
- request a vote-by-mail ballot
- find election information
- get your questions answered
- receive a free backpack (thanks to Council Member Shaun Abreu).
- We had our first (in a very long while) Flea Market on Saturday in the Community Room. It was so successful we may do another one. Thanks to Krystina Orellano for the sterling organization and flyers.
- Fall activities are back: Games afternoons, Thursday at 2 PM and ShapeUp NYC on Tuesdays at 6 PM, both in the Community Room.
- Renew your membership in our tenant association - or join us for the first time - at the remarkable price of $10 per year per apartment. You can also contribute to our legal fund ($100 - or as much as you can afford). Put a check under the door of our treasurer, Barbara Geller, in Apartment 11T.
TRVs (temperature regulating valves) - these are being put in all our radiators in compliance with Local Law 97.
For buildings that are subject to Article 321 [as ours is], where an owner chooses to follow the Prescriptive Energy Conservation Measures path, the following must be fully implemented no later than December 31, 2024:
- Adjusting temperature set points for heat and hot water to reflect appropriate space occupancy and facility requirements.
- Repairing all heating system leaks.
- Maintaining the building’s heating system, including but not limited to ensuring that system component parts are clean and in good operating condition.
- Installing individual temperature controls or insulated radiator enclosures with temperature controls on all radiators.
- Insulating all pipes for heating and/or hot water.
- Insulating the steam system condensate tank or water tank.
- Installing indoor and outdoor heating system sensors and boiler controls to allow for proper set-points.
- Replacing or repairing all steam traps such that all are in working order.
- Installing or upgrading steam system master venting at the ends of mains, large horizontal pipes, and tops of risers, vertical pipes branching off a main.
- Upgrading lighting to comply with the standards for new systems set forth in section 805 of the New York city energy conservation code and/or applicable standards referenced in such energy code on or prior to December 31, 2024.
- Weatherizing and air sealing where appropriate, including windows and ductwork, with focus on whole-building insulation.
- Installing timers on exhaust fans.
- Installing radiant barriers behind all radiators.
This might result in a Major Capital Improvement rent increase (no more than 2%/year, above and beyond lease renewal increases) for rent-stabilized tenants in the building. IF that should happen, SCRIE and DRIE tenants can be exempt by notifying the city of the increase order.
GUEST SPEAKERS
The room was packed with our own tenants and some tenant leaders from neighboring buildings, to hear and speak with State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly nominee Micah Lasher.
Micah Lasher, nominee for NYS Assembly
On housing: NY State spends about $4.5 billion every 5 years for affordable housing, resulting in about 40,000 new and 60,000 preserved units statewide. But it costs about $400,000 for every new unit of "income restricted" housing, so how much we can get depends on how the state budget is allocated. [Note: Rent-stabilized housing is NOT income-restricted.] He supports building a lot more housing but declined to specifically comment on the 1400-page zoning changes proposed by Chair of the NYC Department of City Planning Dan Garodnick and Mayor Adams (and others) in a "City of Yes for Housing Opportunity" plan for a lot more market-rate housing development.
Other priorities Micah cited:
- Mental health
- Congestion pricing
- Scaffolding - though this is generally a city, rather than state, issue, Micah sees the possibility of property tax abatements, incentives, modification of insurance costs, and a longer inspection cycle (now it's every 5 years) to reduce long-standing scaffolding in the city.
He also announced an "Older Adults Fair" at the Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center, 250 W. 65th Street, where you can get health screenings, flu shots, and help with SCRIE and DRIE on Tuesday, October 8, 2024 from 3 to PM. RSVP: 212-663-8052 or hoylman@nysenate.gov, or on line at www.nysenate.gov/OlderAdultFair24.
Citing the federal "HOMES" bill that U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tina Smith just introduced, Sen. Hoylman-Sigal said that government should play a much larger role in producing permanently-affordable social housing (like Mitchell-Lamas - what our building used to be),
Sen. Hoylman-Sigal had a record number of bills passed in the past legislative session, and is working to get more passed on:
- Mental Health: insurance coverage for neuropsych exams for students who may need special assistance
- Transparency : LLC transparency, giving law enforcement access to who owns what, and audits for landlords getting 421a and other tax breaks.
- Right to Counsel: more money for lawyers for tenants, and halting any landlord/tenant case in an area that is supposed to have Rt to Counsel but has no lawyers available
- Expanding "good cause eviction" (GCE) laws so more municipalities are covered. These laws means market-rate tenants have a defense in court if the landlord never offered them a renewal lease at a reasonable rate. (That rate is 5% plus the consumer price index - or 8.82% right now.) ALL tenants are supposed to get notices on their lease renewals stating whether GCE applies to them. By definition, it does not apply to rent-stabilized tenants, whose protection is much greater. It should apply to all market-rate tenants in this building.
- Expanding protection for e-bike delivery people and for pedestrians.
