New bill would ban broker babble

NoLita was one thing, but between SoHa (South Harlem), ProCro (Prospect Heights and Crown Heights) and BoCoCa (Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens), it’s all gotten to be too much for Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. For that reason, Jeffries plans to introduce a bill next week that would require new city neighborhood names to go through a serious vetting process, garnering approvals from the local community board, the City Council and the mayor. Real estate brokers who market their properties with fake micro-neighborhood monikers would be fined or potentially suspended from the profession. “It’s the Wild West in New York City right now,” Jeffries told the New York Times. “Brokers are allowed to essentially pull names out of thin air in order to rebrand a neighborhood and have the effect of raising rents or home prices.” Jeffries said he’s already tried to contact the Real Estate Board of New York to no avail. Michael Slattery, president of REBNY, called the issue “difficult to legislate.” Last week, The Real Deal’s own editor-in-chief, Stuart Elliott, weighed in on the renaming trend amongst brokers in an interview with amNewYork. “Sometimes the names are absurd, but other times they do help to give a sense of identity to a micro-neighborhood. They help to identify and develop [its] character,” he said. [NYT]

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