Late-night construction at the Brooklyn Bridge site has been too loud for residents at the Southbridge Towers at 90 Beekman Street in Lower Manhattan, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told city officials last week. He wrote a letter to Janette Sadik-Khan, Department of Transportation Commissioner, asking her to intervene because the DOT has admitted in the past that the noise exceeds its own codes. He wrote that the worst noise occurs between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. when residents are trying to sleep.

Silver suggested that the city use noise-dampening devices on the heavy equipment, and also asked that the city look to install sound barriers in the apartments most affected by the construction. [more]

There’s less than a week left before the state’s rent regulation laws expire, and according the Post, Albany lawmakers are still so far from reaching an agreement that they’ve begun considering a short-term extension that would buy them some time to continue negotiating. The current laws, which expire June 15, govern the prices on approximately 1.1 million rental apartments in the city. Gov. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver have been pushing to expand tenant protections, while Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is advocating for a more landlord-friendly plan that sticks to the status quo. [more]

As next week’s expiration of the state’s rent regulation laws approaches, a new state-sponsored report has revealed that nearly two-thirds of New York City’s 2 million rental apartments still enjoy regulated rental rates. According to the Post, the report, by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, found 1.4 million rental apartments to be either rent-stabilized, publicly-owned or taxpayer-subsidized — and that’s after the roughly 10,000 units that have been deregulated over the course of the last decade. The impending June 15 deadline for rent regulation to be renewed is threatening some 1 million New York City apartments as lawmakers, tenant advocates and landlords try to hammer out an agreement on income and monthly rent thresholds for decontrol.
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An agreement struck today could prove crucial in ensuring existing Battery Park City residents can continue to afford their homes. According to Crain’s, the Battery Park City Authority, the public agency that manages the neighborhood, voted to pass a two-month old proposal to cut monthly ground rents for condominium owners in 11 buildings by $279 million over the next 30 years. Established in the mid-1980s, ground rents force owners to pay rent on the ground upon which their building stands and costs were scheduled to more than double over the next few years, and total $804 million through 2042. [more]

The State Assembly has passed a bill to extend and bolster the city’s rent regulation laws through 2016, Speaker Sheldon Silver’s office announced yesterday evening. The bill would repeal vacancy decontrol, which allows landlords to deregulate apartments when they become vacant or when the rent tips above $2,000 monthly. It would also raise the thresholds at which landlords can deregulate apartments based on tenants’ income. Landlords can currently begin charging market-rate rents when a tenant makes more than $175,000 per year and pays at least $2,000 in monthly rent; under the new rules, those limits would be increased to $300,000 and $3,000. TRD [more]

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to extend state rent laws that include rent-stabilization provisions on more than one million units across the city, according to the Wall Street Journal. The current law doesn’t expire until June 15, but he hopes to secure an extension with the April 1 state budget submission. Extending rent rules is typically a hot button issue in the state legislature and for landlords and tenants across the city. Republican pressure helped relax the rent-stabilization laws in recent years, and more than 300,000 units have been deregulated since 1993. [more]

With New York’s rent-regulation laws set to expire June 15, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has released a new report that supports their extension. Entitled, “The New Housing Emergency,” the report (in full after the jump) says loopholes in the city’s current rent-stabilization rules — like vacancy decontrol and rent increases due to renovations — result in the loss of more than 10,000 rent-regulated apartments per year. The median income for tenants of the 1.02 million rent-regulated apartments in New York City is $38,000, according to the report. TRD  [more]

A planned 63 percent spike in ground rents in Battery Park City has been averted, according to Crain’s, after New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver helped broker a deal to reduce that increase. Ground rents, which are paid by residents to the Battery Park City Authority, vary among the 2,400 condominium unit owners in Battery Park City’s 11 buildings. The tentative agreement, reached Wednesday, will raise ground rents by 33 percent next year and could save residents of the Lower Manhattan neighborhood $279 million over the next three decades. [more]

New York State’s rent-regulation law, which governs the rents for more than one million stabilized apartments in New York City, expires June 15, but Democrats are already speaking out against it in its original form, the Observer reported. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver believes that rent regulation must be renewed and strengthened in favor of tenants. If it isn’t, he will not support the renewal of a tax incentive that expired in December and was embraced by apartment developers. “We shouldn’t be extending a tax break for residential developers without making sure we are strengthening protections for the tenants who live in their buildings,” Silver said in a statement last month. [more]

The laws that cap rent increases on 1 million city apartments expire in June, and landlord groups, tenant advocates and politicians all agree that they should be extended, according to the Daily News. Last time the laws were up for a renewal, in 2003, Senate Republicans threatened to let them expire and ended up forcing the Democrats to accept a simple renewal. Now the Democrats think they have a better chance of getting a good deal for tenants. The real estate industry is desperate to renew a tax break known as 421-a, which spurs new apartment building development, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver says developers won’t get that renewed unless they agree to change the rent laws. [more]