City creates new list of deteriorating buildings

The city has created a new list of buildings throughout the five
boroughs that are at risk of complete deterioration, Crain’s reported.

The list, on the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s
website
includes 34 buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx that are at
risk based on their number of housing code violations. It was
created after a roof-to-cellar inspection by the city’s Proactive
Enforcement Bureau, which was created as part of the new Proactive
Preservation Initiative that surveyed 335 residential buildings. The
list will be updated every six months and allow for the tracking of
the landlords’ efforts to correct the problem. Buildings are removed
if violations are reduced by 80 percent, which will soon be the case
for five of the buildings on the current list that have already
recorded some improvements. The list will also include 22 buildings
involved in a housing lawsuit.

The reason that there are no buildings
from Queens on the list, a housing agency spokesperson explained, is
that that borough has primarily had single-family foreclosures, and
does not have as much multi-family housing stock as the other
boroughs. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that many
individuals brought properties in lower income neighborhoods during
the real estate boom in the hopes of making a profit, but then were
unable to sell them after the crash and were stuck being landlords.
She added that the city could save money by pushing for the
restoration of buildings under disrepair before the city had to step
in itself. [Crain’s]