Stand for Tenant Safety (STS) Package
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This package contains 11 bills that provide vital protections for tenants to fight back against landlord harassment, which includes a bill authored by Council Member Margaret Chin to fight against landlords who use construction to harass tenants.
Intro 918 gives working families and seniors new protections against predatory building owners who expose their tenants to hazardous, inhumane living conditions in an effort to drive them out of their homes.
With the STS package expected to be enacted immediately, here is how bills like Intro 918 and its companion tenant protection bills will impact residents like you:
- Intro 918: Fights against landlords who use construction to harass tenants by requiring DOB to inspect construction documents at buildings where 1) more than 25% of units are occupied 2) landlords have a history of harassment. These rent-regulated buildings include those buildings subject to a rent-overcharge application
- Intro 924: Fights against landlords who use vacate orders to evict tenants by requiring DOB to provide a date by which landlords should correct the violations that led to the vacate order
- Intro 926: Creates multi-agency task force to evaluate construction work in residential buildings, publish its findings, and make recommendations
- Intro 930: Expands HPD’s Third Transfer program to include buildings where landlords have substantial building code violations
- Intro 931: Requires City to impose tax liens on buildings with substantial building code violations
- Intro 936: Amends information included in tenant protection plans, prescribes rules for DOB and landlords to comply, and calls for more DOB inspections to ensure sites are complying
- Intro 938: Requires DOB to oversee a watch list of contractors who have been found to work without a permit in the past 2 years
- Intro 939: Increases penalties for work without a permit
- Intro 940: Increases penalties for violating a stop work order
- Intro 944: Adds additional penalties for performing construction work without a permit, and increases oversight for buildings where such work has occurred
- Intro 960: Creates a Safe Construction Bill of Rights for landlords who want to do any construction work that requires a DOB permit
Through these historic pieces of legislation, our City will have more tools to empower every day New Yorkers to fight against tenant harassment and displacement.