Queens is burning and more unaffordable

  

QNS

A 72-year-old man was killed after a fire engulfed his illegal basement apartment in South Richmond Hill on Thursday afternoon.

The FDNY received a call just after 5 p.m. of a house fire at 94-14 132nd St. Firefighters confirmed the blaze broke out in the basement. The FDNY dispatched 12 units and 60 firefighters and EMS personnel to the scene. Paramedics rescued the 72-year-old victim, and EMS rushed him to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition. He succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead a short while later.

Two other residents were injured, and one firefighter suffered a minor injury. They were treated at the scene. The fire was brought under control at 5:44 p.m. 

QNS

New York City has launched a housing lottery for 182 units in The Monarch, a 24-story mixed-use development at 92-29 Guy R Brewer Blvd. in Jamaica that opened last July.

The building has 605 total residences, with 30 available in the housing lottery for those earning 80% of the area median income and another 152 for those earning 130% of the area median income.

Of the 30 units set aside for those earning 80% of the area median income, 25 are one-bedroom, with a monthly rent of $1,596. Up to three people can reside in each unit, as long as their combined annual income ranges from $58,046.-$111,840. The other five units are two-bedroom, with a monthly rent of $1,904. These units are meant for up to five people, who earn $69,669-$134,160 annually.

For the 152 units set aside for those earning 130% of the area median income, 125 of them are one-bedroom units, which cost $3,140 a month. They are meant for up to three residents, who combine to bring in $107,658-$181,740. The 27 remaining units are two-bedroom, with a monthly rent of $3,753. Up to five people can live in these units, as long as they combine to earn $128,675-$218,010 annually.

Amenities for residents of The Monarch include washers, dryers and dishwashers in the units, high-end kitchen appliances, countertops and finishes, air-conditioning, energy-efficient appliances, smart controls for heating and cooling, charging outlets with USB ports, hardwood floors, cable or satellite TV and high-speed internet.

QNS

The average rental price for housing units across Queens went up 4.07% year-over-year in August 2024, according to a report by the real estate firm M.N.S. Real Estate.

Queens had its overall rental price jump from $2,812 in August 2023 to $2,926 in August 2024. Studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units each experienced price hikes over this period of time. While the year-over-year changes were not as extreme as last month, the trends were similar.

Studios again had the largest percentage increase, going up 5.92%, from $2,240 in 2023 to $2,372 in 2024. Rego Park retained its title of having the most significant increase in studio rent year-over-year among the 11 Queens neighborhoods included in the study. The cost there rose from $2,138 last year to $2,714 this year.

One-bedroom units had a 3.73% rise in rent, from $2,737 in August 2023 to $2,839 in August 2024. Once again, Rego Park had the biggest boost among the Queens neighborhoods, with the rent of one-bedroom units there going up from $2,646 last year to $2,889 this year

Two-bedroom units again had the largest increase in price, going up 4.41%, from $3,415 in August 2023 to $3,566 in August 2024. Sunnyside had the biggest change, up from $2,920 last year to $3,316 this year.

The most expensive units continue to be found in Long Island City. The average rent in August there was $3,464 for studios, $4,223 for one-bedroom units and $5,975 for two-bedroom units.

Before and after the flood

Queens Eagle 

A rainy night means a sleepless night for residents of one section of East Elmhurst. They’d prefer to catch the disaster as it strikes, rather than wake up to it in the morning.

For years, residents of 77th Street and of nearby blocks in East Elmhurst say they’ve struggled with sewer water flooding their basements and apartments, causing them anxiety, health issues and thousands of dollars in damages. Most of the flooding comes after just an average rain, they say.

As climate change brings heavier and more frequent rainfall, locals are looking for solutions, which may not be as straightforward – or as immediate – as they might hope.

“On our block, sewer backup is what impacts all of us,” said Nabil Jamaleddine, an East Elmhurst local and software engineer who has lived in the area since 2017.

Pretty much whenever it rains, locals on 77th Street and surrounding blocks in the neighborhood, stress about sewer surges, which occur when the sewer system and catch basins can’t keep up with the demand brought on by the falling rain.

Heavy rain or a dangerous storm is bad, but just a little bit of rain, Jamaleddine says, can create an immense problem.

“Any amount of sewage in the basement, over a few inches, or even half an inch, is just terrible to deal with,” he said.

The flooding often leads to mold, which becomes a problem in itself. Cleaning the damage caused by the flooding creates more worries due to toxins in the sewer water that find their way into East Elmhurst basements.

Alvaro Cruz, another resident, got an infection in his legs several months after cleaning his basement after Hurricane Ida, which he attests to the dirty water.

“I was in the hospital three times,” he said.

The dangers of the water’s contents usually result in almost everything it touches, including important belongings and family heirlooms, needing to be thrown out.

Draining the basement is just half the battle – wallets are also drained.

“[I’m] just pouring money into this thing just to try to fix it,” said Jamaleddine. “But that thing gets very expensive. A lot of neighbors, they just don't have the funds to do this sort of thing.”

The problems first began to be noticed by residents after Hurricane Ida in 2021, which destroyed basements and flooded areas across the city, leaving 13 dead in the five boroughs, including 11 people from Queens.

The response to tha storm prompted a resurrected conversation on storm readiness, congressional hearings and even a visit from President Joe Biden, who stopped by a flooded block in East Elmhurst.

 

State and city shafts the poor immigrants left homeless after Ida

 

City Limits 

Vicente Guerrero, 40, finds it hard to believe that a year has already passed.

“It can’t be a year since the flooding,” Guerrero said by phone on Sept. 1, the one-year anniversary of the day the remnants of Hurricane Ida passed through New York, washing away everything in his three-bedroom basement apartment in Flushing, Queens.

After losing his belongings, Guerrero slept on the couch of a friend in Manhattan—a fellow food delivery worker like himself—for more than four months, until he finally found a room in a three-bedroom apartment in Queens that he could afford, and that was not in a basement.

Guerrero’s home was one of 11,000 damaged by floods from Hurricane Ida, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office. As the one-year anniversary of the storm passed this week, many of those impacted continue on a slow recovery: homeowners who filed a negligence claim against the city are getting denied, and more than 100 displaced people who were placed in hotels are still in them.

And while 41,367 households across New York state were approved for $223.3 million in disaster assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), another Ida relief fund established by the city and state to help undocumented storm victims has been less impactful.

The Ida relief fund for “excluded” New Yorkers was set up by the city and state for people who suffered damages from the historic flooding but didn’t qualify for aid administered by FEMA because of their immigration status. But a year later, after extending the application period several times, just a fraction of the funding has been used. The program closed to new applicants definitively on April 29.

According to New York’s Department of State, out of 554 applicants, 373 were approved for aid and 330 have received a cash payout to cover what they lost. In total, just under $2 million—or $1,901,034—of the $27 million allocated for the program has been used and distributed to storm victims as of Sept. 1.

Advocates point to several reasons for the lackluster participation numbers. The relief fund was announced by city and state officials on Sept. 26, more than 20 days after the storm hit New York, when some victims would likely have already moved out of damaged residences without documenting the losses they’d suffered.

The six community-based organizations (CBOs) charged with reviewing applications and administering the funds have explained that there are multiple checks to go through before an applicant can access funding, and relies largely on a victim’s ability to gather evidence of damages.

That was one of the reasons Guerrero said he never applied for the fund: Along with a general distrust of government programs, he anticipated it would be difficult for him to substantiate what he spent related to his displacement since he was more focused on surviving in the immediate aftermath of the storm, rather than documenting every step of his loss, he said. 

Those who applied and were approved could receive a maximum of $72,000, including up to $36,000 in grants for housing-related assistance and up to $36,000 in assistance for other needs, like vehicle damage, moving expenses, and childcare. So far, 34 percent of the dispersed aid went to direct housing-related assistance, while the majority was for the “other needs assistance” category.

Since May, when the fund closed for good, 42 new applicants received a reimbursement. It’s unlikely that the 43 applicants still pending will receive the maximum aid amount, and even if that happens, there would still be several millions left unused from the $27 million allocated for the program.

 

After screwing homeowners out of financial aid from Hurricane Ida damage, Comptroller Lander wants to make a law to make renting basements legal

 

 City Limits

 Brad Lander’s Basement Resident Protection Law would create a “basement board” to oversee the conversions and ensure residents of these apartments—called accessory dwelling units or ADUs—have access to tenants’ rights and basic safety protections. It comes a year after rains from Hurricane Ida killed 11 New Yorkers in basement units.

As the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Ida approaches, tens of thousands of basements and cellars—units often converted into illegal apartments—are still at immediate risk of flooding, and that number will triple in the next 30 years, according to a report by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander shared with City Limits Monday.

The report proposes legalizing and registering rental units via a legislative roadmap modeled after a law New York State enacted in the 1980s to convert commercial and manufacturing units into legal residences.

Lander’s policy plan, the Basement Resident Protection Law, would create a “basement board” to oversee the conversions and ensure residents of these apartments—called accessory dwelling units or ADUs—have access to tenant’s rights, such as eviction protection. It would also help homeowners put in place basic safety features to protect tenants from floods and fires.

“The idea of this legislation is that it would create a kind of interim set of rights, responsibilities and protections that would go really well with a pathway to legalization,” Lander told City Limits.

The plan would need to be implemented on the state level, and so he hopes to see a legislator in Albany take it up. It comes as the city marks one year since heavy rainfall brought by the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused deadly floods, killing 11 people residing in basement units.

The comptroller’s analysis found that 10 percent, or 43,000, of the city’s basements and cellars are at risk of flooding from rainfall or storm surges. The number of occupied basement and cellar units across the city is still unknown due to their secrecy, but estimates suggest they house at least 100,000 city residents—and that number could be much higher.

Such apartments tend to attract low-income renters, including immigrants, who are priced out of other forms of housing. As of now, tenants living in these units have no protections or rights if they demand safety features to protect them from floods, fires and other risks, and many are not incentivized to ask the city to intervene for fear of losing access to their homes.

“The only tool the city has is a vacate order,” Lander said. “That’s not what residents want, even if they’re in an unsafe unit.”

Lander’s proposal would require owners of occupied basement or cellars to register them, and would give temporary legal status to such units for up to five years—a change from current policy, in which most of the units would be deemed uninhabitable.

Ida flood homeowner victims and basement tenants got shafted by Biden

 

 Gothamist

 President Joe Biden and a contingent of federal, state, and local officials toured flood-ravaged sections of Queens earlier this month in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ida, promising speedy relief to homeowners and renters. Impacted residents were told about the $32,000 maximum payout they could expect to receive to help them recover.

But two weeks later, many are realizing it's far less simple than they were promised.

Officials are now telling residents that funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency aren’t intended to cover all of the damage caused by Ida. Instead many residents are being directed to apply for low-interest loans they’ll eventually have to repay through the U.S. Small Business Administration to defray any costs FEMA won’t cover.

“What the f--k?” said Erika Kasouto, 41, when she was told to apply for a federal loan in one of several calls to FEMA agents. The Woodside home she lives in with her parents took in five feet of water on the ground level. “It’s ridiculous. It’s disheartening.”

Despite assurances from elected officials in the immediate aftermath of the flooding, FEMA representatives have since tried to clarify on their hotline, through email, and at the city’s disaster service centers set up after Ida that grant funding is only intended to cover the essential costs of someone staying in their damaged home.

Several residents from hard-hit areas like Woodside, East Elmhurst, and Hollis told WNYC/Gothamist about similar correspondence with FEMA. And federal officials confirmed as much, adding that homeowners would likely qualify for the maximum $32,000 payout if their home was destroyed. People can qualify for a loan and still receive a FEMA grant, officials said.

THE CITY

 Two weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Ida tore through the city, killing 13 people, basements across the city are still drying out as many New Yorkers struggle to recover from the punishing storm.

With millions of dollars in federal assistance now unlocked for the city, some households that saw rivers of rain and sewage pour in will have a lifeline to begin repairing and rebuilding.

But that help isn’t for everyone.

Left out of Federal Emergency Management Agency aid are undocumented immigrants — many of whom live in the Queens neighborhoods that were pummeled hardest.

“I’ve lived in this country for four years and this is the first time I’ve lived in a basement. I was looking for affordable housing,” Marlén Romero, a 32-year-old Corona resident, told THE CITY in Spanish.

Her home and belongings were drenched as Ida dumped more than seven inches of rain in an hour on parts of the city, flooding her apartment with about two feet of water.

“I had no idea that living in a basement would be so dangerous,” she said.

A native of Mexico, Romero and her husband are both undocumented, which would shut them out of federal disaster assistance. But her family may still qualify for assistance because the couple’s 4-year-old daughter is a U.S. citizen.

“It’s not fair for all of us who are undocumented who don’t have someone ‘legal’ in their households. We live in basements so we can save some money because rent in this city is so expensive. Our income doesn’t stretch that far to get a better home,” she said.

She only learned that there was financial aid available for flooding victims through a local community group, Familias Unidas, when a school social worker mentioned it as her daughter began preschool earlier this week.

 

Queens elected officials endorse basement dwellings because they lived in them

 

LIC Post 

A group of Queens officials who have lived in basement apartments themselves said Wednesday that calls to remove such units are not realistic.

Critics who want the city to crack down on illegal basement apartments and end their use say the units are unsafe and lead to overcrowding. They point to the 11 New Yorkers who died last week when flooding from Hurricane Ida turned their subterranean homes into death traps.

However, advocates of basement units and elected officials such as Queens Borough President Donovan Richards say the city should find a way to legalize the units, while increasing safety standards. They note the city has little choice but to adopt this approach.

Richards, who held a media roundtable with Congress Members Grace Meng and Hakeem Jeffries Wednesday, said people will continue to live in basement-level apartments as long as there’s a housing affordability crisis in the city.

“One of the reasons people in Queens County live in basements is because we’re in an affordability crisis and basements play a key role in providing affordable housing,” Richards said. “… We’re going to need some real solutions moving forward on how we bring these illegal basements into compliance with the city.”

The three elected officials said the city needs to have a serious conversation and come up with a plan to address the multitude of basement apartments across the city.

There are 312,658 such units that could potentially be converted to safe, legal and affordable homes, according to NYC BASE Campaign, a group formed to fight for the legalization of basement apartments in New York City.

Richards said he has lived in basement apartments himself.

“I’m a basement baby I like to say,” he said. “A basement apartment helped get me through college as well to an extent.”

Meng said she also spent the early years of her life in a basement apartment.

“I too am a basement baby,” she said. “I spent the first six years of my life in a basement in Queens and Donovan’s right, people are going to live in basements whether we like it or not — whether we legalize them or not, they are going to live in basements.”

Likewise, Jeffries said he lived basement apartments in college, graduate school and even during his first four years as a Congress member in Washington D.C.

“Basement apartments are a reality because we have a housing crisis that exists here in New York City and the United States of America,” Jeffries said.

Meng said that she met a seven-month-old “garage baby” Tuesday while out surveying storm damage and assisting constituents in her district. The garage was converted into a small two-bedroom apartment, which was flooded in the storm.

She said the family didn’t know it was illegal for them to be housed in a garage. In fact, most tenants of basement apartments who she spoke to didn’t know their homes were illegal, Meng said.

de Blasio NYPD floods the flood zones in pursuit of basement landlords

 

Gothamist

Police officials are investigating the six incidents in which basement apartment dwellers lost their lives during last Wednesday's storm, opening up the potential for criminal charges against homeowners who may have created dangerous conditions for their tenants.

Of the 13 people who were found dead in New York City, 11 were trapped in a flooded basement, and the Department of Buildings has said that five of the six of these were illegally converted basement or cellar units.

Multiple agency investigations into building-related deaths are not unusual. Following its investigation, the NYPD may elect to refer the case to the Queens or Brooklyn District Attorney's office. Five of the homes where people died were located in Queens, while one was in Brooklyn. The one basement apartment which was a legal unit was located on Grand Central Parkway in Queens.

During his morning press briefing on Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio was vague about what kinds of punishment homeowners who rented their basements illegally might face.

 "We are going to hold people accountable, but not in a way that punishes the tenants," he said.

The mayor called regulating illegal basement apartments a "Herculean task." Across many neighborhoods, such units offer an affordable housing option to low-income New Yorkers, especially immigrants, while also helping some middle-class landlords pay their mortgage.

In 2019, the city launched a pilot program to legalize such units by providing low or no-interest loans to homeowners seeking to bring the apartments up to code. But the mayor recently called the effort a failure, since it failed to solicit much interest.

"I could tell you that we've got some miraculous plan to solve the illegal basement problem overnight. We don't," de Blasio said. "It is a massive structural problem in the city. It has been for decades. We don't have an immediate solution to this one."

By definition, a basement is a unit that has at least one-half of its height above the curb level, while a cellar has more than one-half of its height below the curb.

The city estimates there are at least 50,000 basement units, housing more than 100,000 residents. But one tenant advocacy group, NYC Base Campaign, has counted more than 312,000 such units across the city.

 

 

Current mayor's climate event and emergency plan will take 2 more years to complete

 

 NY Post

 City officials were well aware of the death traps that basement apartments would become in the event of a flash-flood emergency like the one that drowned at least eight New Yorkers living below grade Wednesday night — yet they did nothing to warn them.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Stormwater Resiliency Plan, released in May, includes an initiative that would “develop notifications for basement dwellings to keep residents out of harm’s way.”

The plan required the Office of Emergency Management to “pre-draft messaging regarding potential dangers for residents living in basement dwellings to be used for outreach and notification in advance of forecasted extreme rain events.”

Completion date? 2023.

“There are multiple initiatives, all that are very pressing and important, that are currently underway,” City Hall spokesman Mitch Schwartz said.

Leave it to Mayor Big Slow to draft a plan to make basement dwellings part of the city's housing program first and then come up with an emergency plan for them over a year later. What a stupid fucking idiot. 

 

Did not age well at all. https://t.co/2EuW0DMUCh

— Queens Crapper (@QueensCrapper) September 3, 2021