Bills Aim to Protect Renters During Construction Work
New York Times, By Mireya Navarro, SEPT. 29, 2015
New York City Council members will introduce a package of bills on
Wednesday intended to prevent landlords from pressuring tenants to move
out by making their apartments unlivable through construction work.
The proposed legislation, a total of a dozen bills, follows accounts of
residents’ enduring latenight noise, harmful levels of dust and damage to
their apartments, which some of the tenants said were efforts to get them to
leave their rentstabilized apartments. Landlords are supposed to provide
tenantprotection plans when they do renovations in occupied buildings. But
in many cases, the landlords tell the city that their buildings are vacant, and
the city grants the construction permits without verifying the claims.
