Angry New Yorker

Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly." - Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783

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Friday, May 28, 2004
 
New New York City Lead Paint Law = Less Low-Cost Housing
[Ed. note - NYC's lead paint law is a perfect example of "I told you so" in action. Opponents flatout said one result would be less development, and would hurt the very people it offered to help, but the all-knowing City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, a political lightweight but panderer of the first order, rammed the measure through over Mayor Bloomberg's veto and protests. Miller's hoary rational was it would help "the children." As one pundit said, whenever you hear a plan floated aimed at "the children", hold onto your wallet. Good work, Mr. Miller.]

May 28, 2004
RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE
Lead-Paint Law Frustrates Plans for Low-Income Housing
The New York Times
By ALAN S. OSER

"Two months before it goes into effect on Aug. 2, the city's new lead-paint legislation has caused nonprofit groups and private developers to shelve plans to redevelop buildings for low- and moderate-income tenants.

* * *
Such decisions by potential buyers could leave the future of older subsidized housing developments in the city highly uncertain, housing managers and officials say. Thousands of these apartments are or will be in need of fresh private investment and more governmental assistance as their long-term mortgages come due and their federal subsidies expire.

Frank Anelante, president of Lemle & Wolf, a developer and manager of lower-income apartments, primarily in the Bronx, said he had halted the rehabilitation of two five-story walk-ups in upper Manhattan because the procedures required by the law made apartment reconstruction impractical.

* * *
The lead paint law, Local Law 1 of 2004, was enacted by the City Council in February over a veto by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It was drafted by the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning and sponsored in the City Council by Councilman Bill Perkins of Harlem.

The 53-page law imposes detailed and stringent inspection and reporting requirements. The rules apply uniformly to pre-1960 apartments in the city, excluding owner-occupied co-ops. Officials of the Bloomberg administration have argued that resources should be focused on areas where lead poisoning cases are most prevalent, principally Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick in Brooklyn, South Jamaica in Queens and Mott Haven in the Bronx.

The law requires that all surface edges that rub against each other - friction surfaces - must be treated in vacant apartments so that they can never become a future problem. Some managers say that this effectively means that windows and doors that might previously have been made "lead safe'' - by re-covering the surfaces - will have to be replaced entirely.

* * *
But insurance brokers were less optimistic. Sheldon Horowitz, president of Safe Harbour Group Ltd., an independent insurance agency in West Nyack, N.Y., that has obtained insurance for thousands of older rental apartment buildings, said that once underwriters understood the law fully, they might decline to write policies altogether. If they offer the policies, he said, they may raise their prices prohibitively, decrease their coverage, or both."

Read the entire article here.

posted by anonymous at 11:03 AM

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