Today, the City Council, the de Blasio Administration, and tenant advocates celebrated a new policy to protect tenants from the cycle of harassment. The “Certification of No Harassment” (CONH) legislation, which the Council is expected to pass at its meeting Thursday, will require covered building owners seeking to demolish or make significant alterations to their building to prove they have not engaged in harassment before they can get the permits they need from the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB). If a landlord is found to have harassed tenants, they would not be able to pull those permits for five years – unless they make a substantial portion of their building affordable to low-income families, with no public subsidy.
The CONH program has been in place in Hell’s Kitchen since 1974, and a similar requirement applies to all Single-Room Occupancy buildings (SROs) citywide. Tenant advocates have been working to expand the program to neighborhoods with rising rents, where tenants are at particular risk of displacement. While NYC has taken significant steps to prevent harassment through legislation, proactive enforcement, and providing legal counsel, some unscrupulous landlords continue to harass their tenants. Once a tenant is driven out, the landlord can make significant renovations, or demolish and rebuild, enabling them to dramatically raise rents.
In June 2016, a working group co-chaired by Council Member Brad Lander and the HPD Commissioner, and comprised of a wide range of stakeholders, including government agencies, building owners and managers, tenant advocates, legal service providers, and policy experts, met to explore ways to further deter harassment, including the potential for an expanded Certification of No Harassment program. Working with members of the group, the City performed innovative data analyses to find the characteristics of buildings where tenant harassment was suspected, reported, or confirmed. The group looked at many factors and learned that buildings that are physically distressed or recently sold may be associated with reports of harassment.
As a result of the Working Group process, the City Council and the Administration have developed new legislation for a 36-month pilot that significantly expands the Certificate of No Harassment (CONH) program. Read more »
