Legislation to Fine Housing Speculators

With a new initiative against needlessly vacant properties, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is leading an effort to fight housing shortages in upper Manhattan.

The two-pronged initiative—legislation on both the state and city levels—aims to alleviate rising rents and sparse housing. Rents have skyrocketed recently due both to the influx of large-scale development in Harlem and the shortage of housing and space, setting off concerns about affordability.

The state legislation, introduced by Assemblyman Herman Farrell (D-Washington Heights), and state Senator José M. Serrano (D-Bronx and East Harlem) will remove an existing tax benefit for vacant residential sites above 110th Street. The favorable tax treatment traces back to the 1970s, when the city wanted to reduce a housing surplus in the city.

The city legislation, introduced by City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) would require owners to register vacant properties with the city and outline plans for those properties’ futures. Owners would also owe a fee of up to $5,000 for each year the property remained vacant.

“Affordable housing is desperately needed in New York City, which has the lowest rental vacancy rate of any city in the nation,” Stringer said in a statement. “This legislation ... would also provide the city with additional tools to work with owners to foster the creation of affordable apartments.”

Many of the current owners of vacant properties are property speculators, who hold their land off the market until housing market values rise further. The two bills would penalize this practice.

“Everybody knows that there isn’t enough housing in the city,” said Khiera Kersey-Heggs, a resident of 3333 Broadway, a large apartment complex on W. 135th Street that opted out of an affordable housing program three years ago. “It makes me angry to think that some people would just sit on empty space.”

Kersey-Heggs, a teacher at P.S. 114 in the south Bronx, said she makes $43,000 a year and has seen the rent of her two-bedroom apartment rise from $1,600 from $1,800 in just a few months.

In addition to trying to make housing more affordable, the proposed legislation is expected to reel in more than $100 million per year in new tax revenues, according to a press release from the borough president’s office.

“Part of the problem is that current tax policy gives landowners no financial reason or incentive to put their properties into active use,” Serrano said in a statement. “It’s time to end the loophole and move forward improving our community.”

kevin.shin@columbiaspectator.com