First review of Gore Park building collapses flags enforcement ‘gaps'
Boarded-up
heritage buildings crumbled
to the ground at Gore Park amid 'gaps' in communication between city departments and enforcement efforts, an initial staff review of last fall's twin collapse has found.
And despite notification to owners of 273 vacant buildings in Hamilton, 122 haven't been signed with a municipal registry meant to keep closer tabs on issues at derelict addresses.
The city's bylaws are 'strong,' but 'enforcement tools like escalating penalties and interior inspections need strengthening,' says the interim analysis before council Wednesday.
The initial review responds to Mayor Andrea Horwath's call for a comprehensive analysis of how the city deals with at-risk buildings after the
two 1870s-era buildings collapsed
at Gore Park just hours before Remembrance Day ceremonies.
'It's an awful situation,'
Horwath said at the time.
'We have to figure out why it got to this point and what else is out there, because this is not acceptable.'
'It's an awful situation,' Mayor Andrea Horwath said after two heritage buildings collapsed at Gore Park on Nov. 11, 2024. 'We have to figure out why it got to this point and what else is out there, because this is not acceptable.'
The facades that crashed down on the King Street East promenade were part of a stretch of brick-and-stone buildings that had been vacant for more than a decade amid stalled redevelopment plans.
After the collapse, the consortium behind the project demolished the other connected addresses, which were deemed unsafe, leaving a gap in the downtown streetscape.
The loss, which included pre-Confederation buildings from the 1840s, sparked outrage from heritage advocates who'd long vied to protect the facades.
In the aftermath, the city noted staff had issued 'multiple orders,' including one in February 2023 that cited roof deterioration, and had returned to the site as recently as the week before the disaster to address outstanding issues.
David Blanchard, manager partner of the Hughson Business Space Corporation, said in an emailed statement that the consortium had completed 'many of the measures' the city flagged in a July order, but one of them 'was determined unsafe to complete by structural engineers.'
The interim review before council Wednesday provides a chronology of project milestones — including complaints, inspections, orders and applications — from December 2012 to November 2024.
After two heritage buildings collapsed at Gore Park on Nov. 11, 2024, other connected historic addresses that were deemed unsafe were demolished, leaving a gap in the downtown streetscape.
Enforcing vacant properties 'can be complex' and often spans several city divisions, the report says, noting heritage, building and bylaw officials can all play a role.
To help break silos, staff are looking at how to better share information and have struck a multi-divisional working group focused on vacant buildings.
'An interim process has been developed that creates a high priority list of vacant buildings with heritage designations to use as a tool to identify, monitor and prioritize enforcement.'
The last of the Gore Park heritage buildings comes down on King Street East in November 2024.
Staff have also drafted an 'unsafe building enforcement operating framework' that guides how to launch probes into potentially risky properties.
A more involved review of the Gore collapse and recommendations to help prevent other vacant buildings from crumbling is expected later this year.
The city has hired an engineering firm to analyze what caused the King Street buildings to collapse, but the consultant hasn't finished that study yet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's policies disrupt global tourism
The United States is facing a significant decline in international tourism in 2025, with foreign visitor numbers and spending forecast to drop sharply. Analysts link the downturn to a series of policy moves by President Donald Trump, including new travel bans, heightened border scrutiny, and rollbacks on civil rights protections. The World Travel & Tourism Council estimates that these developments could cost the US economy $12.5 billion this year, deepening the trade deficit as inbound tourism is considered an export. According to the US International Trade Administration, foreign air arrivals to the US fell by 2.5% through April compared with the same period last year, with a notable 10% drop in March following the announcement of tariffs targeting Canada, China and Mexico. Canada, the top source of international visitors to the US, has seen a 15% decline in cross-border travel in April alone. Major European airlines have begun reducing flights to key US cities, including New York, Miami, and Las Vegas. Spending by international tourists is projected to decrease by 7% in 2025, marking the first drop since the pandemic recovery began. The World Travel & Tourism Council warns that the US is the only major global destination expected to record a fall in tourism revenue this year, with earnings from foreign visitors falling below $169 billion. The council does not expect US tourism spending to return to pre-Covid-19 levels before 2030. At least 12 countries have issued travel advisories urging caution when visiting the United States. Nations such as Canada, Germany, France, and the UK have warned their citizens about the risk of detention, denial of entry, or the seizure of personal devices. LGBTQ+ travellers have also been cautioned by governments including Ireland and the Netherlands following US policy changes affecting gender recognition. As a result, many tourists are choosing alternative destinations. Tourism Economics reports that global flight bookings to the US from May through July are down 11% compared to 2024. Canadian bookings are off by a third, a drop that could eliminate $6 billion in spending and more than 40,000 US jobs. Countries such as Japan and Vietnam are emerging as winners in the redirected tourism flow, with Japan reporting a record number of monthly visitors. Among the 20 US cities most dependent on international tourism, 18 are forecast to suffer declines in foreign visitor spending. Detroit, Seattle and Tampa are expected to see the sharpest drops, with losses also predicted in cities like Philadelphia and Phoenix. Only Honolulu and New York are forecast to avoid major downturns, though New York officials expect a 17% decrease in overseas tourism compared to 2024. Corporate travel is also under pressure. A survey by the Global Business Travel Association found that nearly one-third of travel managers expect reduced company spending due to recent US government actions. The number of European business travellers entering the US dropped by 18% in April alone. The association has revised its 2025 forecast downward, anticipating a 5% decline in corporate travel expenditure. Meanwhile, fewer Americans are planning trips abroad. Only 18% expect to travel overseas within the next six months, down from 24% in December, according to the Conference Board. Rising economic uncertainty is prompting many to scale back or cancel international holidays in favour of domestic alternatives. With shifting global travel patterns and growing international discontent, analysts suggest the US tourism sector faces a prolonged and uncertain recovery. Navigate the shifting tariff landscape with real-time data and market-leading analysis. Request a free demo for GlobalData's Strategic Intelligence . "Trump's policies disrupt global tourism" was originally created and published by Hotel Management Network, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
It's official! Tenant-paid rental broker fees in New York City are history.
A longtime scourge of New York City renters — paying a hefty broker fee to move into an apartment — is officially a thing of the past. The city's FARE Act — which prohibits landlords from passing broker fees to their tenants — took effect on Wednesday after a judge denied a petition from a real estate trade group seeking to block the law. It's expected to dramatically lower the up-front costs of renting an apartment in one of the nation's most costly and competitive real estate markets. The change is taking effect just as the city enters its leasing high season. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy Many tenants are cheering the changes, while others in the real estate industry are noticeably less thrilled. Landlords are fretting about their thin margins getting even thinner, and brokers fear their earnings will fall. 'I think the days of paying high fees are going to be over,' said Micky Lalchandani, the managing broker of Undivided Real Estate. 'It may also open up avenues for different business models.' Until recently, around half of the 2.3 million rentals in the city's five boroughs required tenants to pay a fee to the rental broker hired by their landlord when they signed a lease. Fees varied, but were typically between one month's rent and 15% of the annual cost of a lease. That meant tenants had to pony up thousands of dollars in addition to the standard start-up costs of the first month's rent, application fee, and security deposit. For example, a renter hunting for an apartment that costs $3,850 a month — the city's median rent as of April — could end up paying $14,630 in up-front move-in costs, with $6,930 of that sum going toward a nonrefundable 15% broker fee. New York City Council passed the FARE Act last fall with a veto-proof majority, putting an end to tenant-paid fees and requiring more transparency around rental costs. Under the law, tenants are still permitted to hire and pay their own brokers if they want apartment-hunting assistance, but no longer have to pay for the brokers that landlords hire. Violators, who can be reported via a complaint to the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, face city fines of up to $2,000 and a potential additional $2,000 fine from the state. StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned New York listings platform, estimates that the broker fee ban will drop the up-front costs of renting a formerly fee apartment more than 40% on average — from nearly $13,000 to $7,537. 'I think that's really significant for people," said Christian Emanuel, a real estate agent at Brown Harris Stephens who had primarily been working with no-fee rentals before the FARE Act. "You're already lopping off all of this money that has to come out of people's pockets up front." Rental brokers work all over the country, helping landlords with the administrative aspects of finding new tenants. In the pre-Internet days, they could effectively be gatekeepers to little-advertised listings. But now, many tenants turn to listings sites to screen potential apartments and may not interact with a broker until they request to tour a unit. Read more: Popular housing types for buyers and renters Everywhere except for New York and Boston, it's been standard for landlords to pay the brokers they hire. The changes in New York are poised to bring the city more in line with how rental markets work elsewhere in the country. But in many ways, the New York rental market is unlike any other. For one, 70% of residents rent, and more than half of all households are considered rent-burdened, meaning rent eats up more than 30% of their monthly income. And inventory in the city is also extremely constrained. Manhattan, home to 1.6 million people, had just 6,300 active rental listings in April, according to Corcoran Group data. In recent years, the citywide vacancy rate has fallen to as low as 1.4%. The New York Real Estate Board, a trade group that, along with several brokerage firms, sued the city to block the law, argued in its lawsuit that the changes will drive up rents and worsen the inventory shortage. Some brokers contacted by Yahoo Finance shared those fears. 'The sentiment is that that fee is already baked into your rent,' said Michael Jeneralczuk, team leader at Living New York, a real estate firm that represents landlords. 'I think long term, the implications will be much higher rent growth.' Exactly how much monthly rent could rise is up for debate. No-fee apartments in New York have generally rented at somewhat of a premium to their fee-based counterparts as landlords work some of their costs into their tenants' rent, according to an analysis by StreetEasy Senior Economist Kenny Lee. But how big that no-fee premium is depends on broader market conditions. When New York lost population during the pandemic, landlords broadly advertised listings as no-fee and ate the costs associated with working with brokers to attract tenants. When rental demand roared back in 2022, they passed those fees back onto tenants in the form of rent that was 6.4% higher than comparable fee-based rentals. Lee analyzed properties that switched to no-fee ahead of the FARE Act's implementation and found that rents rose, but not wildly out of step with the broader market. In April, rentals that dropped their broker fees were listed for 5.3% higher than they were a year earlier, compared with 4.6% rent growth in units that kept the fees. 'Market conditions will still prevail over landlord expenses,' Lee said. 'Property managers pay a lot of attention to demand and supply.' Ahead of the FARE Act's implementation, many properties had already switched over to no-fee. Some landlords and brokers holding out in the hours before the law went into effect were testing two-tiered pricing models, like listing a two-bedroom East Village rental at $4,200 with a broker fee, or $5,000 without one. On Wednesday morning, many were re-listed as no-fee, with rents a few hundred dollars higher. Jeneralczuk has concerns about inventory levels going forward. He's seen fee-avoidant landlords opt to pull listings from the market with the intent of only showing them to tenants who hire their own broker instead of paying for a broker to advertise them broadly. Though there's another argument that the FARE Act could end up improving inventory by making it easier for New Yorkers to move. High up-front moving costs effectively lock some New York renters into their homes, StreetEasy's Lee said, and lowering them should ease that friction. Time will tell. Lease turnover typically peaks in New York in July and August, as families move before the next school year and the city's many students and recent graduates relocate or settle in, giving the market a busy adjustment period. 'The goal is, sometime in the next couple of months, everything normalizes,' Jeneralczuk said. 'This will be the new normal, and we'll be able to go from there.' Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
It's official! Tenant-paid rental broker fees in New York City are history.
A longtime scourge of New York City renters — paying a hefty broker fee to move into an apartment — is officially a thing of the past. The city's FARE Act — which prohibits landlords from passing broker fees to their tenants — took effect on Wednesday after a judge denied a petition from a real estate trade group seeking to block the law. It's expected to dramatically lower the up-front costs of renting an apartment in one of the nation's most costly and competitive real estate markets. The change is taking effect just as the city enters its leasing high season. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Condiciones and Política de privacidad Many tenants are cheering the changes, while others in the real estate industry are noticeably less thrilled. Landlords are fretting about their thin margins getting even thinner, and brokers fear their earnings will fall. 'I think the days of paying high fees are going to be over,' said Micky Lalchandani, the managing broker of Undivided Real Estate. 'It may also open up avenues for different business models.' Until recently, around half of the 2.3 million rentals in the city's five boroughs required tenants to pay a fee to the rental broker hired by their landlord when they signed a lease. Fees varied, but were typically between one month's rent and 15% of the annual cost of a lease. That meant tenants had to pony up thousands of dollars in addition to the standard start-up costs of the first month's rent, application fee, and security deposit. For example, a renter hunting for an apartment that costs $3,850 a month — the city's median rent as of April — could end up paying $14,630 in up-front move-in costs, with $6,930 of that sum going toward a nonrefundable 15% broker fee. New York City Council passed the FARE Act last fall with a veto-proof majority, putting an end to tenant-paid fees and requiring more transparency around rental costs. Under the law, tenants are still permitted to hire and pay their own brokers if they want apartment-hunting assistance, but no longer have to pay for the brokers that landlords hire. Violators, who can be reported via a complaint to the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, face city fines of up to $2,000 and a potential additional $2,000 fine from the state. StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned New York listings platform, estimates that the broker fee ban will drop the up-front costs of renting a formerly fee apartment more than 40% on average — from nearly $13,000 to $7,537. 'I think that's really significant for people," said Christian Emanuel, a real estate agent at Brown Harris Stephens who had primarily been working with no-fee rentals before the FARE Act. "You're already lopping off all of this money that has to come out of people's pockets up front." Rental brokers work all over the country, helping landlords with the administrative aspects of finding new tenants. In the pre-Internet days, they could effectively be gatekeepers to little-advertised listings. But now, many tenants turn to listings sites to screen potential apartments and may not interact with a broker until they request to tour a unit. Read more: Popular housing types for buyers and renters Everywhere except for New York and Boston, it's been standard for landlords to pay the brokers they hire. The changes in New York are poised to bring the city more in line with how rental markets work elsewhere in the country. But in many ways, the New York rental market is unlike any other. For one, 70% of residents rent, and more than half of all households are considered rent-burdened, meaning rent eats up more than 30% of their monthly income. And inventory in the city is also extremely constrained. Manhattan, home to 1.6 million people, had just 6,300 active rental listings in April, according to Corcoran Group data. In recent years, the citywide vacancy rate has fallen to as low as 1.4%. The New York Real Estate Board, a trade group that, along with several brokerage firms, sued the city to block the law, argued in its lawsuit that the changes will drive up rents and worsen the inventory shortage. Some brokers contacted by Yahoo Finance shared those fears. 'The sentiment is that that fee is already baked into your rent,' said Michael Jeneralczuk, team leader at Living New York, a real estate firm that represents landlords. 'I think long term, the implications will be much higher rent growth.' Exactly how much monthly rent could rise is up for debate. No-fee apartments in New York have generally rented at somewhat of a premium to their fee-based counterparts as landlords work some of their costs into their tenants' rent, according to an analysis by StreetEasy Senior Economist Kenny Lee. But how big that no-fee premium is depends on broader market conditions. When New York lost population during the pandemic, landlords broadly advertised listings as no-fee and ate the costs associated with working with brokers to attract tenants. When rental demand roared back in 2022, they passed those fees back onto tenants in the form of rent that was 6.4% higher than comparable fee-based rentals. Lee analyzed properties that switched to no-fee ahead of the FARE Act's implementation and found that rents rose, but not wildly out of step with the broader market. In April, rentals that dropped their broker fees were listed for 5.3% higher than they were a year earlier, compared with 4.6% rent growth in units that kept the fees. 'Market conditions will still prevail over landlord expenses,' Lee said. 'Property managers pay a lot of attention to demand and supply.' Ahead of the FARE Act's implementation, many properties had already switched over to no-fee. Some landlords and brokers holding out in the hours before the law went into effect were testing two-tiered pricing models, like listing a two-bedroom East Village rental at $4,200 with a broker fee, or $5,000 without one. On Wednesday morning, many were re-listed as no-fee, with rents a few hundred dollars higher. Jeneralczuk has concerns about inventory levels going forward. He's seen fee-avoidant landlords opt to pull listings from the market with the intent of only showing them to tenants who hire their own broker instead of paying for a broker to advertise them broadly. Though there's another argument that the FARE Act could end up improving inventory by making it easier for New Yorkers to move. High up-front moving costs effectively lock some New York renters into their homes, StreetEasy's Lee said, and lowering them should ease that friction. Time will tell. Lease turnover typically peaks in New York in July and August, as families move before the next school year and the city's many students and recent graduates relocate or settle in, giving the market a busy adjustment period. 'The goal is, sometime in the next couple of months, everything normalizes,' Jeneralczuk said. 'This will be the new normal, and we'll be able to go from there.' Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información
