Latest news with #KennyBurgos
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
PIX on Politics Daily: Renting in New York City
NEW YORK (PIX11) — Welcome to PIX on Politics Daily with Dan Mannarino, where we break down the day's political news, headlines, and issues that matter most to you through in-depth conversation. Join us daily on PIX11+ streaming at 1 p.m. as we invite the newsmakers, lawmakers, and key players shaping policies that impact local communities. On Thursday, Dan Mannarino speaks with the CEO of the New York Apartment Association, Kenny Burgos, about the likelihood of a rent freeze for rent stabilized apartments in New York City. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Post
01-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
NYC's rent-stabilized apartments face hikes of up to 7.75%
The prices of rent-stabilized apartments are set to go up in the Big Apple after the city's Rent Guidelines Board voted in favor of potential hikes Wednesday. The panel, which is charged with deciding rates for the Big Apple's regulated apartments, agreed to rent increases between 1.75% to 4.75% for one-year leases and between 4.75% to 7.75% for two-year leases. The board, which has increased rents by a combined 9% in the last three years, will finalize the rates in a June vote. Millions of New Yorkers could be slugged with higher rent after the city's Rent Guidelines Board voted in favor of potential hikes for rent-stabilized apartments. AFP via Getty Images Any approved hikes would affect rent-stabilized leases that start on or after Oct. 1. Mayor Eric Adams described the vote as a 'challenging decision' given the need to balance the quality of regulated buildings without overburdening tenants with infeasible increases. He acknowledged, though, that a 7.75% increase was 'far too unreasonable of a burden for tenants' amid a housing affordability crisis. The New York Apartment Association, which represents the owners of some 400,000 regulated units, said the proposed hikes didn't go far enough. 'Following this inadequate adjustment, we now need elected officials to step up and lower the costs they can control – like property taxes, water and sewer payments, and energy prices,' CEO Kenny Burgos said. 'If they do not take action, then thousands of rent-stabilized buildings will fail in the next year.'
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rent-stabilized shortfalls may grow 'exponentially,' new data shows
It's no longer just landlords and their advocates screaming into the void about the ruination of rent-stabilized housing — NYU's Furman Center has joined the din. At the Rent Guidelines Board's second meeting of 2025, New York University's center for housing research presented data showing that older, entirely rent-stabilized buildings — particularly those in the Bronx — are grappling with revenue shortfalls caused by the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019. The HSTPA made it impossible to substantially raise rents outside of the annual adjustments approved by the RGB annually. which have historically failed to keep pace with inflation. 'The rent shortfall has likely grown since HSTPA passed and will continue to grow, potentially exponentially, in 100 percent rent-stabilized buildings,' a presentation delivered by Furman Center Senior Policy Director Mark Willis concluded. The New York Apartment Association, which represents rent-stabilized landlords, said the commentary marked the first time the Furman Center had expressed concern about the future of rent-stabilized housing. The center did release an initial analysis of HSTPA in 2021, but it found little evidence of falling values or disinvestment. 'Their [recent] findings paint a sobering picture: a growing number of rent-stabilized buildings, especially in the outer boroughs, are on the brink,' NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos said. The center's data shows older rent-stabilized buildings in the Bronx that were just breaking even before HSTPA have fallen farther into the red every year since it passed. In 2024, the average unit was operating at an annual shortfall of $1,444. Per the research, absent alternate routes to raise revenue, the RGB's rent adjustments aren't cutting it. The Furman Center seized on the findings to make a case for intervention — something both sides of the landlord-tenant divide have broached in recent years. 'To preserve the long-term viability of the most vulnerable sub-segments of this stock, the shortfall may need to be dealt with outside of the RGB process,' the center's presentation reads. Landlords have long claimed that the board's data-based rent adjustments don't account for all of their expenses — debt service is notably missing — and that public members are swayed by tenant interests. Renters, meanwhile, claim the mayor-appointed board bends to real estate's asks. But each year, conversations around shifting the system fail to progress past finger-pointing. Willis' presentation did not propose specific solutions either, but it did warn that the city alone couldn't plug the hole created by the HSTPA for many building owners. The problem, he said, was too great. 'Unless we vastly increase the amount of budget for subsidized housing, almost all of it is going to have to go to rescuing these buildings,' Willis said. 'So we won't be building any new ones in the future either,' he added. 'That would be the risk.' Landlords refute rent board's report on rising profits Rent board approves 2.75% hike as landlords, tenants take aim at broken process Rent board is worst show on Broadway This article originally appeared on The Real Deal. Click here to read the full story.
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC landlords fume over new composting fines turning them into dumpster divers: ‘Detached from reality'
Big Apple residents are legally required to compost their garbage, but steaming landlords say they're getting the rotten end of the deal by being forced into dumpster diving to comply. Starting Tuesday, the city will dish out $25 fines for failing to separate food scraps from regular trash. But for apartment buildings, the responsibility will fall on maintenance staffers rather than the residents, who can continue to chuck their coffee grinds and chicken bones down the garbage chute without consequence, property owners claim. 'We don't think that forcing hard-working building supers to be elbow-deep sorting through tenants' garbage — turning building maintenance into a daily dumpster dive — is where the government should be focusing their energy and resources right now,' railed Kenny Burgos, the New York Apartment Association CEO and former Bronx state rep, to The Post. 'The city has tossed us a mess without gloves.' Burgos has been protesting the composting mandate since before it went into effect in October as part of the Sanitation Department's ongoing war on rats, warning that the 'level of anonymity' in apartment buildings means the onus for sorting compost will fall on building management. For apartment buildings with four or more units, the mandate means adding another general bin specifically for composting, similar to how garbage and other recycling is sorted. All leaf and yard waste and food scraps, including food-soiled products such as paper plates and pizza boxes, are expected to be placed in composting bins. 'Every building in NYC handles trash differently, but for decades they have ALL been required to sort their recyclables — and now they are required to sort their compostable material as well,' said Vincent Gragnani, a spokesman for Sanitation, in an email. 'Whether that means bins on every floor or bins in one common area such as a basement would be up to the building management. The bottom line is that food and yard waste must be separated from trash and put out on recycling day so that we can turn it into finished compost or clean energy.' But New Yorkers haven't traditionally been good at recycling anything. Fewer than half of paper and cardboard that could be recycled in the city actually is, and just around 41% of plastic, glass, metal and cartons is tossed in the right bins, according to a study released by Sanitation last year. Landlords now fear that the fallout from residents not properly composting will only fall on them. 'I challenge the people who passed this law and are trying to implement it on the backs of the housing people in the city of New York to spend two weeks sorting through garbage to see how well it works, especially in a multifamily building with a huge garbage chute,' griped John Crotty, who manages multiple buildings across the city. Crotty slammed the law as 'ill-conceived,' claiming that tenants who are not interested in composting won't change their behavior because they won't be handed down the fine. The landlord expects his supers will now spend double the amount of time handling trash duties, which previously just amounted to bringing the garbage to the curb. 'If you've ever had to change diapers — that is disgusting. Now you have a garbage bag full of everyone else's diapers and everything else they have. Are you going to [send workers in there]? It's not kind to the people who work in the building,' Crotty said. 'They don't care bout the employees who work in these buildings at all,' he said of city officials. 'It is an impossible standard — it is detached from reality.' Starting Tuesday, residents will be able to call 311 to report buildings that are not helping them compost their trash.
