New York S 3328: Relates to tenant responses to applications for a major capital improvement rent increase

Bill Text

STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
3328
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
January 28, 2021
___________
Introduced by Sen. RIVERA -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Housing, Construction and
Community Development
AN ACT to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, the
emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seventy-four and the emer-
gency housing rent control law, in relation to tenant responses to
applications for a major capital improvement rent increase
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Paragraph 1 of subdivision g of section 26-405 of the
2 administrative code of the city of New York is amended by adding a new
3 subparagraph (g-1) to read as follows:
4 (g-1) Where an application for a major capital improvement rent
5 increase has been filed, a tenant shall have one hundred twenty days
6 from the date of mailing of a notice of a proceeding in which to answer
7 or reply. The city rent agency shall provide any responding tenant with
8 the reasons for the city rent agency's approval or denial of such appli-
9 cation; or
10 § 2. Paragraph 6 of subdivision c of section 26-511 of the administra-
11 tive code of the city of New York, as separately amended by section 12
12 of part K of chapter 36 and section 28 of part Q of chapter 39 of the
13 laws of 2019, is amended to read as follows:
14 (6) provides criteria whereby the commissioner may act upon applica-
15 tions by owners for increases in excess of the level of fair rent
16 increase established under this law provided, however, that such crite-
17 ria shall provide (a) as to hardship applications, for a finding that
18 the level of fair rent increase is not sufficient to enable the owner to
19 maintain approximately the same average annual net income (which shall
20 be computed without regard to debt service, financing costs or manage-
21 ment fees) for the three year period ending on or within six months of
22 the date of an application pursuant to such criteria as compared with
EXPLANATION--Matter in (underscored) is new; matter in bracketsitalics
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07637-01-1

S. 3328 2
1 annual net income, which prevailed on the average over the period nine-
2 teen hundred sixty-eight through nineteen hundred seventy, or for the
3 first three years of operation if the building was completed since nine-
4 teen hundred sixty-eight or for the first three fiscal years after a
5 transfer of title to a new owner provided the new owner can establish to
6 the satisfaction of the commissioner that he or she acquired title to
7 the building as a result of a bona fide sale of the entire building and
8 that the new owner is unable to obtain requisite records for the fiscal
9 years nineteen hundred sixty-eight through nineteen hundred seventy
10 despite diligent efforts to obtain same from predecessors in title and
11 further provided that the new owner can provide financial data covering
12 a minimum of six years under his or her continuous and uninterrupted
13 operation of the building to meet the three year to three year compar-
14 ative test periods herein provided; and (b) as to completed building-
15 wide major capital improvements, for a finding that such improvements
16 are deemed depreciable under the Internal Revenue Code and that the cost
17 is to be amortized over a twelve-year period for a building with thir-
18 ty-five or fewer housing accommodations, or a twelve and one-half-year
19 period for a building with more than thirty-five housing accommodations,
20 for any determination issued by the division of housing and community
21 renewal after the effective date of the the chapter of the laws of two
22 thousand nineteen that amended this paragraph and shall be removed from
23 the legal regulated rent thirty years from the date the increase became
24 effective inclusive of any increases granted by the applicable rent
25 guidelines board. Temporary major capital improvement increases shall be
26 collectible prospectively on the first day of the first month beginning
27 sixty days from the date of mailing notice of approval to the tenant.
28 Such notice shall disclose the total monthly increase in rent and the
29 first month in which the tenant would be required to pay the temporary
30 increase. An approval for a temporary major capital improvement increase
31 shall not include retroactive payments. The collection of any increase
32 shall not exceed two percent in any year from the effective date of the
33 order granting the increase over the rent set forth in the schedule of
34 gross rents, with collectability of any dollar excess above said sum to
35 be spread forward in similar increments and added to the rent as estab-
36 lished or set in future years. Upon vacancy, the landlord may add any
37 remaining balance of the temporary major ca