Are the Landlords Bluffing?

A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines. [Curbed]( FRIDAY, JULY 14 THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH [Are the Landlords Bluffing?]( And why is it so hard to tell? Video: @chipnyc, @nyvacant There’s a one-bedroom in Jackson Heights that looks like it’s absolutely [falling apart](. On TikTok, you can see the bathroom sink sitting uselessly in the tub, wires hanging crooked from the walls, and debris littering the floors. A place in Greenwich Village has torn-up boards and what appears to be the remains of a stand-up shower in the kitchen. In Harlem, closet doors lean off their hinges in a darkened one-bedroom. These sad little apartments are the victims of rent stabilization, according to the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP), which represents rent-stabilized landlords across New York City and the force behind the TikTok campaign. Too costly to renovate and too cheap to rent — a one-bedroom in Chinatown for $570? — owners say they have no choice but to leave them empty. No use to anyone. CHIP says there are at least 20,000 apartments like these all across the city — dramatically below market rate, basically disaster scenes — all “forced vacant” because they can’t reset rents after doing necessary repairs. (A problem they have asked the Supreme Court to [solve for them](.) But the city, specifically the Housing and Preservation Department (HPD), says that number is closer to 2,500. This is kind of how it goes. There is dizzyingly little consensus on the matter of our rent-stabilized housing stock — nearly a million apartments, and 28 percent of our housing — and even the basics have been contentious: the condition of these apartments, the money required to make them habitable (even nice), or how many of them are actually empty in the first place. Try to figure it out and you’re sent down a rabbit hole that leads to only more questions. So are these landlords bluffing? And why is it so hard to tell? [Continue reading »]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( The Latest [The Spon-Con Nursery Synchronicity Lindsay Lohan wanted soft neutrals. So did Naomi Osaka. And Mandy Moore. And …]( By Clio Chang [Angelina Jolie Had to Have Basquiat’s Former Studio To open her concept store about tailoring.]( By Clio Chang [A Bed-Stuy Townhouse That Was Once a Prep School Four floors, now obsessively restored.]( By Adriane Quinlan [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Read More From Curbed]( Introducing The City Desk, a weekly newsletter about New York. [Sign up to get it every Thursday](. [GET THE NEWSLETTER]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe]( | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on email newsletters, please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2023, All rights reserved