As the state’s budget deadline approaches, Queens democratic lawmakers are at odds over whether it should include a path for legalizing the city’s basement and cellar apartments.
While Gov. Kathy Hochul included a pathway to basement legalization in her February budget proposal, the word 'cellar' is absent from her plan. The two terms may be indistinguishable to most property owners, but they're different under zoning and dwelling laws, and excluding cellars from the state's plan would omit a significant swath of below-grade housing stock from potential conversion, advocates say.
The governor's proposed budget did not include funding for the state-run Homeowner Protection Program, or HOPP, a network of legal service providers and counselors aimed at preventing foreclosures. Program supporters say the omission 'makes no sense' as New York grapples with a housing crisis, which Hochul's administration has centered as a policy focus this year.
Lawmakers are extending eviction moratorium the easy way cityandstateny.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cityandstateny.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Despite a schedule that has been disrupted for most of the year by the coronavirus pandemic, state lawmakers have managed to reconvene repeatedly, including getting together in the late spring to consider legislation aimed at smoothing the economic recovery from COVID-19, a summertime session to pass new police reforms, and an end-of-the-year meeting to approve what legislative leaders are calling the “strongest eviction moratorium in the country.”
A bill expected to pass today (here is a legislative cheatsheet) would block the filing of new eviction cases for at least 60 days while preventing any new evictions for qualifying tenants until May 1, 2021. Homeowners and landlords who own 10 or fewer units would receive similar protections under the legislation introduced on Christmas Eve. “We tend to use a lot of hyperbole, but this might be the most impactful legislation, at least that I’ve sponsored, ever,” Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Jeffrey Dinowitz, said i