Chair Sanchez on vacant units and phased increase reviews

All right, thank you so much, Council Member Dinowitz.

I just want to add a note on his line of questioning around the scopes of work with, you know, finance through HPD funds, that this is something that we hear.

And I know I still think about you sometimes as Council Member, and Pre-Samuel, like we hear this all the time about HPD finance work, you know, something that's financed five years ago is now starting to have leaks.

Like, you know, there was all of those, there were all those articles about the South Bronx buildings, the luxury buildings that received some HPD financing.

And so it's just, it's an area that we want to make sure we have clarity on and we know how to follow up with you when there are problems.

I have a question from...

Ms.

Pam, who I don't know, who came to us from Councilmember Banks, so you're getting a question from Ms.

Pam via Councilmember Banks via me, which is, what steps have the supervising agencies taken internally to make sure owners are not leaving apartments empty past the 90-day window?

The loss of rental income has a devastating impact on the financial health of these developments.

A recent Michelama meeting confirms this is a widespread problem for a number of Michelama rental and co-op developments.

And the second question is, will the agencies implement a plan to conduct a needs assessment or audit after year one of a three-phase rent-carrying charge?

increase to make sure that the second and third phase increases are necessary and then provide a detailed report of their findings to the residents of those individual developments.

So the review of the future rent increases, I mean, we're looking at the income and expense statements in the audits and can clearly see whether or not the increase is needed or not.

In terms of the vacant units, you know, we absolutely do not want vacant units in Mitchell-Lamas, right?

We are...

In the midst of an affordable housing crisis, we are trying to build our way out of it.

That is not the only strategy.

We do want to ensure that any unit that is vacant is brought up to code and habitable and safe for a new family to occupy.

And when we're having trouble balancing the budgets, when we're having trouble just meeting expenses, it leaves very little left over to do those repairs in individual apartments.

And unfortunately, sometimes we have to wait for the larger capital improvements.

To make those

upgrades.

Right, got it.

Thank you.

And so just with respect to the second question of, you know, you said you can see when,

what increases are needed, is there any circumstances in which a 10% increase this year means we don't need a 5% or whatever has been requested the following year?

I mean, it's project by project.

We have deferred in the past.

It is project by project.

It is taking a critical look.

at the existing expenses and projecting future expenses.

If we can pull any other levers on the expenses to lower certain expenses, then that will absolutely mitigate any potential increase.

So we keep a close eye on those things as the phased increases happen.

Thank you.