December 11, 2023

Jay-Z, Bike Lanes, Housing, and Rats

Gobs of new legislation passed last week at the City Council Stated Meeting and committees held three oversight hearings:

• On rats, and how the city's dealing with them.
• On the challenges facing supportive housing, and upcoming legislation to tackle them.
• On the growing problem of online harassment against women, girls, and gender expansive people.

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Legislative Snacks

Here's some of the fun or unexpected legislation that passed last week.

What are your plans for Jay-Z Day?

December 4th is officially Jay-Z Day in New York City. (Resolution 849)

The Committee on Cultural Affairs has been busy. They also designated November 11th as Ol' Dirty Bastard Day (Resolution 621) at the last stated meeting.

You can't make a living as a "noise bounty hunter" any longer

Did you know that citizens can receive compensation for making noise complaints?

Until last Wednesday, compensation was capped at 25-50% of proceeds collected. Some have been raking it in, with one guy making six figures. It's been such an issue that the NYC Hospitality Alliance wrote a guide to challenging these complaints.

Now, compensation from noise complaints are capped at $5-$10 each thanks to Introduction 1194.

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Legislative Highlights

Let's dig into some of the major bills that passed last week.

We can build bike lanes more quickly.

Introduction 417 repeals old legislation that required:

• A 90-day notice period before breaking ground on bike lanes.
• A 45-day waiting period before work begins if a community hearing is held.

Bike lanes are now classified as major transportation projects, which are held to lesser standards:

• They require a 10-20 day notice period.
• They may begin immediately after the notice period, or after sending amended plans to communities in response to their comments.

Early language in the bill (there were three revisions since May 2022) exempted bike lanes shorter than 1,000 feet from any notice period, but this did not make it into the final legislation.

15 council members voted against Introduction 417 with vocal opposition. Here's Councilmember Barron of East New York voicing his at 35:40 in the meeting.

Menstrual products: more of them, for more people, and reporting requirements for the DoC

A legislation package for menstrual equity passed last week. The highlights:

• The Department of Education must make menstrual products and informational material available to students from 4th grade, instead of 6th grade, onward.
• The Department of Corrections has new, specific, and thorough requirements on their distribution of menstrual products to inmates.
• Menstrual products now include menstrual cups as well.
• City documents must refer to menstrual products instead of feminine hygiene products

The change in language (Introduction 1055) was the only bill in the package with opposition, with 4 council members voting no:

• Councilmember Ariola (R), District 32
• Councilmember Carr (R), District 50
• Councilmember Paladino (R), District 19
• Councilmember Vernikov (R), District 48

NYC will inspect unoccupied units if neighboring tenants submit complaints about their condition

Warehoused units are unoccupied, rent-stabilized units kept off the market by landlords.

Introduction 195-B gives tenants recourse when they live next to warehoused units that harbor unsafe conditions (e.g. mold, pests).

The bill also requires all these complaints to be published, giving the city a means to track patterns in unsafe, vacant housing that is not on the market.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) promotes quality and affordability in the city's housing stock and is on the hook for these inspections.

At a hearing in June, HPD expressed significant opposition to 195 stating that the bill addresses "a minuscule fraction of our housing market":

Some ... have specifically argued that there are significant numbers of low-rent, poor-quality rent stabilized units that are being held off the market for long periods of time.

This is incorrect.

When we drill down to rent stabilized units that had been vacant and off-the-market for 12 months or more, were in need of repairs, and had a low legal rent (<$1,000), there were just 2,477 units.

That's less than 1⁄4 of 1% of all rent stabilized units in New York City. In the context of our entire housing supply, that's less than 1/10 of 1%.

HPD's hearing testimony has a great summary of the data around vacant housing stock and how the public has misconstrued the data.

Councilmember Rivera talks about her bill at the stated meeting at 38:16

Noise cameras will be required in every borough

Introduction 778 requires noise cameras to be placed in every borough and is part of a package of bills under the Stop Spreading the Noise Act dedicated to addressing noise pollution.

The details:

• Each borough must have no fewer than 5 noise cameras.
• This must happen by September 2025.

Also, the fiscal impact statement estimates that noise cameras cost $35,000 each.

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Oversight on Rats and Public Health

Joshua Goodman from the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) provides riveting testimony:

New Yorkers are leading a revolt, engaging in a revolution, a revolt against the trash, against the old ways of doing things, and against the rats themselves.

This trash revolution, a tidal wave of change in the management of 44,000,000 daily pounds of waste, has swept across the city over the last 2 years, And New Yorkers are seeing the difference.

The revolution? Putting out our trash out earlier, often in containers, with earlier pickup times, and sending it to South Carolina.

More from Goodman:

In the prior 2 decades, the Department of Sanitation had focused on shifting ... to a waste export model where all New York City trash moves by barge and railcar to destinations as far away as South Carolina.

... even as other cities around the world innovated substantially, residents and businesses continued to drop their smelly, leaky and rat attracting bags of trash on the sidewalk at 4 PM ... The 4 PM set out time was the earliest of any major city in the United States, and it meant that rush hour became trash hour.

We moved that time to 8 PM and incentivized containerization by allowing trash and bins to go out at 6 PM on the residential side or an hour before closing on the commercial side. We also shifted our operations to pick up that trash much, much sooner, sometimes within an hour of it being set out.

... as of this summer and fall, all food based businesses, so restaurants, bodegas, delis, catering halls, bars, etc., and all chain businesses are now required to put their trash in an incredible invention, the wheelie bin.

In rat mitigation zones established in 2017 -- these are places where NYC has had more rat abatement measures for the last 6 years -- there has been a 45% decrease in rat complaints.

City-wide, there's been a 20% decrease in complaints.

That said, Councilmember Nurse shared some skepticism around how we're sizing the rat problem:

While a reduction in complaints are positive indicators that we're on the right track, it is important to note that as far as this committee can tell, the city agencies currently have no scientific methodology by which it can really determine the presence and populations of rats.

She's also concerned about budget cuts facing DSNY:

These cuts to programs that improve the health and hygiene of our city are very alarming, and I have no doubt will decrease the quality of life for our communities.

DSNY has progressively rolled out curbside organics operations in each borough. However, budget cuts have unfortunately delayed this programming ... and DSNY has altogether cut the vital operations of community composting organizations. And as a result, over a 100 compost workers are being laid off over the next 2 weeks.

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Oversight on Supportive Housing

From the hearing:

Comptroller Brad Lander found that of the 23,100 people affected by sweeps conducted between March 2022 and November 30th the same year, only 3 people were eventually placed in permanent housing.

These numbers are mind-boggling.

Intro 1153 will require detailed reports on every homeless encampment sweep, the expenses incurred, and the outcomes for those affected.

Sweeps aren't coupled with effective permanent housing solutions, but they could be. NYC already has a successful -- if underfunded -- supportive housing program.

When long-term homeless individuals enter supportive housing, they stay. Here are some stats from the hearing:

• 94% of supportive housing units are occupied by long-term tenants.
• 30,000 individuals and families who previously experienced long term homelessness are now in stable supportive housing.
• 8 years is the average length of time tenants have spent in supportive housing.

NYC's 15/15 initiative aims to develop 15,000 supportive housing units over 15 years.

We are 8 years in. Here's our progress:

• On track: as of today, the city has financed over 4,000 units in "congregate housing" (a model where all units are in the same complex with support services on site).
  • This is over half of the program's 7,500 target.
• At risk: Only 1,300 "scattered site" units (a model where tenants are in individual apartments, spread apart, with support services visiting tenants) have been financed.
  • This is well below the the program's 7,500 target.

Still, demand far outstrips supply and the program is underfunded.

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Oversight on online harassment against women, girls, and gender expansive people

From Councilmember Caban:

Over 41% of adults in the United States have experienced some form of online harassment ...

Over 46% of teens in the US have reported experiencing forms of cyberbullying ...

... and overwhelmingly social media is cited as the most common venue for harassment with over 75% targets of online abuse stating that their experience took place over social media.

Two legislative recommendations that came out of the testimony:

1. A modification to Section 10-180 of the NYC's legal code around revenge porn.

   • Right now, perpetrators of this crime can only be prosecuted if they received the media directly from the person depicted, or recorded it themselves. 10-180 does not cover a secondary or tertiary recipient.
   • The NY statewide law 245.15 covers a larger umbrella, and the modification would be to bring 10-180 in line with it.

2. A revival of Councilmember Hudson's Resolution 554, which calls on the DoE to mandate bystander intervention training against harassment.

   • The goal here is to promote a culture where community members feel a shared responsibility to address harassment and have the tools to act on it.

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Comments? Suggestions? Want to hear more about something? I use AI to sift through bills and hearings and I'm happy to poke around.

You can send an email to voberoi@gmail.com or reply to this email.