PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate release

November 29 2020

Small Property Owners Of NY (www.SPONY.ORG)

Jan Lee, (917) 710 7503, janccrc@gmail.com

Intro 1146B Will Devastate Ethnic Communities

“Questionable law will bankrupt thousands small property owners as they try to recover from
the pandemic”

(Chinatown, New York, NY)​ — On Wednesday, December 2nd at 1:00 p.m., the City Council
Committees on Housing and Buildings and Fire and Emergency Management will host a joint
virtual hearing to discuss Intro. ​1146-B​, a bill that would require owners of residential buildings
40 feet or more in height to install a system of automatic sprinklers by December 31, 2029.

Fire safety is important. But proposals must be balanced with costs and backed up by
exhaustive research and data. The cost of this proposal on property owners is exorbitant and
would leave many smaller owners bankrupt. Additionally, it would lead to huge rent increases
and months long possibly years of disruptions in tenant’s lives, just as they try to put their lives
back together after COVID19. The effects will be felt most in minority communities with small
property owners housing the City’s most vulnerable populations, many of them essential
workers.

If passed, all building owners would be required to file an interim report describing a plan for
compliance one, five, and nine years after the effective date, or until they have filed a final report
indicating full compliance. It is not yet known how many licensed professionals will be required
to fulfill this report, but building owners and real estate professionals estimate the cost to be at
least thousands of dollars to engage an architect, plumber and engineer. The “compliance plan”
alone will take dollars away from building maintenance and repairs at precisely the time that we
emerge from COVID19.

The vast majority of small property owners already provide safe, clean affordable housing. This
law would make this harder. Since March 2020 the global pandemic has strained our finances,
and some are facing permanent financial ruin as a result of severe loss of operating income.

According to Councilmember Margaret Chin 85% of residential units in Chinatown’s B.I.D.

catchment area are rent regulated. According to Asian American Federation 1/3rd of the
residents over age 65 live under the poverty line. Regulated rents in Chinatown are as low as
$49.00 a month* to $300.00 a month, ​with no virtually rent increases possible ​as a result of the
2020 rent guidelines board decision of June 2020. COVID-19 has shuttered hundreds of
commercial businesses permanently since March 2020.

“We urge you to reconsider introducing this bill on Dec. 2nd 2020. We have not yet
comprehended the losses we are incurring. The financial future of our families and our legacy
ownership of our properties is balanced on a knife edge. Stimulus money, our life savings,
emergency funds are all gone for many of us. Simply trying to comply with the law can send us
​ ithin a year from now.​ ”
over the edge w
- Jan Lee, small property owner, Chinatown

“How do you expect owners to pay for this? Even for the smallest property, this will cost no less
than tens of thousands of dollars and easily into the six-figure range or even the seven-figure
range. 2019 HSTPA and COVID-19 has already significantly severed rent, while owners are
also trying to cover the ever-increasing property taxes and operating expenses. It feels like
every year The City Council passes more housing laws than the previous year. Property owners
are being suffocated in every way possible through financial suffocation, compliance
suffocation, cultural suffocation.”
– Joanna Wong, small property owner Lower Manhattan

“It is clear that the writers of this bill have come up with a knee jerk response to a real problem,
but have totally ignored the financial, physical and practical impacts of these requirements. I
challenge you to VOTE NO or provide a dollar for dollar offset to our real estate taxes not only
for the installation, but the inspections and required monitoring costs in perpetuity.”
-Les Leong, small property owner, Chinatown, N.Y.

“There is virtually no way to comply with this law without disrupting your tenant’s lives. Each
apartment will become a temporary construction site, drilling through walls and running
plumbing throughout each room, with a high likelihood of relocating your tenants while the work
is being done. The costs are enormous. CHIP estimates that each building would have to spend
at least $30,000 in water system upgrades, and then an additional $20,000 per unit. And those
are the minimum costs.
– Jay Martin, Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP)

It is puzzling as to why District one’s City Councilmember Margaret Chin is a co-sponsor of this
bill because she has testified extensively about the precarious economy of Chinatown, the low
rents, and the high interest rates on unpaid taxes. Chin’s supposed knowledge of her
community should indicate to her that this is not the time to introduce this bill, and we ask her
and her fellow sponsors to withdraw this bill until more outreach with small property owners is
completed and we are fully recovered from the global pandemic.

*published in a letter to Mayor DeBlasio by Councilmember Margaret Chin April 24th, 2020.

End