On June 22, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB), issued a vacate order for the basement apartment of a private home on 73rd Street after inspectors discovered what appeared to be an illegally constructed apartment in the cellar.

Assemblymember Pamela Harris (D-Coney Island-Dyker Heights-Bay Ridge) said that legislation is needed to give the city the more tools to combat landlords.

There is movement in that direction, according to Harris, who said a bill she wrote to require landlords to provide tenants with valid certificates of occupancy to prove that the apartment is legal won approval in the state Assembly.

“We can’t allow landlords to continue taking advantage of unsuspecting tenants,” Harris said in a statement. “These illegal conversions are an effort by unscrupulous property owners to make money at the expense of residents’ safety. It must stop now.”   

Landlords often convert two- and three-family homes into multiple-unit apartment buildings in order to rent to more occupants without proper paperwork, Harris charged.

Harris is encouraging anyone who spots a suspected illegal home conversion to report it by contacting the DOB’s Brooklyn Borough Office at 718-802-3677. Reports can also be filed online by visiting nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1891/illegal-building-conversion-or-occupancy-complaint.

The city recently put a new law on the books designed to financially punish landlords who illegally convert buildings.

Earlier this month, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill sponsored by City Council members Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-parts of Bensonhurst), Jumaane Williams (D-Flatbush) and Barry Grodenchik (D-Bayside) and Borough President Eric Adams to create a special category for violations called Aggravated Illegal Conversions.

The new law created a whopping $15,000 penalty for each illegally partitioned unit in buildings that contain three or more units above the Certificate of Occupancy.

“By removing the profit motive from unscrupulous owners, this bill will help protect tenants from imminently life-threatening conditions, increase the safety of first responders in emergency situations, safeguard our overburdened infrastructure systems and maintain the quality of life in our communities,” Gentile said at the time of the bill’s signing. 

The law also allows DOB to request that the New York City Law Department seek a warrant from a judge to enter a property if DOB has tried and failed twice to gain entry. Once granted permission by a judge, inspectors will have to be allowed into the dwelling. 

DOB has been kept busy investigating complaints filed by residents and local community board members suspicious of activity on their streets over the past year. 

On Aug. 4, 2016 the agency ordered tenants of a two-family house on Seventh Avenue near 67th Street in Dyker Heights to vacate the premises after inspectors found 31 people living there. A few days later, the city issued a vacate order on a second house located nearby.

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