Press Coverage

It's a little-known fact that renters who end up in housing court can find themselves on a dreaded "tenant blacklist," making it difficult to procure a NYC apartment in the future. Now, thankfully, several City Councilmembers are taking steps to kill the list once and for all, so go ahead and skip a rent payment when your landlord shuts your heat off, you deserve it.

Though the city stopped permitting housing court to identify tenants sued for eviction by their names and addresses in 2012, private companies have been able to gather that identifying information through public records, which they can then sell to landlords screening prospective renters. This is a problem, particularly because you don't have to be convicted in such a case to end up on this list—in fact, people who've been taken to court by mistake can still end up on the list.

But legislation sponsored by City Councilmembers Ben Kallos, Rory Lancman, Alan Maisel, and Mark Levine aims to curb all this by amending the city's administrative code, making it impossible for landlords to reject an applicant based on whether or not they were "a party in past or current landlord-tenant action or housing court proceeding." Landlords would still be able to screen tenants who are evicted or fail to satisfy the terms of a court order.

On September 20th of this year, one of the biggest fights over housing will take place at City Hall as the New York City Council hears arguments for and against the hotel service providers, Airbnb’s operations in residential buildings. Share NYC Better has already stated they expect to fill the council chamber with both Hotel workers union members and tenant advocates.
The biggest concern for the consortium of groups is that the industry’s practices are driving up rents in many buildings, leading to increased warehousing of already scarce rent regulated apartments. These businesses lead to security troubles in apartment units due to the constant flow of traffic coming in and out of these buildings. The biggest danger, however, are the serious fire safety hazards posed by illegal hotel operations.

Commercial hotels and residential buildings have two very different standards when dealing with fire protection; standards for hotels are much more strict. Commercial hotels must have on-site fire marshals on top of a sprinkler system along with clearly stated maps throughout each floor and multiple exits on each floor. Doors must swing “out’ to allow for rapid egress. Doors in residential buildings swing inward – partly to safeguard against burglaries. The lack of these safety requirements in residential units are something which the head of Airbnb has refused to address in any meaningful way. Councilman Ben Kallos has alluded that the company may be putting their own profit ahead of the safety of tourists according to the New York Post. But Airbnb whose upper hand always has been on the side of financial resources is now attempting to reach out to younger and in some cases more liberal millennials by circulating petitions on such sites as change.org and cause.com under the auspices of helping students and middle class tenants stay in their homes.

City Council members want to grill the subletting service Airbnb about fears renters could die in a fire while struggling to flee an unfamiliar apartment.

“We need to ensure Airbnb is not putting profit over people by allowing listings that cram too many tourists into apartments far too small to guarantee their safe escape from danger,” said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Upper East Side).

The council’s Housing and Buildings Committee has scheduled a Jan. 20 hearing over “short-term rentals” arranged through Airbnb and other sites.

In a recent affidavit, an FDNY official said that, unlike hotels, apartments being illegally used for “transient occupancy” don’t offer visitors a “detailed fire-safety and evacuation plan.”

An Airbnb spokesman said the company was “eager to participate” in the hearing, and insisted, “We take safety seriously.”

New York – New York City Councilman Ben Kallos (D) introduced a bill to create an early voting program for local elections. The city’s Board of Elections is also working to expand a pilot program to count votes faster on election night.

Ben Kallos, City Councilman 5th District. To increase representation, Mr. Kallos began by encouraging people who live in our area of his district to sign up for vacancies on CB6 Committees or in his office. He addressed various issues of concern, including bike infractions, the expansion of Citibikes and new bike paths and the Homeless. He stressed the importance of calling 311 to create a record of a complaint with as much detail as possible. If you are not satisfied that your complaint is being addressed, call him with the details, so his office can follow up with the appropriate City department. He is working on improving Internet service (especially for the lowincome population), visiting schools and obtaining new yellow/ green Taxi Apps to compete with Uber. He chairs the Governmental Operations Committee and works on fair elections, campaign finance reform, the Tax Commission and is trying to trim the number of City employees to rid it of patronage. He is available to meet with any group of 10 or more. His door is open.

Term limits are important to ensure democracy. That’s why I am proposing to limit community board members to serving six, two-year terms for a total of 12 years.

I recently introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Council Member Ben Kallos from Manhattan, that would set term limits for community board members at six two-year terms or 12 years in total.

Members currently serving on boards would not be affected by this legislation. Only new members elected after April 1, 2016 would be limited. In any government or decision making body it is important to be challenged and checked by new points of view.

I have great respect for our neighbors that have volunteered on community boards for decades but I believe that communities change and so should community boards. A larger turnover of members will ensure that new ideas, cultures and backgrounds will be represented.

Never mind Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision Wednesday to ban hydrofracking statewide. And ignore the absence of natural-gas reserves in the five boroughs. The City Council will move ahead with its own moratorium on the controversial drilling process.

The bill was initially conceived as an endorsement of local fracking bans in such upstate communities as Otsego County's Middlefield and Tompkins County's Dryden.

"Whereas before, the bill was an expression of solidarity with these municipalities and an attempt to pressure the state to move forward, it is now an expression of support of the governor's action," explained a spokeswoman for Councilman Ben Kallos, who is co-sponsoring the legislation.

But Mr. Cuomo's decision to heed the advice of his commissioners on health and environmental conservation to prohibit fracking rendered the council's gesture moot, which it was anyway because there is no gas-rich shale under the city. Mr. Kallos' spokeswoman said that the bill would be reworked in the coming days to reflect the new reality, but could not say how exactly. —AJH

Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley was joined by other councilmembers and other advocates last week on the steps of City Hall, issuing a rallying call to the city’s Fire Department to hire more women firefighters.

Currently, Crowley said, there are only 44 female firefighters serving in the FDNY, comprising less than one percent of a 10,500-member workforce.

Where's theThe rally included Crowley (D–Glendale), the chair of the Council’s Committees on Fire and Criminal Justice and also co-chair of the Women’s Caucus; the United Women Firefighters; Councilmembers Helen Rosenthal, Laurie Cumbo and Ben Kallos, and other advocate  

The City Council on Wednesday confirmed Councilman Ben Kallos as its appointee to the Commission on Public Information and Communication, one day before Public Advocate Letitia James plans to hold a hearing on the commission.

Though often invoked by city open government advocates, the commission, which aims to improve access to city information and data, has held only infrequent meetings and has had little influence in recent years.

In remarks before the rules committee on Wednesday morning, Kallos said that the "great commission" was one reason he had wanted to become chair of the Governmental Operations committee, which has oversight over COPIC.

"It has been slightly dysfunctional and hasn't been meeting," he said. "We have a great leader in our public advocate, Tish James, and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to ... [work] with our public advocate to get the word out on all the information and all the great things this government does."

"Many more New Yorkers should have the opportunity to serve on their local community boards and share their valuable perspectives," Council Member Kallos said by email Tuesday. "I want to create a culture of mentorship and knowledge-sharing, so residents who have been on for a long time can help train new members as they move to an informal role."

The city's 59 Community Boards represent slightly smaller areas of the city than city council districts, of which there are 51, and focus largely on qualify of life issues. But Community Boards also play a vital role in the land use process (also known as ULURP). Developers must see their projects passed through Community Boards before getting them to the City Council. The Boards are the first line of defense for projects and often the best place to negotiate things like affordable housing, park space, or schools in exchange for development.

Ortiz is not the first city pol to draft a bill to curb the services.

Last month, City Councilman David Greenfield (D-Brooklyn)proposed capping fare increases at 100% of the regular rate. And Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) wants the city to compete by launching its own taxi-hailing app.

Complaints against the services have grown with their popularity.

Just Monday, the Twitterverse exploded in outrage after Uber capitalized on a hostage crisis in Sydney by pumping up fares for riders trying to flee the area. Earlier this month, a judge in Madrid ordered a temporary shutdown of the rideshare service, calling it unfair competition.

In New York City, Councilman Benjamin Kallos introduced an "e-hail" bill on Dec. 8 that would allow taxicab passengers to use a mobile app to electronically summon one of the city's 20,000 yellow cabs that traverse the city's streets, as well as additional green taxis that serve northern Manhattan, according to Sarah Anders, a Kallos spokeswoman. The proposal, which still has quite a road to travel before ever being finalized into law, has "generated a lot of interest from New Yorkers," said Anders.

Kallos' proposal came because "he wanted New Yorkers to have the opportunity to pick up yellow and green cabs on their phones conveniently," said Anders. "They know the fares [they'll be charged] in advance, and they trust yellow and green cabs. The future of e-hailing is inevitable, and we think this fits very well into that idea. We're very optimistic."