Tag: nyc

NYC poised to force landlords to sell private property to non-profits to ensure ‘affordable housing’

The New York City Council has passed what has been called the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) that will force private building owners to offer up their property to nonprofits and government entities before they make any private sale, effectively causing massive delays in property sales and other regulatory hurdles in the Big Apple’s housing industry.

In the scenario that it is passed, NYC will have the largest COPA program in the country. The act forces landlords to offer their property to the city as well as nonprofits before the building can be sold on the public market. The lawmaker who sponsored the law, Council Member Sandy Nurse, claims that it will be a win for New Yorkers.

“Corporate interests and big real estate tried their hardest to block the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act with a misinformation and fear-mongering campaign, and they failed,” Nurse said about the law’s passage, per Pix 11. “Today marks the beginning of a new social housing era in New York City… COPA levels the playing field and makes it possible to preserve and create thousands of permanently affordable homes across our city.”

The act dictates that landlords must first tip off the government entities and nonprofits that qualify, and “may not take any action that will result in the sale of such covered property to a person other than” those entities. Then the owner must sit on that property for 25 days as it is up for sale to the nonprofits, which can submit a statement of interest.

If the statement of interest is submitted to the property owner, the nonprofit entity then has 80 days to submit a first offer. Only after rejecting any offer from the nonprofit during those 80 days would the owner then be able to list the property for public sale.

That, however, is not the end of the red tape. If there is an offer from the private market submitted after a building owner refused an offer from a nonprofit, the owner must then inform the nonprofit so that the nonprofit can offer a matching price on identical terms of the private offer and has 15 days to do so.

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NYC’s New COVID Vaccine Passport Simply A ‘Glorified Photo Storage App,’ Critics Say

Pictures of cats, Mickey Mouse, even a takeout menu from a BBQ restaurant: Users of New York City’s COVID SAFE app have discovered they can upload just about any photo into the new vaccine verification software.

Though the app only debuted this week, its vulnerabilities have come under scrutiny as the city announced a new policy to require proof of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine for entry to indoor dining, gyms and entertainment performances.

“The New York City app is nothing more than a glorified photo storage app,” said Brian Linder of cybersecurity research company Check Point. He added, “When someone shows a picture of a card in this app, it’s believed that it’s real, but there’s absolutely no verification of it whatsoever.”

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NYC coronavirus lockdown led to sharp rise in domestic violence, data shows

At the height of New York’s coronavirus lockdown, domestic violence in the five boroughs skyrocketed, data show.

When the pandemic first laid siege, experts predicted that mandatory lockdowns and soaring unemployment would cause a rise in household abuse, and figures now bear them out — with domestic-violence reports at some agencies doubling and even tripling in the past few months.

“We’ve never been busier,” lamented Nechama Bakst, senior director of the Met Council’s family-violence program.

“We have seen people who never experienced violence starting to experience violence, and people who have experienced violence experience worse violence.”

Typically, the non-profit gets about 70 new cases a month — but in April, they juggled 135, another 145 in May and 146 more in June, the organization said.

“We see more choking, more sexual violence, kind of much more intense and serious acts of crime,” the director said.

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