The devastation wrought by Ida underscored the need for a better way to legalize basement homes. But one womans experience shows the difficulties of finding a solution.

… Jessica Katz, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a nonprofit housing group, said Mrs. Velez was caught in this web of all the regulations around basements.

Ms. Katz has been trying to help Mrs. Velez find a solution, but she said her situation shows the need to ease city requirements for some homes and to offer financial support for legalization.

We fail to provide homeowners with a tool kit on how to know and understand what their obligations are, and the tools and the resources to comply with those obligations, she said.

More CHPC in the media

Does NYC need more small or large affordable apartments?

“It’s a continually vexing issue: Which of these things do we need more of? Like so many things in housing, we end up answering like it’s an either-or question, but there’s such a need for both,” said Citizens Housing and Planning Council Executive Director Howard Slatkin.
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New York Can House More New Yorkers, Better

“What we need is not haphazard compromise through gritted teeth," writes Howard Slatkin, "but the embrace of a coherent policy to safely and affordably house more New Yorkers. We need to build more housing and help more people afford it.”
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Community preference settlement to shift dynamics in NYC affordable housing lotteries

Howard Slatkin called community preference "a tool that was used to allay concerns about gentrification as the city rebuilt neighborhoods."
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