Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Uncertain Future For NYC's Program To Bring Dangerous Basement Apartments Up To Code
By
Jim O'Grady
Published Sep 27, 2021
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By
Jim O'Grady
Published Sep 27, 2021
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Tropical storm Ida showed that when it comes to building regulations in New York, the stakes can be as high as life and death. That’s according to Council Member Inez Barron, who represents a large part of East New York in Brooklyn. She recently recounted the story of a family in her district with a basement apartment that is occupied by their son.
As Ida dumped record rainfall on New York, they realized that surface water with nowhere else to go had started pouring down into their basement.
“They ran downstairs to the apartment and their son was in a bedroom and couldn't open the door,” Barron said. “It was his only egress so they had to break the door from the outside to get him out to safety.”
Not everyone was so lucky.
Eleven people died in similar circumstances during Hurricane Ida. The tragedy has brought renewed focus on the Basement Apartment Pilot Conversion Program, which was designed to tackle the thorny problem of making such apartments safer. The program passed in 2018 but Covd hit as it was getting up and running. As a result, the city’s 2019 budget cut the pilot program by 92%, from nearly $12 million to $90,000.
“That was disappointing, especially in the light of Hurricane Ida, which was a wake-up call to the danger of these apartments,” Barron said.
The units exist for a reason. Their occupants are often undocumented New Yorkers who work for less than minimum wage. “In my district, the median income is $37,000 for a family of three,” Barron said. “But the people in these apartments are even below that threshold—or they’re unemployed and desperate for housing.”
Danny Hong shows where the water reached up to him as he shows the damage in his basement apartment on 153rd St. in Flushing, Queens, on September 2, 2021.
Mary Altaffer/AP/Shutterstock
A coalition of advocacy groups estimates that 114,000 basements in the city could be converted to legal dwellings. They are mostly found in outer-borough homes that are one or two-stories tall. But bringing them up to code presents a conundrum. If a landlord spends their own money to make an apartment safer and more livable, they will probably need to raise the rent. That usually means the tenants will be forced to look elsewhere for shelter in a city with a severe shortage of affordable housing.
The pilot program offers financial assistance and regulatory relief to homeowners with illegal apartments. The dwellings would be made legal by adding upgrades like proper drainage, an automatic sprinkler system, and an additional exit. Housing advocates had high hopes for the pilot—if it showed merit, perhaps it would be expanded to cover all 131,000 of the city’s illegal basement apartments.
But those hopes have dwindled to almost nothing. City building inspectors identified 8,000 households in East New York that would be eligible for the program. Three thousand landlords were approached and 1,000 of them expressed interest. But with the budget cut, the program has been reduced to helping a mere eight landlords do upgrades.
Jessica Katz, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, said red tape is as large an obstacle as cost for homeowners who want to bring their basement apartments up to code.
“It’s a deal breaker,” she said about a city bureaucracy so thick it often takes lawyers and architects to cut through it. “Ideally you'd instead have a regulatory framework whereby a lay person with a tape measure could answer questions like, ‘Is my ceiling tall enough? Is my window big enough? Is my door wide enough? What else is required to make my basement safer so I don’t have to hire 20 consultants to even assess whether or not this might be worth taking on?’”
READ MORE: Why NYC Was So Unprepared For Hurricane Ida’s Flash Flooding
City Council Member Brad Lander was the lead sponsor of the bill that created the pilot program. He said that though the results are paltry, he’s hoping it leads to a citywide effort to legalize basement apartments while keeping them affordable. He’d like to see it modeled on the city’s loft law of 1982, which gave landlords time to conform their illegal residences to the city’s building code.
“No one got kicked out into the street while the loft units were made safer,” he said. The law established a Loft Board that oversaw the lengthy conversion of commercial and manufacturing spaces into rent-stabilized residential units that met minimum standards of safety and fire protection.
Lander said the city should launch a similar program for illegal basement units. “Let’s bring these apartments and their occupants on to the books and require some immediate but affordable steps to make them safer—like fire alarms and backflow preventers to halt stormwater flooding.”
He added that such a program would have the benefit of granting basic rights to tenants, such as protection from sudden eviction. “On top of that, the city would also know where the apartments are located so we could give tenants notice that a storm like Ida was coming. So many people should not have to die,” he said.
Tagged
climate change
new york city
brooklyn
tropical storm ida
basement apartment
flooding
queens
real estate
Jim O'Grady
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
GOP candidates in NY face a changed landscape on immigration
The 'migrant crisis' has changed markedly since the voters went to the polls two years ago.
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Oct 28, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. ET
Mamdani plans redesign of Brooklyn's Third Avenue after nurse killed in hit-and-run
Sunset Park residents and street safety advocates have called on city officials to make the avenue safer for years.
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
News
Mamdani plans redesign of Brooklyn's Third Avenue after nurse killed in hit-and-run
Sunset Park residents and street safety advocates have called on city officials to make the avenue safer for years.
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
NJ Gov. Sherrill: Election is secure, noncitizens taken off voter rolls
By
Michael Sol Warren
Ex-NYPD officer again faces murder charge in George Washington Bridge shooting
By
Samantha Max
Former NYC buildings boss helped reopen mayor's favored restaurant despite health violations
By
David Brand
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .