On a chilly morning in January, the pinnacle of the town’s housing company, Dina Levy, toured house buildings in Hell’s Kitchen.
The buildings, at 351-357 West forty fifth Avenue, had been as soon as owned by infamous landlord Steve Croman and are present process a $20 million renovation by the brand new homeowners, SMJ Growth, Excessive Level Property Group and Providers for the UnderServed.
The transformation of those buildings is linked to each Levy’s previous roles and her new one as the town’s new commissioner of the Division of Housing Preservation and Growth. Earlier than becoming a member of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, Levy was working as a senior advisor to the New York Lawyer Common when that workplace introduced legal and civil fees associated to allegations of mortgage fraud and tenant harassment in opposition to Croman in 2016. Years later, HPD supplied financing for a major renovation of the properties, which had been dilapidated and rodent-infested when the brand new homeowners took over.
Levy is taking HPD’s helm because it navigates how greatest to deal with buildings in deep misery, and because it gears as much as tackle dangerous landlords by way of the Office to Protect Tenants and “rental ripoff” hearings. For excessive circumstances, Mayor Mamdani has said that the town will seize buildings from slumlords who fail to make pressing repairs, and administration officers have enumerated the advantages of metropolis possession.
However in an interview final week, Levy mentioned the town doesn’t simply seize property. She pointed to the town’s 7a program, underneath which court-appointed directors take over administration of buildings the place circumstances are unsafe. Properties with unpaid tax payments have additionally been transferred by way of the town’s third-party transfer program and the lien sale.
Earlier than working for the state Lawyer Common, Levy was the director of organizing on the City Homesteading Help Board (a nonprofit that has taken over buildings by way of the third-party switch program and labored with tenants to transform the properties into limited-equity co-ops).
Most just lately, she served because the senior vp of single-family and group growth with the state’s Division of Houses and Group Renewal, or HCR.
Levy was charged with a broad portfolio at HCR, the place she ran the company’s homeownership new development program, in addition to some small, multifamily rental development, whereas additionally overseeing its resiliency work and the State of New York Mortgage Company.
“What I feel I missed after I was on the state was a place-based perspective. You’re working to Syracuse, Rochester, Lengthy Island and New York Metropolis,” she mentioned in a latest interview. “There’s one thing good about being again in a spot the place you might be centered on the metes and bounds of the town, and is usually a lot extra strategic.”
Throughout an interview final week, Levy described how she’s pondering of her new position. This dialog has been edited for size and readability.
What do you see as your priorities coming into HPD?
I’ve been cautious about leaping to conclusions as a result of it’s an enormous company. However I had a way of the highest points from a meta-perspective. Most likely on this order, there may be a number of fragility within the present inexpensive inventory, but additionally within the privately-owned inventory, within the rent-regulated and in addition the market-rate. That’s largely pushed by a major rise in bills, with insurance coverage, taxes and utilities. I feel an enormous piece of what we’ll be centered on is: preservation, shoring up each our companions who’re already sponsored and in addition alternatives [where] there [are] struggling portfolios that the town can intervene after which deliver underneath a regulatory framework that preserves and truly expands the quantity of inexpensive housing.
What else?
We clearly must construct much more. I feel the large problem [is] the rising value of development. I used to be doing a number of work on the state, new applied sciences, off-site development, factory-built. I do know we’ve tried some modular initiatives that haven’t essentially achieved the complete success that everyone’s hoping for, however I feel there’s some attention-grabbing diagnostics that we’re doing proper now about why that isn’t working, and what we might do to make it work.
The third factor is efficiencies to deliver into HPD and throughout different metropolis companies to construct quicker, extra effectively. Typically HPD will get a foul rap that someway we’re slowing issues down, or we’re too bureaucratic. I’d say the work that comes out of that company is awe-inspiring, however that’s not to say there aren’t efficiencies or enhancements that I feel we are able to deliver to bear.
There’s a fourth [that will be the focus of the mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants]: Are we doing all the pieces we have to do when it comes to enforcement? Once I was on the AG, we shaped this process pressure that also goes on between HCR, the AG, HPD and Division of Buildings. I feel that that must be checked out once more, to say, are we getting out to portfolios, early upstream, to forestall that [systemic] deterioration?
What ought to the town’s position be in taking up such properties?
We don’t take over properties. It’s not fairly how I’d put it. We usually don’t personal actual property, and doubtless shouldn’t personal actual property. I do assume we must be facilitating transactions like [the Croman property]. We have to have the power to each use our enforcement instruments to deliver the dangerous actors to the desk, after which finance preservation purchases. I feel that’s our position with the Workplace to Shield Tenants.
With that workplace, although, there’s been a number of speak about seizing properties.
I feel we must be cautious about seizing property. There’s a structure. We will’t take property. However I feel there are enforcement actions that we are able to deliver to bear, that we are able to do issues like 7a, and when there may be full willful disregard for the legislation, we are able to take away a supervisor, or take away an proprietor and put in accountable administration. We’ve got an enormous community of inexpensive for-profits and nonprofit companions who’re prepared to tackle initiatives. Our job is to make these matches and facilitate, from a monetary perspective, these transactions.
Do you assume nonprofits are in a greater place to stabilize these properties?
We’d like an enormous tent, proper? There’s actually an enormous position for the nonprofits to play, but additionally for the for-profit, mission-based inexpensive housing suppliers. Nonprofits, by definition, are doing this with out a motivation for revenue, which is vital while you’re creating inexpensive housing. I feel they’ve a very vital position to play, however to not the exclusion of a bunch of actually good for-profit builders who’re mission-focused, who aren’t seeking to exceedingly take revenue out of buildings, however really need to put money into their buildings. I feel we want each. There’s additionally a 3rd possibility, which is tenant possession, which has a task to play in that debate.
While you had been at UHAB, you helped set up tenants at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue to keep away from sale of the constructing to what was seen as a predatory purchaser. However underneath the proprietor who took over, the property has many lively violations. Do you continue to see that deal as a mannequin?
Workforce Housing Group is [a] for-profit mission-based group. They’ve owned the constructing a extremely very long time, and the tenants made that choice. This was not foisted upon them. They chose Workforce Housing, and I feel, have a very nice partnership. That constructing goes by way of [a multi-million-dollar] renovation. You may have a accountable for-profit who’s in partnership with the tenants, and now that it’s time to recapitalize the constructing, they’re doing that. It’s comprehensible that as issues age, they must be recapitalized, however that’s what a accountable landlord does. It’s 100% the precise mannequin.
The Metropolis Council revived two payments that had been vetoed by Mayor Eric Adams that create new laws for city-financed housing. How will they have an effect on HPD’s capability to supply housing?
The query proper now could be: do these payments go too far in prescribing what’s viable? In an effort to ensure we [are] constructing large enough models, are constructing sufficient homeownership, you will get over-prescriptive in a method that makes it actually arduous to answer the market, so I feel that’s the steadiness that we now have to strike.
The “rental ripoff” hearings are centered on giving tenants a chance to testify about their experiences. However do you assume the hearings will lead to any insurance policies that may assist landlords?
The best way we’ve been occupied with the hearings, from HPD’s perspective, is the place we have to make enhancements round code enforcement. One is a must doubtlessly broaden the 7a program. That’s been underutilized in the previous couple of years. The second is absolutely how we coordinate our efforts with different companies, significantly DOB.
The factor that’s come up most just lately is we’re listening to that some landlords or managers are utilizing the specter of ICE to retaliate in opposition to tenants who complain or name 311, and I feel that must be checked out very carefully.
On the owner query, which I haven’t been pondering [about] as a lot by way of the lens of the hearings, I feel there may be fragility available in the market, which suggests landlords are additionally struggling. We’re exploring plenty of methods to deliver sources to well-meaning, law-abiding landlords which might be doubtlessly struggling. I feel that battle is basically being pushed by bills, which have elevated considerably in simply the final 5 years. One of many issues we’re trying carefully at is insurance coverage.
Would that coincide with the hire freeze?
We’re not going to resolve this dislocation between bills and earnings proper now with a hire improve. I feel the precise factor to be doing is specializing in sources to ensure landlords can keep their buildings, and what we are able to do to deliver down a few of the bills. You will get overly centered on freezing rents or [not freezing] rents, however I feel it kind of misses the purpose.
We hear quite a bit from builders about 485x and the development wages hooked up to the property tax break.
I’ve began to have some conversations with landlords who’re would-be customers or precise customers of 485x about what’s working and what’s not working. I need to have some actual conversations to seek out out [if] we have to make some lodging in mild of the prevailing wage and the deeper affordability restrictions. I feel there’s an attention-grabbing query there about what the town and HPD particularly must do to make it possible for program stays usable and efficient, as a result of I feel will probably be an enormous a part of attaining the mayor’s housing plan.
Do you assume there will likely be extra examples of the town intervening in conditions just like the sale of the Pinnacle portfolio?
I do know there’ll. There are a number of portfolios that we now have been watching. I feel there will likely be some extra portfolios coming down the pike which might be going to both find yourself in foreclosures or chapter or one thing comparable. I feel having the administration so straight centered on that’s nice. I see it as a chance to deliver a few of these models into HPD regulatory constructions, doubtlessly by way of financing, and in addition to be watching them very carefully to ensure whoever is shopping for them — like within the case of Summit buying the Pinnacle portfolio — that we are going to be watching that very carefully, and that they are going to be anticipated to restore the constructing, put in all of the sources, not be harassing tenants.
Learn extra
Mamdani taps Dina Levy for HPD commissioner
Mamdani taps Leila Bozorg as deputy mayor of housing
Mamdani’s housing czar on rent freeze, bad landlords and striking balance between pro-development and pro-tenant agendas
