Enacts provisions relating to interim multiple dwellings and the tax law relating to video lottery gaming

Summary of specific provisions

This bill would amend the definition of interim multiple dwelling to only include a building where three or more families have lived independently of each other for 12 consecutive months or longer between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2009.

The bill would also establish other safety criteria that would have to be met for a unit to be eligible as a loft protected by the loft law. No unit could be located in a basement or cellar; each unit must have at least one entrance that does not require passage through another residential unit to reach the unit; each unit must have at least one window opening onto a street, yard, or court; and each unit must be at least 550 square feet in area. Covered buildings cannot be located in an industrial business zone, except lofts in the Maspeth, North Brooklyn and Williamsburg/Greenpoint industrial business Zones would be covered by the law. The loft board must determine in rules and regulations whether each use set forth in groups 15 through 18, as defined in the municipalities zoning law, constitutes a use inherently incompatible with residential use. No change in the use of the building would remove the protections of loft law from the units that have been covered.

The bill would increase the maximum penalty that could be issued for a violation of the loft board's rules or regulations from $1,000 to $17,500.

The bill would allow the loft board to designate the environmental control board as the enforcing entity for various provisions of its rules and regulations. The environmental control board could issue penalties up to $17,500 for violations and could issue judgments that could be docketed and enforced. The department of buildings would be able to issue any violations that the environmental control board issues.

The bill would require that all applications for inclusion under loft law be filed within six months after the loft board has finished adopting as the rules and regulations necessary to implement the bill.

Justification

This chapter amendment was drafted to address concerns that the underlying legislation would allow lofts with insurmountable safety concerns to be covered by the loft law and that the expanded coverage would interfere with municipal efforts to attract new manufacturing enterprises. The amendments in this bill would provide greater protections to the safety of the tenants of lofts by determining if their buildings contain unsafe industrial activities. The bill also exempts units contained in certain industrial zones where such inclusion could interfere with plans to use these areas for industrial purposes exclusively. The chapter amendment also contains increased penalties and enforcement provisions giving the loft board, the environmental control board and the department of buildings more authority for ensuring compliance with the law. This should lead to fewer violations. This bill and the underlying chapter make the existing loft law permanent. It is the intent of this legislation to confirm that the law is now permanent; the temporary extension of the law in the emergency budget extenders did not indicate a contrary intent.

Prior legislative history

New legislation.

Fiscal implications

None to the state.

Effective date

Immediately; provided, however, sections one, two and three of this act shall take effect on the same date as a chapter of the laws of 2010, amending the multiple dwelling law relating to interim multiple dwellings in a city of more than one million persons, as proposed in legislative bill numbers S.7178-A and A.5667-C, takes effect.