The outgoing New York Metropolis Council used its final assembly of the 2024-2025 session on Thursday to go landmark laws increasing allowing and company help for avenue distributors, reasonably priced housing coverage and employee safety legal guidelines.
“When you think about issues that affect working-class New Yorkers, this is a day to be proud of,” mentioned new Council Member Harvey Epstein. “We’re talking about worker protections, opportunities for more affordable housing…These are real ways to manage the affordability crisis, keep people in their homes…That’s what we should be proud of.”
Looming over the laws, nonetheless, is the risk that outgoing Mayor Eric Adams might use his previous few weeks in workplace to veto some or all the payments — one thing that solely the following incoming Metropolis Council could have the facility to override.
Avenue Vendor Reform Package deal
Nearly all of the town’s roughly 23,000 avenue distributors are unpermitted and wrestle to navigate the town companies concerned of their regulation. After years of strain from distributors and advocates, the council handed a set of payments on Thursday designed to enhance allow entry and company help for these promoting meals and items on the streets daily.
Referred to as the Avenue Vendor Reform Package deal and made up of Intros. 431-2024, 408-2024, 1251-2024, the package deal will add greater than 20,000 avenue merchandising permits to the system over the following 5 years, create a Division of Avenue Vendor Help throughout the Division of Small Enterprise Providers that would offer coaching, outreach and workshops on complying with native legal guidelines and laws for newly permitted distributors and authorize the Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene to challenge extra functions for supervisory licenses.
Bronx Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez, who launched a number of payments within the package deal, emphasised the significance of the payments to the road merchandising group.
Notably, there are simply over 7,000 accessible permits for avenue distributors, they usually and their advocates have reported points with the way in which the Division of Sanitation has performed enforcement in opposition to them.
“We’re at a pivotal moment for street vending reform. As the daughter and granddaughter of street vendors, I could not be more proud of how far we’ve come, and, honestly, shocked,” Sanchez mentioned. “Countless lives are going to change after this.”
Earlier than the council assembly started, distributors and advocates held a rally outdoors Metropolis Corridor to push members to go their laws.
“It’s been a long road for us to be here,” mentioned Lupe, a second-generation avenue vendor from East Harlem. “It’s a big celebration to pass this bill now…We need this.”
Lupe additionally spoke to the fears many advocates have that present Adams might veto the road vendor laws earlier than he leaves workplace.
“If the mayor hears this, don’t veto this law. You’re already leaving. So let us, who have been in the streets for more than 20 years, stay in the streets, but with a better process,” Lupe mentioned. “I’ve been part of this part of the street vending system for over 27 years. My mom has been struggling to get a permit, to get a license for so many years….It’s time to see change now, and it’s time to be part of the change now.”
Distributors and advocates had one other win earlier this 12 months, when one of many package deal’s payments, now referred to as Native Regulation 122, handed in September, decriminalizing avenue merchandising offenses. Now, as a substitute of going through felony penalties for infractions, like merchandising with no license, distributors will face a civil one.
The combat for avenue merchandising reform isn’t over, nonetheless.
Advocates and distributors are nonetheless pushing for Intro. 947-2024, which might set up an Workplace of Avenue Vendor Enforcement within the metropolis. Distributors say an workplace particularly devoted to their companies will assist present further help to the tens of hundreds of avenue distributors who type the town’s smallest companies.
That invoice must be reintroduced within the new 12 months whether it is to have the possibility of turning into legislation.
Housing Coverage
Certified non-profits and group land trusts now have first dibs on buying disenfranchised and low-income residential properties after they go up on the market, below Intro 902-B, referred to as COPA, or the Neighborhood Alternative to Buy Act.
“This is a landmark piece of social housing legislation,” mentioned Brooklyn Council Member Sandy Nurse, the invoice’s sponsor. “It is protecting tenants and preserving permanently affordable homes.”
The invoice acquired spirited debate throughout voting, with a number of members expressing their opposition, suggesting that it might take away the rights, alternative and property of small and mid-size property homeowners and calling it “potentially illegal.”
“This is government overreach at the very best,” mentioned Queens Council Member Vickie Paladino.
Nurse known as these opposing it misinformed concerning the invoice’s intentions and accused them of getting “done nothing for homeowners or tenants.”
COPA solely contains buildings which have over 5 models and an “extremely targeted set of properties,” within the Housing Preservation and Growth’s Various Enforcement Program, mentioned Nurse, which addresses distressed properties, like these with a number of constructing code violations or in various states of disrepair. Nonprofits would have 25 days to submit an announcement of curiosity upon receiving discover of a property being available on the market.
“We are creating a small chance, just a tiny chance, that instead of property being sold to an investor around the world that we have a nonprofit we have a relationship with…purchase and improve the property,” Nurse mentioned.
She emphasised that the invoice had been pared down after intensive deliberations with council members and group stakeholders.
Although it’s additionally confronted opposition from the true property trade, Nurse and the invoice’s advocates have mentioned it gives native nonprofits the chance to buy properties of their neighborhoods to make sure their possession stays native and hold individuals of their houses.
“COPA will give a set of vetted, certified, qualified entities or preservation buyers the first chance to buy buildings with physical distress and expiring affordability restrictions,” Nurse mentioned. “We’re going to be protecting tenants and preserving permanently affordable homes. With today’s passage, New York City will become the largest city in the country with an Opportunity to Purchase Program. It is a critical preservation tool to add to our toolbox.”
Much less contested was Intro 1443, which handed with out fanfare and requires 50% of newly constructed rental models financed by the town be designated as reasonably priced for very low-income households, and no less than 30% to be reasonably priced for very low-income households, additionally sponsored by Nurse.
Very low-income households are these making lower than 50% of the realm median earnings, or AMI, and intensely low-income households are these making lower than 30% of the AMI, adjusted for the scale of the family.
The council additionally handed Intro 1433-2025, requiring 25% of all newly constructed reasonably priced housing flats financed by the town should be 2 bedrooms and 15% should be 3 bedrooms.
The invoice’s sponsor, Bronx Council Member Eric Dinowitz, known as it a win for reasonably priced housing and for households, who he mentioned are being pushed out the town as a result of an absence of family-sized flats.
“People are struggling to find larger apartments,” Dinowitz mentioned. “There are not enough two or three-bedroom apartments. And if there are, they’re certainly not affordable.”
“We’re losing families faster than any other demographic,” Dinowitz mentioned. He added that households account for a good portion of these in homeless shelters and blamed the town’s concentrate on studios and one-bedroom flats for pushing households out.
“This is a pivotal moment for our city,” Dinowitz mentioned. “We’re going to make [affordable housing] more of a reality for our families…and stop seeing the flow of families out of the city and start seeing the flow of families back into the city.”
When requested what he would do if Adams vetoed his laws, Dinowitz mentioned he didn’t see why the mayor would oppose “pro-family legislation,” and would “cross that bridge if it gets there,” if he did.
Although the invoice is efficient instantly, necessities received’t go into impact till July 2027, in order that reasonably priced housing initiatives at the moment underway can proceed with out hindrance.
Employee Protections
Building Justice Act
Underneath the Building Justice Act, or Intro 910, builders behind city-funded housing initiatives will probably be required to pay staff $40/hour in wages and advantages, no less than of $25 of which should be in wages, to their staff, “engage in best efforts” to make sure that 30% of staff are metropolis residents and supply a personal proper to motion for aggravated staff.
Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, who sponsored the invoice, emphasised its significance to the development working group, ceaselessly made up of immigrant staff, previously incarcerated individuals and day laborers, individuals who she described as the town’s “most vulnerable.”
“It is important that those who are building our skyline are also able to live in it,” De La Rosa mentioned. “That’s how we fix the housing crisis in this city…The Construction Justice Act is a win for all of us.”
Building staff who gathered outdoors metropolis corridor previous to the vote emphasised the significance of the invoice, talking to low wages, some as little as $16/hour, that prevented them from correctly supporting their households, and poor working situations.
“This is a history-making bill,” De La Rosa mentioned.
NYPD Reform
Lastly, the NYPD should present the Civilian Criticism Assessment Board with physique digital camera footage for the aim of investigating police misconduct below Intro 1451, sponsored by outgoing Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Adams mentioned requiring police to offer the board with footage would “increase their ability to determine merits,” of allegations made in opposition to officers.
