For many low-income and immigrant New Yorkers, an unregulated basement or cellar unit is all they can afford. While the city has made efforts to legalize underground apartments, like a…
“If it were up to me, all of New York City would be included,” said State Sen. Julia Salazar, who is looking to expand the state’s recently passed basement legalization…
“I’m surprised, I’m baffled, I’m angry,” said City Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who represents East New York, where the city ran an earlier basement conversion pilot in 2019. The area…
“I haven’t slept at all, I panic every time it pours hard rain,” one basement tenant in Brooklyn told City Limits after water began to breach her apartment early Friday…
As the state’s budget deadline approaches, Queens democratic lawmakers are at odds over whether it should include a path for legalizing the city’s basement and cellar apartments.
While Gov. Kathy Hochul included a pathway to basement legalization in her February budget proposal, the word ‘cellar’ is absent from her plan. The two terms may be indistinguishable to…
