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The MTA may be doing what landlords have been trying to do unsuccessfully: Kick old people out of their rent controlled apartments in order to make way for the Second Avenue Subway. The MTA needs space to build new buildings, ventilation shafts, and other places for subway sounds and smells to be let out. The Daily News talks to a number of seniors who say they are scared, with one of whom actually lost 40 pounds since first worrying about that. Really, 40 pounds? Go figure - it's the newest diet craze, "Scared About Finding Affordable Housing in NYC Diet."
An MTA spokesperson said, "Each case will be taken on an individual basis, and we will make every effort to accommodate everyone's needs, keeping in mind the public benefits for hundreds of thousands of our customers whose lives this project will make easier." At any rate, if the MTA evicts people from their homes, they need to help find them new apartments that are "comparable in size and cost" while admittiing it "may be difficult, if not impossible" to find comparable apartments. Since the MTA can't perform magic, they'll probably need to pay out the tenants, which seems par for the course, since the project will cost BILLIONS. But, really, there's nothing to tug on the heartstrings more than kicking senior citizens out of their apartments, except for kicking children and senior citizens with kittens and puppies out of their apartments.
The displacement may begin next year. The first phase of Second Avenue Subway construction begins this year and is scheduled to end in 2011. Yes, 2011.
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when i was living in houston during graduate school, i was bought out when my building turned out to be in the path of a light rail project. i was living in a very-cheap-even-for-houston efficiency apartment that was technically/legally equivalent to a one-bedroom, which would rent at 60% higher than what i was paying. the transportation agency had to pay me the rent difference for an equivalent apartment, times 48 months, lump sum. nice when you have zero income.
but i can imagine a similar scenario in new york wouldn't work so well for tenants in the long-term, because at some point they'll have to be able to cover the gigantic rent increase out of their own pockets.
I can just see the MTA trying to out-guilt some Jewish grandma with that line: "]We could accommodate your needs, Ma'am,] keeping in mind the public benefits for hundreds of thousands of our customers whose lives this project will make easier."
Landlord's Revenge! One of the great unheralded scandals of the age is that condemnation panels award far too much money to property owners in order to smooth over anger and feelings of being unjustly displaced. For instance, a property that would fetch $400,000 on the open market might bring $525-$600,000 before a condemnation board - 30%-50% more than it's actually worth.
Now, what's funny about this in NYC is that controlled rent apartments REDUCE the value of the building they're in. (For any multi-unit building, a large part of the value calculation is the rent income, barring extenuating circumstances.) So the condemnation boards might actually right the wrong done to these landlords in the first place, instead of simply being a waste of tax money.
Favorite Republican phrase: "waste of tax money", usually refers to anything outside that 1/3 of tax money (federal) that goes to the military (http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm).
On topic: Somebody convince me Manhattan needs more trains and Queens has enough.
Sterling: condemnation panels are overly generous not only to smooth over bad feelings, but as an attempt to avoid further litigation. Even futile litigation takes up time and money that municipalities would just as soon avoid.
Parasite: Someone convince me that Queens needs more trains and Staten Island has enough (or any) that connect to the rest of this godforsaken city. There is a much higher probability of Staten Island eventually acquiring a rail connection to New Jersey (via the Bayonne Bridge to connect with the Hudson light rail project) than to the rest of the city of which it is a component (and in terms of tax flows, a lucrative one at that).