NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: NYC’s Compost Crackdown, Landlord Negligence Explained, Residents Riled Up Over Jail Construction and the Return of Harlem’s “Uptown Night Market”

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

New York City’s Department of Sanitation is hitting landlords with a flurry of tickets for failing to follow the new composting rules. Meanwhile, the city has approved around-the-clock work to build Brooklyn's new jail, as officials plan to shutter Rikers Island. And finally, the Uptown Night Market returns this Thursday under what's known as the "Arches of Harlem.”

New York City's compost crackdown. Landlord negligence explained. New York City businesses brace for price hikes, residents riled up over jail construction, and the return of Harlem's uptown night market. From WMYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. New York City is a week into its new composting crackdown,

and the sanitation department is hitting landlords with a flurry of tickets for failing to follow the rules. rules. Every property owner must separate organic waste from the rest of their garbage. The rule has been in effect since October, but the city only started issuing fines this month. The sanitation department says it's issued almost 2,000 tickets so far. They start at $25 a piece. Mayor Eric Adams says the city is not trying to make money, but to get more organic material out of landfills. We don't want to just hit people with fines to encourage them. We want people to buy into the program. It's imperative that, number one, the public understand the separations of composting, how to carry it out, and to encourage people to do it.

City officials say New Yorkers who live in buildings where landlords don't offer a compost option should call 311. And speaking of landlords, on a previous episode, we mentioned New York City officials recently seized an apartment building from a negligent landlord for the first time in seven years. The Bronx building is in miserable condition, infested with road-trial. mold and lead paint. Negligence like this could have been avoided if the city's third-party transfer program was still in place. That ended back in 2019, but now there are talks to revive it. I wanted to know more, so I called WMYC's housing reporter David Brandon. Hello? Hey, David, it's Janae. Is this a good time? Jeanne, who? I'm sorry, Janay Pierre. We sit pretty close to each other at work.

Oh, Janais, Janais. Hey, what's up, Janae? Oh, nothing much. So I was reading your piece on our Gothamist site, and I was really struck learning about the conditions at that Bronx building on Davidson Avenue. You got some time to chat about it? Oh, yeah, definitely. All right, so you reported that the building landlord owed $28 million in back taxes and penalties. Now, we both know regular homeowners get foreclosed on for a lot less, and also tenants can be evicted after a couple months of missed payments. I guess I'm wondering what took so long? Yeah, $28 million. That's a lot of money. And that's a great question. I mean, I think that's a question in that I'm hearing from a lot of readers and a lot of commenters who are reaching out to me. So, yeah, the owner had racked up $28 million in unpaid fines, property taxes, emergency repairs that the city came into the building to complete. And finally, the city managed to take the building and turn it over to a nonprofit group to restore in partnership with the, private property manager. This came after about a decade of organizing for the tenants there. So the tenants have been working with another nonprofit tenant group to demand repairs for the landlord. And every once in a while, the landlord would do a little bit of work, fix some things up. But, you know, this was going on for years and years until finally the city stepped in and took

the building and turned it over. Why hasn't the city taken other properties in the past seven years? Well, that's the problem here why it took so long and what's going on across the city. So the city used to have this program called a third-party transfer program where they could take these buildings from property owners who owed a ton of back taxes and other municipal arrears like, you know, fines and emergency repairs that the city had done. But they suspended that program in 2019 and haven't used it since 2018. So a property like this, the fines keep racking up, the unpaid taxes keep racking up, and the city didn't really have a tool to take it. They managed to take this one because they kind of used a loophole. They said, well, we had tried to foreclose on this property previously. It didn't work at that time, but because we started the process, we can finish it now.

And so that's why they were able to do it. But they say it's going to be the last one they do because the program was suspended. Now, the program was suspended because it was controversial. They were taking properties from low and middle income owners, especially of co-ops. And so they wanted to reassess how they were administering the program. There's a push for a replacement. And so there's legislation before the city council right now to make something new so that they're able to take properties like this again, where, you know, conditions are really bad and not only that, but the owner is neglecting their responsibilities when it comes to property taxes and another fees.

Yeah. I'm thinking a lot about these Bronx residents, particularly the tenants here on Davidson Avenue. What's next for them? Well, there's a lot of hope right now. And for the first time in a really long time, I mentioned they've been trying to get repairs and make changes for more than a decade over there. And this plan could potentially put them on a path to home ownership. So right now, the city took the building and immediately turned it over to this nonprofit group called Neighborhood Restore, which focuses on restoring, like really distrable. properties and then either turning them over to other nonprofits or to the tenants themselves.

They're working with a private property manager to get the finances stable, to get tenants who are on rent strike, to begin paying their rent again and to also make the improvements that are needed throughout the building. And if all of that works out, then the tenants are on a path to homeownership. These apartments would become co-ops. So some light at the end of the tunnel for these tenants, possibly. Definitely, definitely. I'm hearing that from a lot of the residents. There was a big press conference the other day after the story that I did.

And there was a lot of hope. So this could potentially be a really cool situation for them. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, David. Talk to you later. Thanks a lot, Jene. That's WMYC's David Brand. Stick around.

More local news headlines after the break. New York City's plan to shutter Rikers Island and transition to borough-based jails is years behind schedule. To meet some of its deadlines, the city has approved around-the-clock work to build Brooklyn's new jail. But as WMYC's Joe Hong reports, the noise from the construction site is frustrating some residents. Sawing, pounding, the hum of cement trucks, and the rhythmic thumping of jackhammers. It's 11 p.m. on a weeknight, and this has been the nightly soundtrack for residents living near the construction site for the new Brooklyn jail on Atlanta Avenue. Tricia Lynch lives on the ninth floor in an apartment just across the street. There was screeching, sawing, and I was woken up at 3 a.m. bright lights and just like real loud construction.

The WNYC analysis of buildings department data shows City Hall has allowed work to go past 6 p.m. on over 500 days since construction started. On more than 20 days this year, work continued all night until 5 a.m. the following morning. residents like Lynch say she supports closing Rikers Island, but that late-night work permits, also known as After Hour variances, have been abused. This construction of a city building is not an emergency and doesn't justify the variances they've given themselves to work off hours. Things have gotten so bad that Brooklyn City Council member Lincoln Wrestler says he's gotten hate mail about the noisy construction site.

He says he's been trying to get the Department of Buildings to reduce the after-hours variances. But he says City Hall has overruled him. I'm frustrated, and I really hope that the Adams administration starts to work more collaboratively with our neighborhood to achieve better results. We all want this project to get done. But in a statement sent to WNYC, the mayor's office criticized wrestler, accusing him of hypocrisy for publicly supporting borough-based jails while privately undermining progress on the Brooklyn jail. The mayor's office said it would work with residents while moving full steam ahead on the construction of the jail. That's WMYC's Joe Hong. Before we go, some exciting news.

Harlem's uptown night market returns on Thursday. It's the first one of the season. The monthly event takes place off West 133rd Street in Riverside Drive, under what's known as the Arches of Harlem. It starts at four and runs until 10. Organizers call it a celebration of Harlem's culinary scene and diversity. Nearly 50 vendors are set to participate. The night market is planned for the second Thursday,

day of every month through October. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.