The local paper for the Upper er East Side SEEING THE CITY THROUGH A CAMERA'S EYE < Q&A, P.18
MENACE OR BOOM: THE FIGHT OVER AIRBNB HEATS UP NEWS Council hearing pits the web rental service against permanent tenants BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
CHAPIN EXPANSION PLAN REJECTED BY CB8 NEWS
The debate around Airbnb and its imitators was addressed officially for the first time by the City Council this week. The Committee on Housing and Buildings Oversight heard testimony on Tuesday for and against the service, which has joined a cadre of other technology startups like Uber in challenging the regulatory landscape in New York and across the country. On one side are lawmakers and housing activists who say Airbnb and similar sites regularly flout state law, put permanent tenants at risk, and enable unscrupulous landlords to operate illegal hotels to the detriment of the city’s housing stock. On the other side is Airbnb and its many users, who say the service is used by everyday New Yorkers to make ends meet in an increasingly expensive city. In 2010, State Sen. Liz Krueger passed the illegal hotel bill, which said an owner must be present for any short-term rental less than 30 days. The law immediately cast a shadow over Airbnb’s business model, which thrives on short-term rentals of one day to a week where the owner is not present. Airbnb’s position is that it aggressively roots out bad actors who use the service to rent out entire buildings or blocks of apartment units full time, essentially operating illegal hotels. The
The Chapin School’s application to add three stories to its eight-story building at East End Avenue and 84th Street was denied by Community Board 8. “Primarily the sense of the board is that they weren’t specific enough regarding their weekend work in terms of duration, and when construction would start and when it would stop,” said CB8 chair Jim Clynes, who took over this year from outgoing chair Nick Viest. Construction at Chapin, a K-12 allgirls school that is among the most exclusive private schools in the city, would have had to take place over the summer and during nonschool hours, a prospect that worried both the board and neighboring residents. In a presentation on the proposal given by Chapin, representatives of the school said construction would last about 39 months and would wrap up by the end of 2018. Clynes said CB8 members were also concerned about construction snarling traffic in the area and about shadows that the addition would cast into Carl Schurz Park, which is across East End Avenue from the school. In addition, said Clynes,
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Neighbors expressed concerns about construction noise, traffic BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
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In Brief MALONEY PAID FAMILY LEAVE TOUTED IN STATE OF THE UNION President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday included an endorsement of a paid family leave initiative long championed by East Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. In the speech, the president announced an executive order expanding family leave at the federal level. The order will grant six weeks of paid leave to federal employees when a new child arrives or to care for ill family members. Maloney has been a leader on the issue and has been trying to pass legislation to do just that for the past 15 years. The president has previously expressed his support for the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which Maloney has introduced eight times since 2000. It passed the House of Representatives in 2009 but has never passed the Senate. “I think it’s embarrassing that the United States is one of just two countries [in the world] that doesn’t provide Family Leave,” Maloney said. “The other is Papua New Guinea. But as the richest nation in the world, I think we can and must do better than what Papua New Guinea is doing, or rather not doing, at the present time.” Maloney said federal employees should not have to deplete their leave and sick time when they have a child. “Raising a child is the single most important task a human being can take on, yet the United States lags behind the rest of the world,” she said.
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candle every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday January 23 - 4:45 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com.