2 years after Hurricane Ida deaths, are NYC's basement apartments any safer?

After at least 11 people drowned in New York City basement apartments when the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the region, city officials promised better protection for people living in these illegal units. Advocates say the unlawful conversions are often the only affordable option for many New Yorkers, but they can become death traps during climate change-fueled bouts of extreme weather.

Since Ida, there has been a 20% drop in citations for illegal basement apartments, according to public data. Rather than tackling the issue by leaning on fines and issuing vacate orders, officials have instead pushed for ways to make subterranean living safer. They've joined advocates in calls to change basement housing legislation at the state level after a proposal stalled in the legislature earlier this year. In the meantime, they’re implementing stopgap measures – like targeted flood warnings for basement tenants – to try and prevent another Ida.

“No New Yorker should fear for their life when it rains, and that’s why the administration has been doing everything within our legal authority to protect New Yorkers at risk,” said Liz Garcia, deputy press secretary at the mayor’s office. “At the same time, what we must do to truly protect New Yorkers is change the rules to legalize and protect basement apartments.”

It's difficult to know how many basements across the city have been converted into apartments, but the city estimates that about 50,000 are occupied by approximately 100,000 people. Researchers and advocates say the real tally is even higher, with clusters in low-income communities of color, including Corona in Queens. That borough, in general, bore the brunt of the drowning deaths during Ida.

Under NYC law, basement apartments must meet a strict set of building standards, and cellar dwellings are not permitted. Inspectors from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development flag and fine a slim fraction of those illegal apartments for violations of both city and state housing law — a practice that advocates say can be punitive without offering a viable alternative.

“We were seeing so many homeowners whose income was unexpectedly cut off because they were getting large fines, and the tenant would suddenly lose their home,” said Annetta Seecharran, executive director at Chhaya Community Development Corporation, which advocates for the legalization of basement apartments. “These folks will have no place to go.”

What progressed and what floundered after Ida

In the aftermath of Ida, NYC officials promised special protections for vulnerable basement tenants. Then-mayoral candidate Eric Adams promised text alerts for subterranean apartment-dwellers, which launched earlier this year. He also pledged a database of basement units and amnesty for homeowners who added safety features to the illegal conversions. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio called for targeted evacuations to keep basement tenants out of harm’s way.

In the last two years, city officials installed flood sensors to help identify at-risk neighborhoods during storms. They also deployed federal funds to rehabilitate floodprone residential homes and study the resiliency of basement apartment conversions, according to the newly released Mayor’s Management Report.

But a handful of key efforts to make subgrade apartments safer have floundered. A basement conversion pilot program in East New York was snarled by budget cuts and complicated housing rules, and a bill to clear the path to legalization failed in the state Assembly. Advocates say lawmakers aren’t moving fast enough to protect basement dwellers from extreme rainfall, which is becoming more common thanks to climate change.

“Two years have passed and there hasn’t been any meaningful change to address the basement issue in New York City,” Seecharran said. “And the next storm is around the corner.”

Where NYC basement apartments get flagged and fined

A Gothamist analysis of HPD inspection records suggest that the practice of fining building owners for basement apartments may have fallen out of favor in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Inspections were suspended in the first half of 2020 due to COVID-19 years of the pandemic. But the number of violations in 2022 remained below pre-pandemic levels, HPD data shows.

The city issued 488 annual violations on average from 2015 to 2019, and last year’s total was about 20% below the five-year average. This year, though, city inspectors have filed 288 illegal basement conversion violations, putting them on pace to match pre-lockdown levels.

Basement apartments are located mainly in residential one- and two-family homes across Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. But such dwellings are among the only remaining affordable housing options in an increasingly unaffordable city, advocates say.

The inspection records show that violations are clustered in many of the neighborhoods identified by the Pratt Center as having a large number of basement units. Canarsie and East New York, both in Brooklyn, racked up nearly 200 violations apiece over the last decade.

But fines and violations won’t protect basement tenants, many of whom can’t afford to move above ground.

“These folks will have no place to go,” Seecharran said. “They will continue to live in basement apartments whether we like it or not, because they have no other option.”

Instead, advocates want Gov. Kathy Hochul to amend New York state’s Multiple Dwelling Law to ease the process of legalizing basement apartments. The updated law would mandate key safety features – like drainage and emergency exits – while leaving off old requirements like roof rails that aren’t reasonable for residential homes.

Sylvia Morse, a program manager for the Pratt Center, said that Hurricane Ida may have sped up the path to legalization by bringing basement tenants’ plight into the public eye.

“For many years, the arguments that this was an urgent housing safety issue were seen as hypothetical,” she said. “It is a shame that it took the death of New Yorkers in their basement apartments to create more urgency.”

In 2022, state lawmakers fielded two bills that would have opened up a path to basement conversions and other housing options, like accessory dwelling units, statewide. But neither made it to the governor’s desk. Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, who introduced the bills, said they may have been too broad to survive.

“Sometimes when you have a big, robust housing agenda, you make a lot of little enemies on different topics,” he said. “When you create a lot of little enemies, you create a package that no one can buy into.”

But Seecharran and Morse aren’t disheartened. They say that legalization is coming sooner or later — but preferably sooner.

“This will happen. It has to happen. We don’t have a choice,” Seecharran said of legalization. “Are we going to allow thousands of New Yorkers to live every day in fear that at night they could be facing a wave of water? It’s going to happen. But why wait?”

This story was updated with a comment from the New York City mayor’s office.