To solve the problem of multiple deaths in New York City when it was hit by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, the Mayor Bai Sihao Said he had no plans to solve the illegal basement housing problem that flooded and trapped 10 victims in the city.
“We did not solve this problem immediately,” De Blasio admitted at a press conference on Tuesday.
“I can tell you that we have some magical plans to solve the illegal basement problem overnight. We don’t. Let me be blunt,” the mayor added. “This is a huge structural problem in this city. It has been so for decades.”
According to the city’s estimates, at least 50,000 basements in the five administrative districts have been illegally converted into tenant residences. Of the 13 people who died as a result of the Ida flood, at least 10 people were trapped in illegal units.
Construction Commissioner Melanie La Rocca announced on Friday that only one victim killed by the flood was living in a legal apartment.
“DOB inspectors have confirmed that five of the six properties where New Yorkers unfortunately lost their lives in the flood were illegally converted cellars and basement apartments,” La Roca said.
De Blasio said that it would require tens of billions of dollars of “huge investment” and “a lot of work” to transform illegal homes into legal apartments, but the mayor did not provide any timetable for when the conversions will come.
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De Blasio also vowed not to punish the tenants of these units, acknowledging that the demand for these apartments was due to a shortage of affordable housing for New Yorkers, but pointed out that the city would “hold people accountable.”
“The answer is to protect people with the new methods we have now, and then over time, as we acquire more and more resources, especially from the federal government, it is the hard work of doing as much conversion work as possible. Work,” de Blasio said on Tuesday.
“This will require a lot of public funding to do this. The homeowner does not have the resources to do this realistically,” he added.
Last week, the mayor announced the establishment of a 30-day extreme weather response working group to study how the city can better prepare for and respond to extreme weather, including faster evacuation of basement apartments.
De Blasio said on Friday: “We had an illegal basement problem, and then we ran into a problem where many people ended up entering the illegal basement and were afraid to communicate because they feared that they might be deported, or worse, deported.” “This is just a series of extremely challenging situations.”
“We need to make absolute statistics on all of these, and then if necessary, we can apply these door-to-door technologies,” he added. “We must have a clear database to work, of course, we must first understand the areas we do know, and where they are common.”
