These are so frustrating to receive. A building owner sent me this video of a 2BR Upper West Side apartment he just got back, but after he empties it out it will stay vacant going forward. The tenant lived here since 1985 and the current legal rent is $940.01 Because of the 2019 HSTPA law, a building owner is expected to fully renovate this unit to current building code (that’s a good thing), but also expected to lose money in perpetuity at the same time. This 2BD would need well over $100,000 to clean out the debris, comply with lead laws, upgrade major systems, remove the Sheetrock + much more just to make this into an apartment a tenant would actually want to live in with dignity. But the law says the $940 rent would still end up below the estimated $1300/mo it costs to operate the apt which covers insurance, property taxes, labor, fuel, and capital expenditures for the building. So if the new rent falls below the operating cost, the owner would still lose money every month and never see $1 back from the $100k+ renovation. Why would the state expect anyone to lose money like this? What bank would ever provide a loan with no path to repayment? Why do we acknowledge the cost to build housing but ignore what it takes to preserve older housing? Why do we accept this policy when thousands of New Yorkers are searching for housing in the midst of the worst supply crunch we’ve ever seen? So frustrating.