Int 0682-2015

Be it enacted by the Council as follows: Section 1. Declaration of legislative intent and findings. a. The council finds and declares that: 1. Although there are legitimate reasons for building owners to offer tenants money or other valuable consideration to vacate their apartments, in recent years, and due in part to rapidly increasing rents, some owners have engaged in abusive and intimidating behaviors to coerce such tenants into accepting these buyout offers and leaving their homes; and 2. The rights of building owners to make these buyout offers must be balanced with the rights of tenants to negotiate or refuse such offers and to be free of harassment. b. As a result, it is necessary and appropriate to place reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the making of these buyout offers in order to protect tenants from harassment while still allowing owners and tenants to engage in negotiations over such offers. � 2. Paragraph 48 of subdivision a of section 27-2004 of the administrative code of the city of New York is amended by adding a new subparagraph f-3 to read as follows: f-3. offering money or other valuable consideration to a person lawfully entitled to occupancy of such dwelling unit to induce such person to vacate such dwelling unit or to surrender or waive any rights in relation to such occupancy while engaging in any of the following types of conduct: (1) threatening, intimidating or using obscene language; (2) initiating communication with such frequency, at such unusual hours or in such a manner as can reasonably be expected to abuse or harass such person; (3) initiating communication at the place of employment of such person without the prior written consent of such person; or (4) knowingly falsifying or misrepresenting any information provided to such person; or � 3. This local law takes effect on the same date as a local law of the city of New York for the year 2015 amending the administrative code of the city of New York relating to amending the definition of harassment to include certain buyout offers, as proposed in introduction number 757-A, takes effect. LS 1251 JW 8/5/15 - 652p - 2 -