The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) recently announced the launch of a new housing safety program, called the Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP). This program will allow HPD to name the 200 most unsafe properties in New York City each year and force the landowners to bring these buildings up to code in a reasonable amount of time.
“With the inauguration of the Alternative Enforcement Program, the landlords of 200 New York City properties are now on notice that we will not tolerate unsafe conditions for tenants and the willful disregard of the City’s Housing Maintenance Code,” HPD Commissioner Shaun Donovan said in a statement.
Under this new program, HPD will choose buildings that need to be repaired based on the specific criteria outlined in the Safe Housing Law. This year, the final 200 buildings were chosen from a list of those that had 27 or more serious violations over the past two years. Out of the buildings chosen, 52 are located in the Bronx. Landlords now have four months to work with HPD to fix their violations.

