She won’t leave: Now Manhattan developers may build a tower around her

Okay, so you see this right here? This is a guy named Niall Berry. Niall is, yeah, Niall is the operator, or the, I don't know exactly, he's not the president, but he runs a page called Urban Explained, and he explains sort of the details of a lot of these complicated issues in the city, and he makes it very simple. This is one, I just wanna play a little bit of it, just off the top. He put out this video the other day, and this one came across my feed. It's about a Kips Bay redevelopment project that could replace four low-rise buildings with as many as 160 apartments. But there's a problem. Take a listen a little bit to Niles reporting on this. Developers considering a new design that would wrap the entire apartment tower around a single rent-stabilized building, all because one person won't move out. This is 339 East 33rd Street in Kips Bay, Manhattan. And since 2015, a developer has spent $29 million acquiring these four walk-ups and the air rights from a lot nearby to build a 23-story apartment building with 160 units, 40 of which would be permanently affordable, which is a one-to-one replacement of the 40 apartments that are there on site today. But just to be clear, only 10 of these on site today are rent-stabilized. The remaining 30 are market rate. And when we say- All right, so you may have seen some of those videos that are out there. And so now we want to check in with the man himself. Niall Berry is on the line with us this morning. Niall, thank you very much. How did you hear about this story? Yeah, well, thank you, Dan, so much for having me. I'm very excited to be on. And my focus has always been New York. I love these stories. And what I look for are stories with trade-offs. And this has got to be one of the top stories that makes that trade-off as clear as possible. So I came across this, this is public information, and this story has been around for a while, but it really caught my eye as something where rent stabilization and housing development are kind of pitted against each other so directly. You're exactly right. I mean, that's such a big issue for not just previous administrations, but certainly currently with Mayor Mamdani. I mean, he's made affordable housing and affordability in general, a focus of his administration. So can you just sort of talk us through the basic conflict at the center of this Kips Bay project, what someone might miss just from looking at the headline? Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest headline buried beneath the headline here is that if they were to build this project, there would actually be more rent-stabilized housing created because of this new project. And I think people are often quick to judge of greedy landlord, wants to push a tenant out in order to build some high-rise development that they can't actually live in or can't afford. And I think this is actually just a really clear example of the opposite, where this is an opportunity to build more housing, to actually build more rent-stabilized housing than what's there today. And it's all not able to happen because a single tenant, a renter, is refusing to move out of her building. So I just want to take a look at the video that you posted, because you did get some of the renderings there. Tyler, can we play that again just very quickly and then i want to sort of pause on um if we go to the beginning yeah yeah right around here so so the the actual building itself there we go the actual building itself i mean that's a significant high rise and then when you look just at the bottom just in the middle their plans now are to possibly build around that is that right yeah that's exactly right so this is a this is not the kind of approved design that has been on the books for years of what they want to build. This is a mock-up of what they might have to build because this woman won't vacate her rent-stabilized building. So you can actually see it there. This is a mammoth tower kind of taking over and engulfing a rent-stabilized building. And no one wants this, right? No one wants to be living in that building as a tower is built around it. The developer doesn't want to do this. But this is a mock-up by the architect to show you know if we are given no choice we will have to build something like this and this is you know obviously the worst outcome for everyone involved and apparently she's been offered a pretty decent amount of money to try to move out some of the other ones have have already agreed um what does she want in order to to move on yeah i mean this is tough to speculate because it's a lot of like he said she said with these things and what gets published and put online is maybe take it with a grain of salt. Apparently, she's asked for $1.5 million to vacate her rental. Apparently, the developer has agreed to pay this sum, but it hasn't quite happened yet. But regardless, this is a huge sum of money and it represents a huge amount of value for the developer. And ultimately, this is not a homeowner, this is a renter, right? This is someone who has been in this apartment for well over a decade paying a below market rent to live there and this is property that it does not you know that is owned by someone else who has plans for it um so yes it's been a the number's been floated at 1.5 million uh but again it's it's kind of hard to know exactly because there's a lot of unreliable narrators here one or two more questions on this case and then i just wanted to talk about the page in general um i guess in theory i don't want to say to be fair but if you got a good deal on an apartment Even if somebody was going to offer you a million bucks, I mean, it's hard. You know what I mean? Like if you got a good deal on a rent stabilized, you got to move out and you want to stay in the city and then you got to find a $6,500 apartment. It's, I mean, even if you get the million dollars, it's a tough conversation, you know, I mean, that's what it's all about here. Hey, I know. I mean, the big issue with rent stabilized housing, I mean, you get a rent stabilized unit and you were there for, you know, 10, 20, 30 years in New York City. I mean, it is, it is as precious and rare as gold. And that's really kind of part of the problem is that landlords who own these buildings are really kind of tepid and nervous to rent them out to tenants that they're not sure that they want to be living with for the next 30 years. So it kind of creates this new problem because of how sticky these apartments are. And you're right, a million dollars actually might not be worth it if you're gonna live there for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Exactly, so what happens next in this case just very quickly? So this case has been ongoing for many years, as I kind of pointed out in the video. But the next big court date is happening in December, and that'll be kind of a big milestone of what's really gonna happen. And if I were to guess, if I were a betting man, I would say that they're not gonna be building a high rise that wraps around a rent-stabilized building. I think that they will come to some agreement here. But it is really just a very clear window into when housing development and rent stabilization go head to head. And ultimately, no one's really getting what they want. So we'll see in December if something changes. And Niall, while we have you here, and again, we're talking to Niall Berry, social media journalist from Urban Explained, a great Instagram follow for anyone out there kind of want to get the inside scoop, breaks down a lot of the stories that we cover here on the news um and just looking at your page here i mean you can see you scroll down and down and down and one thing that really stands out is what's about to pop out and that's Mayor Mamdani um and so you know this is a way i know there's a lot of controversy and all this stuff about social media influencers and things along those lines but the bottom line is that social media journalists such as yourself you're reaching a different audience that maybe uh you're not necessarily getting to with these same news stories that you're not getting to with the traditional media anymore. Have you found that in your journey here with Urban Explained? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it speaks to that old saying of the medium is the message. And I think a lot of people like to get their information through short form video now. So a lot of the stories I cover are publicly available stories. They're long, dense PDF documents published by the city that I try to turn into 90 second high energy, but very still factually accurate. Explainer videos that people can easily grasp and understand and hopefully get something from. And obviously our mayor is Mr. Social Media. So it makes a lot of sense that he's interested in speaking with people like me who are also kind of doing and what he's doing and riding the same social media wave. Anything we can look forward to another 90-second clip coming out anytime soon? Oh, yeah. I got a big one about the IBX coming out and how real estate around these new stations could be the next gold mine in New York City. So if you'd like to have me back for that, I would love to chat more about it. But otherwise, thank you again for bringing me on. All right. Niall Berry, check him out on Instagram. Are you on TikTok as well? I mean, give yourself a shout out. Where else can we find your work? Yeah, TikTok, Instagram, primarily Instagram, Urban Explained. I love New York. I love doing these stories. And, you know, for anyone listening, we'd love to have you as a new follower. It'll be a great ride. We'd love to have you on. Now, Barry, thank you very much for your time.