The start of hurricane season has us thinking about the epicenter of flooding: basement apartments. New York State aims to soon help make basement homes safer through a legalization pathway. Soon, homeowners in 15 community districts across New York City can apply to convert their basements into rentable units.
Local Law 126, also known as the basement legalization law, takes effect on June 16. According to HPD, the city is still “finalizing various aspects of rulemaking” needed to launch the program. Homeowners will be able to apply once those rules are in place.
Eligible districts for homeowners to apply
The 15 NYC community districts included in the upcoming pilot program are:
Brooklyn:
- Brooklyn 4: Bushwick
- Brooklyn 10: Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights
- Brooklyn 11: Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
- Brooklyn 17: East Flatbush, Farragut
Queens:
- Queens 2: Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside
Manhattan:
- Manhattan 2: Greenwich Village, Soho
- Manhattan 3: Lower East Side, Chinatown
- Manhattan 9: Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights
- Manhattan 10: Central Harlem
- Manhattan 11: East Harlem
- Manhattan 12: Washington Heights, Inwood
The Bronx:
- Bronx 9: Soundview, Parkchester
- Bronx 10: Throggs Neck, Co-op City, Pelham Bay
- Bronx 11: Pelham Parkway, Morris Park, Laconia
- Bronx 12: Wakefield, Williamsbridge, Eastchester
Live in a pilot district? Here’s how to rent your basement
If you’re a homeowner in one of the 15 NYC districts above, you may be able to legally rent out your basement. Here’s what to know:
- You’ve got until April 20, 2029 to apply.
- Your home must be outside the highest-risk flood zones.
- The basement can’t pose an immediate safety risk.
- It needs at least one door leading outside (so people can get out in an emergency).
- The ceiling has to be at least 7 feet high.
If this sounds doable, you could have 10 years to bring your basement apartment up to code and get a Certificate of Occupancy, which makes it fully legal to rent. Here’s more information about the basement pilot code.
Who’s left out
Tenants in some of the most climate-vulnerable areas will have to keep living in the shadows underground for longer. Only one community district in Queens — Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside — is included in the basement pilot program.
Most of southeast Queens, and neighborhoods such as East Elmhurst, Flushing, and Corona, were excluded, despite being flood-prone and having a larger share of illegal basement apartments than many of the selected districts. Of the 11 people who drowned in their basement homes during Hurricane Ida in 2021, three died in Flushing and two in Jamaica-Hollis.
A new analysis by Stevens Institute of Technology shows how Hurricane Ida’s impact on NYC could have been far worse, especially in neighborhoods with large numbers of basement apartments. In a modeled worst-case scenario, deep flooding could have covered up to 24 square miles, affecting nearly 6,000 buildings in the Jamaica Bay watershed area, including parts of Queens and South Brooklyn.
Including the excluded
For longtime organizers, this exclusion underscores what they say is a politically driven process. “Elected officials don’t really like it or try to swerve around it,” says Matthew Sooknanan, the Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone (BASE) campaign organizer at Chhaya CDC, a Queens-based nonprofit focused on housing and serving South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities.
Officials may be responding to pushback from constituents. Some neighbors worry legalizing basement units will overwhelm aging water, sewer, and electrical systems. Advocates, however, argue that legalization would help the city account for these residents and secure funding for infrastructure improvements.
Others fear change for less practical reasons. “There are very racist sentiments about the people who live in these apartments,” said Sadia Rahman, deputy director of policy at Chhaya CDC. “It’s often disguised as concerns about ‘neighborhood character’ or safety.”
Advocates are pushing for broader inclusion in basement legalization efforts. They’re going directly to communities left out of the pilot — even in districts where residents tend to oppose zoning changes. They’re reaching out to homeowners, potential tenants, and neighbors who care about community services being undercut by the undercounting of basement tenants.
“These basements are already here — people are living in them,” Sooknanan said. “There are hundreds of thousands of them around New York City.”
Few options for many basement tenants
As it stands, the pilot wouldn’t help people like Angelica, a mother of three living in Corona, who spoke with Epicenter NYC after Hurricane Ida. She and her husband, like many basement tenants, are immigrants who didn’t want this kind of housing. They landed here because their jobs, one as a housekeeper and the other in a supermarket, simply don’t pay enough to afford anything else nearby. When Ida hit, water flooded their home in under five minutes. “We had just enough time to lift some furniture,” she said.
Still, families like her stay. “When it rains we have to just get ready,” Angelica said. “You feel desperate, you feel upset, but I won’t move because I can’t afford to.”
Organizers say stories like Angelica’s are rarely heard in policymaking. “People are so scared to speak about [basements] in the first place because it’s an illegal unit,” said Sooknanan. “Both sides, tenants and landlords, are not able to be protected or be held accountable.”
Legalization could change that. It would help ensure basement apartments meet safety standards and lift the veil of secrecy that keeps problems from being addressed. “From kitchen repairs to water not working to something broken or dirty — you can’t let anyone know,” said Sooknanan.
The BASE of the issue
The new pilot is the result of years of advocacy. The BASE campaign officially launched in 2006, bringing together tenants, homeowners, organizers, and nonprofits like Chhaya. The goal: more legal, affordable, and safe basement apartments and other accessory dwelling units (ADUs), such as converted garages or attics and backyard extensions.
City data on the number of basement homes is unclear. But a 2019 pilot in East New York and Cypress Hills estimated more than 50,000 such units could be brought into compliance. That pilot was later defunded by the Adams administration in 2022.
One of the reasons it struggled: the cost. “Homeowners had to pay a lot of extra money — upwards of a million dollars to convert their unit — because of these [multiple dwelling laws],” Sooknanan said. “What we’re saying is … make the zoning and coding changes so that they apply to the city, rather than having to default to the multiple dwelling laws.”
What to do if you’re left out of the pilot
While the current pilot is limited, advocates are building for more. Chhaya is launching a citywide membership program to mobilize both basement tenants and homeowners. The program will share updates, provide know-your-rights materials, offer civics education and organize training, and help residents engage more directly with elected officials.
Chhaya CDC is encouraging anyone in neighborhoods not included in the pilot to speak up. The organization is collecting stories and holding events to pressure elected officials to expand basement legalization.
And Chhaya organizers are visiting community hubs in neighborhoods excluded from the pilot. At a recent meeting in Richmond Hill, they educated neighbors about the BASE campaign and pilot program at their local library branch — in the basement.
Want help figuring it all out? Reach out to ChhayaCDC:
[email protected]
718-478-3848
And if you’re not in one of the pilot districts, Chhaya still wants to hear from you. The BASE campaign is gathering stories to help legalize basement apartments in every neighborhood.
Note: This post has been updated with a statement from HPD.
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