Call to relax housing rules in New York
Amid scarcity of affordable housing activists call for legalisation of makeshift apartments, cellars, attics
New York
RAKHA and Mahbub Sarkar spent more than US$4,000 upgrading the cellar apartment of their Queens home. They put in new floors and kitchen cabinets, and in the borough's tight market for rentals under US$1,000 a month, they had no problem finding new tenants.
But not long after the remodelling, city building inspectors swooped in. They made the tenants move out, they ordered the Sarkars to dismantle the rental unit and they imposed an initial penalty of US$1,200.
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