NYC Flooding Renews Calls for Safer Basement Apartments

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Friday’s deluge was yet another reminder that little has been done to make basement dwellings safer, and that the risk for residents is only increasing. 

Torrential downpours in New York caused flash flooding across much of the city on Friday, leading both New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams to declare a state of emergency. With streets inundated and subway lines closed, residents in some parts of the city faced dangerous conditions, both outside and inside their homes.

For residents of basement apartments, which are a largely illegal and unregulated housing option in New York, storms like the one that swept through the New York metro area on Friday can be deadly. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, 44 residents were killed, many of them found in basements. Eleven people died in basement homes during Hurricane Ida in 2021 — including three family members who lived in a basement apartment in Queens that flooded again on Friday.

As of this writing, no deaths have been attributed to the Friday flooding, but Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy said in a press briefing that there had been successful rescues at six basement apartments. As the frequency and severity of stormwater events increases, the risk only grows. By 2050, one out of three basements and cellars in New York will be at high risk of flooding, according to a report released last year by the city’s comptroller. The exposure that basement residents face from natural disasters is the reason that some advocates want to see these units legalized and regulated. The units are prevalent in community districts that are disproportionately home to Black, Latino and immigrant populations, the report found.

“The reality of New York City’s ongoing housing crisis is that people do live in these apartments,” says Sylvia Morse, program manager for policy at the Pratt Center for Community Development. “And from what we know, there is a huge range of the conditions of these apartments and their ability to be made safe.”

After Friday’s deluge — John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens registered its rainiest single day ever, in records stretching back to 1948 — New Yorkers might recoil at the prospect of making it legal for tenants to occupy basements. Yet, paradoxically, the danger of living below grade makes the case for regulation stronger, according to advocates.

“It’s easy to say, because of the risk, no one should be living in these apartments,” Morse says. “That is the policy today and people are still living in them.”

A Safe Exit

Morse is a member of Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone (BASE), a coalition that has worked for the last 15 years to improve conditions for the tens of thousands of residents who live in basement apartments in New York City, according to the group. She says that legalization is a “harm-reduction approach” to ensure that, at a minimum, residents can exit their basements in the case of an emergency such as fires or floods — a necessary first step toward mitigation and safety improvements.

“A conversion program would help distinguish between those basements that could become safe and legal, with codified fire safety measures that can be enforced, and those that should not,” reads a 2016 report from the nonprofit Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC), which has advocated for legalizing basement apartments. An effort to legalize some underground dwelling units at the state level failed to advance this year.

A zoning reform proposal released by the Adams administration on Sept. 21 includes basement apartments as part of a push to legalize accessory dwelling units citywide. Changes to zoning could make basement apartments and other ADUs a more viable and affordable option for tenants and property owners, including the elimination of mandatory parking minimums for homeowners who choose to let part of their property to renters. The CHPC found that the city has at minimum 10,000 basement units that could be converted into rental housing even without changes to the city’s zoning code; closer to 38,000 could be unlocked if the city removed its parking minimums.

Zoning alone would not address the safety concerns for low-income renters who live in basements, nor unlock the funding necessary to make this option safe for tenants. A basement and cellar conversion pilot program launched in 2019 shows how challenging the project would be: Of the eligible homeowners in East New York and Cypress Hills, only a few made it to the planning phase, according to a report this year by the CHPC. By May 2023, only one single-family home had begun renovations. High costs and regulatory restrictions, including parking requirements, limited the pilot’s success, CHPC found.