A teardown house is a property where the land value outweighs the structure. These homes are often outdated, damaged, or too costly to renovate. Buyers - usually investors, builders, or developers- purchase teardown homes to demolish and rebuild. The National Association of Home Builders reports that teardowns accounted for nearly 7% of all single-family housing starts in 2022. This shows strong demand for redevelopment opportunities in competitive markets.
The new ordinance updates eligibility and licensing requirements and sets a new timeline for enforcement. Obligations for short-term rental (STR) platforms like Airbnb and VRBO such as requiring license numbers in listings and honoring delist notices, will now take effect July 1, 2026 - two months later than originally proposed. Other provisions, including licensing reforms and operator responsibilities, take effect Oct. 1, 2025.
My wife and I, our son and daughter, and my in-laws share a single house in the Long Island suburbs. Our place is big, but crowded: all of us have hobbies, and so every shelf or surface contains toys, books, art supplies, sporting goods, craft projects, cameras, musical instruments, or kitchen gadgets. Before the table can be set for dinner, it must be cleared of a board game or marble run.
Zoning can be used in many ways by owners, investors and developers to add value to their properties. First, as we have previously discussed, there are discretionary approvals available through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). One type of discretionary approval through ULURP is a rezoning, which would change the property's zoning district designation. A rezoning could increase the amount of buildable square footage a property is allowed, and/or change the allowed use altogether, for example, from commercial or industrial to residential.
City staff recommended against the zoning change, arguing that the proposed LI-PDA zoning wasn't merited by the site's needs and would be inappropriate. They suggested using the controversial DB90 district instead.
This isn't a zoning decision, it's a decision about who gets to live in the city and who gets pushed out. Without space for new students, the whole system starts to break down.
The Transit Residential land use designation should only be applied to areas adjacent to regional transit stations, identified Urban Villages or in other areas of the city that have existing residential development built at this density. The subject site does not meet any of those qualifications.
