The New York City jungle and its dense undergrowth of regulations

Real Estate Weekly, June 24, 1998 by Thomas F. Campenni

Our modern jungles are not composed of dense undergrowth, but rules and regulations - laws and guidelines that perhaps at one time made sense, but now just continue to be enforced.

Rent Control is a good example of this. Promulgated throughout the nation in World War II, it is still part of our landscape. Circumstances and economics change, but not a bureaucrat's rules. In the June 1st Crain's New York Business, the editorial quotes a CEO of one of the city's largest and most successful media companies, stating that rent control was his company's biggest obstacle to remaining in New York. Unlike natives of this region, the rest of the United States can't understand our peculiar form of wealth transfer.

The people that are lucky enough to have rent stabilized apartments are paying below market. I might add that most of those stabilized apartments are even below the market of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. So new people moving into the area can't find affordable apartments - unless they commute long distances from work, Nothing like moving to New York to live in Perth Amboy.

I am sure the Mayor is not thinking of subsidizing that CEO's media company like he is the Yankees. You see, only in New York would we think about building a factory free to the owner, but costly to the taxpayers, and call it "revenue enhancing." The question is "Whose revenue is being enhanced?" Let the Mayor ask himself one question, "If the owner of the business that we will subsidize was Bill Gates instead of George Steinbrenner, and the company was Microsoft instead of the Yankees, would we still build a free factory?"

But politicians and bureaucrats not only believe in the absurdities of the past, they also are eager to find new problems to overreact toward. Last week in my step-daughter's middle school, an eighth grade boy in the lunch-room told his friends at the table that he was going to blow up the school. A teacher overheard this, school authorities called the police and the kid was arrested. Why should a teacher talk to a kid, and God forbid, teach him that certain jokes are unwarranted, when the criminal justice system can do it so much more brutishly.

We probably will have a rash of major arrests now of kids who may be stupid, but have no criminal intentions. Remember the last fad was expelling six-year-old children for sexual harassment. Can no government official think outside of the box? A teacher gives a hug to a student and the next thing you know she is arrested for molestation. Politicians and government employees don't use common sense.

The New York Daily News did a scathing expose on the lack of Health Department inspections in the city's restaurants. A few days later, two bartenders in Astoria were cited, by the very same Health Department, for not wearing hats behind the bar. Their crime was they were preparing food (i.e. mixed drinks) without the proper precautions. Dub! Is there no justice? They inspect a restaurant in Queens once every five years, fail it and never return; and then they give a bartender a $100 free for violating a rule that shouldn't apply to them anyway. When was the last time that your Martini gave you food poisoning?

It is the same thing when the dreaded Fire Department comes to do an annual inspection. One year, the kind of locks we have on the doors are no good, so the inspector says "Put this type on." The next time, a different inspector tells us the locks recommended by the first are not correct. Is it that there are so many rules and regulations that no one really knows what is allowed and what isn't.?

Sometimes you have to wonder why more people haven't joined the militia movement. We possess enough innate common sense to know what is right and what is wrong. If given some clear guidance by government, we will try to comply. It is hard to do the right thing when politicians and bureaucrats have lost all common sense.

(The author is a real estate consultant advising owners, condominiums and co-ops. He welcomes responses in writing at P.O. Box 724, Old Greenwich, CT 06870 or by calling 203-637-5621).