Seven months after Hurricane Sandy barricaded into the East Coast, New York and surrounding areas are still reeling from the impact. The massive superstorm left an indelible mark on a number of buildings and infrastructure projects, and reverberations of the damages will also affect many future developments. At the New York State Association for Affordable Housing’s (NYSAFAH) 14th Annual New York State Affordable Housing Conference, in the session “Hurricane Sandy: What Have We Learned,” various speakers from across the multifamily industry discussed the effect of the storm and what developers in flood zones should plan for in the future. Now in the repairing stage, developers are looking at how the storm affected buildings, with some interesting discoveries. Arden Sokolow from the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency noted that some of the older buildings fared worse than the newer buildings, and that taller buildings suffered systems damage as opposed to structural damage. Read the full report on “How Hurricane Sandy Continues to Affect Multifamily” on...

During Hurricane Sandy, a 14-foot storm surge from the Hudson River triggered flooding that took offline 29.8 million out of 85.2 million square feet in one of the nation’s biggest office submarkets, according to a Cushman & Wakefield Inc. survey. While the majority of that space was expected to be back online at the beginning of this year, the situation raised plenty of new questions for owners and managers. For one thing, owners and tenants alike often found themselves in a bind as the disruption forced tenants into an extended absence from their properties. In some cases the two sides strove to accommodate one another; in others, the question of owed rent led to friction. While leases should clearly spell out the conditions under which the tenant must still pay rent, there were cases where condominium associations raised the specter of lawsuits, alleging negligence on the landlord’s part for failing to protect their units from damage. Meanwhile, property owners faced the issue of how well they could withstand the temporary loss of rental revenue and the cost of repairs. Well-financed institutional owners were in a better position than investors of more modest means, with the potential prospect of some lenders being unwilling to forgo loan payments for an extended period. Sandy also challenged emergency preparation and response to a degree unprecedented for any natural disaster in the metropolitan New York City area. Much of the preparation involved taking steps that had been established well in advance. For years, most sophisticated owners and property managers had practiced for an event during tabletop exercises. Cushman & Wakefield set up a command center in each of the major markets in the storm’s path 24 hours before its arrival. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, construction trades...