Sentence examples for illegal unit from inspiring English sources

"A lot of times, tenants don't realize they are renting an illegal unit," Mr. Mustaciuolo said.

Rick Otterstrom, a board member with the apartment association, added that even if a landlord was cited for illegal units, he or she might not find it economically sound to agree to the affordable housing guarantee, instead choosing to knock down a wall to fold an illegal unit back into a legal one.

Illegal units still flourish in places like Queens.

Landlords with illegal units sometimes try to put out fires themselves, officials say, rather than immediately calling 911.

Relaxing the rules, though, can be a tough sell among neighbors who see illegal units as a drain on schools, hospitals, parking and other resources.

San Francisco has taken an approach of "benign neglect" and rarely forces homeowners to strip illegal units, Amit Ghosh, the city's chief of comprehensive planning, said.

A recent study by the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a nonprofit research group, estimated that homeowners created about 42,000 illegal units in Queens from 1990 to 2000.

Worst of all, residents say, illegal conversions are so common that people feel powerless to curb them — and some tenants who lived in illegal units said they had not even realized they were living in dangerous quarters.

Though he is aware the crackdown could lead to landlords evicting tenants from illegal units, he said the more important issue was to get rid of unsafe living conditions.

The city's public advocate, Bill de Blasio, has laid out perhaps the most comprehensive housing plan; he wants to create 100,000 and preserve 90,000 affordable housing units in eight years, in various ways, including converting thousands of illegal units into rent-stabilized apartments.

If it is impossible, as demographers say, to count the national population to within a margin of error of one or two percentage points, the possibility of error is even greater for New York City, with its large immigrant population and minority communities; its high housing costs, which cause illegal units and doubling-up; and its abundance of nontraditional households.