Displacement Alert Project

DAP Map Tutorial

The Displacement Alert Project (DAP) Map is a rich resource of more than a decade of key data on residential displacement in New York City. The map shows loss of rent-stabilized units, property sales, and construction permits going back to 2007, and marshal-executed evictions beginning in 2017.

Each risk factor is its own layer, with properties color-coded by risk level. Click buttons on the right to change layers, and click a property to view details. Find an address using the search button on the top left, or zoom to a geography using the drop-down options on the right.

How to Use DAP Map

#1 Browse a neighborhood

You can use the map's zoom buttons and drag to manually navigate to an area you're interested in. You can click between risk layers to find higher- and lower-risk areas for different factors. Alternatively, you can use the drop-down menus on the right side of the screen under Zoom to a geography to zoom to a specific City Council District, Community Board, or Zip code. You can also turn on layers showing those boundaries using the Geography layers.

#2 Search an address

If you have a specific building that you want to look at, use the Search Address button in the upper left-hand corner. Tip: if you get no search results, try spelling out the street name and including the borough. E.g. instead of "50 Broad St" try "50 Broad Street Manhattan."

#3 Dig into the numbers

Click a property to open up an infowindow with data on the selected risk layer. Switch between risk layers and re-select the property to view additional data for other types of risk.

#4 Dive deeper

Have more questions? Try clicking the links in the infowindow to navigate to external websites with more information.

The link to DAP Portal will show you detailed historical records for any property, including information about sales, evictions, foreclosures, complaints, violations, construction permits, litigations, and more.

You can also go to a property's:

Location on Google Maps
(HPD) HPD building info page
(DOB) DOB Building Information System page
(ACRIS) ACRIS financial documents
Who Owns What page, which connects to other properties a landlord might own or be associated with
(OASIS) OASIS page, which is a map built by the CUNY Graduate Center’s Center for Urban Research. OASIS has lots of helpful land use data on its Location Report tab, like the zoning and Floor Area Ratio (FAR)

What's new since DAP Map 1.0?

Since we released the original DAP Map in 2016, we've made these updates:

Addition of marshal evictions in since 1/1/17
Addition 2017 data on rent deregulation
Construction risk is now shown with permits issued rather than permit applications. Total permits include those filed via DOB NOW, DOB's electronic permit filing system.
External links for every property in the city to navigate to DAP Portal, Google Maps, HPD, DOB, ACRIS, Who Owns What, and OASIS Map
Address and basic property information for every property in the city (Borough/Block/Lot, number of buildings and units, and year built)
We've simplified how we visualize and indicate risk

Layers

deregulation

Deregulation Risk

This layer shows the change in the percentage of rent stabilized units between 2007 and 2017. Properties appearing green gained stabilized units and properties appearing yellow, orange, or red lost units.

The Scale

Notes

If the data showed no stabilized units in 2017, the property was assumed to have lost 100% of its stabilized units; however, sometimes values are simply missing that year. A placeholder value of 9999% means the data showed no stabilized units in 2007 and some in 2017. Stabilized unit numbers are approximate and obtained from property tax bills from the NYC Department of Finance: click a property’s DAP Portal link for rent stabilized unit numbers by year. New York State Housing and Community Renewal (HCR) maintains the most accurate information on rent stabilization, which is not available to the public. Tenants can obtain stabilization information for their own apartment by requesting their rent history.

What does it mean if a property “gained” stabilized units?

Green indicates that the recorded number of stabilized units in 2017 was higher than in 2007. An apparent increase could happen for one of several reasons: 1. The building is newly constructed and apartments are stabilized under 421a, Inclusionary Housing, or another program. 2. The property entered into a regulatory program since 2007 that brings apartments under rent regulation. 3. Registration error: stabilized unit numbers depend on owner registration with HCR. If the owner under-reported or failed to report units in 2007, that may make it appear inaccurately that the property gained stabilized units. 4. Data error: stabilization data is approximate and based on property tax bills from the NYC Department of Finance.

Data source: taxbills.nyc (github.com/talos, CC BY-SA), NYCDB

New Sale Risk

Was the building sold for a price that might indicate a speculative investment strategy? A high sale price can mean the new owner plans to significantly raise rents to cover their debt. This layer shows the most recent sale between 1/1/2007 and 6/30/2019. Darker red indicates a higher sale price per unit.

The Scale

Notes

What does a sale price of $0 mean?

A sale price of $0 could indicate the property was sold along with others and the amount is recorded elsewhere, or it could indicate a transfer of ownership without an actual sale. Sometimes a small sale amount is nominal and means that a property was transferred between related parties or was part of a legal reconfiguration rather than sold openly on the market. Sale prices of less than $1,000 will display as light gray on the map. For a property in any borough except Staten Island, you can click the (ACRIS) link for details about the sale.

How do condos and coops appear in the data?

Because condo units are assigned their own individual tax lot number in sales data, no data on condo sales appears in DAP Map. Coop properties will appear color-coded based on the most recent sale price of just one unit (see below).

How is price per unit calculated?

For most properties, price per unit is calculated as the most recent sale price divided by the total number of units (residential and commercial) according to DOF sales data. For coop properties, the price per unit is calculated as the most recent sale price divided by 1, since the sale generally reflects just one unit being purchased.

Many non-coop, non-condo properties show a different number of units in their recorded sale versus in PLUTO (a number that comes from tax data)–we found almost 7,000 properties in DAP map with inconsistencies between the datasets. If the price per unit displayed on DAP Map is inconsistent with the number of units shown, this inconsistency is likely the reason.

Data source: DOF Rolling/Annualized Sales

Construction Risk

Construction permit applications reveal new development and renovations in existing buildings. This layer shows building permits issued by the Department of Buildings (DOB) between 1/1/2007 and 6/30/2019. Darker red indicates more total permits per unit. The construction score is calculated by multiplying the total number of construction permits during that time period by 100 and dividing by the total number of units on the property.

If it’s for luxury or market-rate construction, demolition and new building permits might indicate development that is putting upwards pressure on sale prices and rents in the neighborhood. Prior to the passage of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, construction was highly indicative of landlords utilizing Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs) as a mechanism to dramatically raise rents upon vacancies. While the IAI loophole was mostly closed by that legislation, Major Capital Improvements are still available to landlords as a way to significantly raise rents, and to do so while tenants remain in place. Construction permits in buildings with more than 35% stabilized units can indicate the landlord's use of MCIs.

The Scale

Notes

DAP Map will display the total number of permits for an entire tax lot. To get detailed information on permits filed for individual buildings, you can click a property’s (DOB) link and then Buildings on Lot to view other buildings on the same property.

Update as of October 2018: While historically, DOB has categorized permits by "New Building," "Alteration 1," "Alteration 2," "Alteration 3," and "Demolition," the agency has implemented a new electronic permitting system–called DOB NOW–that does not use these same categories. In order to capture permits filed in DOB NOW, we have combined them for a simple total of all permits issued at the property. That means that permits classified as "Alteration 3," which involve just one (usually minor) type of work, are now included.

Update as of October 2019: We have resolved a previous issue that resulted in under-reporting where properties had permits in both systems. We have also modified our methodology to better reflect DOB's system: instead of counting individual "jobs" (different types of work filed together in one application), we are now counting each work type within a job as a separate permit.

Data sources: DOB Permit Issuance and DOB NOW: Build – Approved Permits from the NYC Open Data Portal

Eviction Risk

This layer shows the number of evictions executed by marshals between 1/1/2017 and 6/30/2019. Darker red indicates more evictions per unit. The eviction score is calculated by multiplying the total evictions in that time period by 100 and dividing by the total number of units on the property.

The Scale

Notes

This dataset is not the full universe of eviction judgments. It only contains evictions performed and recorded by court-ordered marshals.

We used a methodology to de-duplicate marshals’ evictions data that assumed that records with the same date, address, apartment number, zip code, and marshal name were the same eviction. This approach is more conservative than simply using a record’s court-assigned index number and borough as a proxy for a unique eviction. This data source was made available for the first time in 2018.

Data source: NYC Department of Investigation. Data de-duplicating, cleaning, and geocoding by ANHD.

sales

construction

evicton

Other Notes

Does DAP Map show buildings or properties?

DAP Map displays entire properties, not individual buildings. Each of these properties has its own tax lot and belongs to one owner. Infowindows tell you how many buildings are on a property, and you can see building footprints when you zoom in closely. Hovering over links in an infowindow gives you tips about finding detailed data for individual buildings, when applicable.

How are commercial and other non-residential properties displayed?

Non-residential properties contain some data, including sales and construction permits, but they will not show "risk"; that is, they won't be color-coded for any layers.

Credits

DAP would not be possible without Carto's Ambassador program.

We are hugely grateful to our collaborators and everyone who has contributed to the original and updated DAP Map:

Ziggy and the Housing Data Coalition for their work on NYCDB

JD Godchaux of NiJeL

Chris Henrick