Five articles curated by the Wagner Planner staff: Here’s what the Wagner Planner staff is reading. This week: loopholes in rent regulation law, CityFHEPS expands outside of NYC, and mass bird-building collisions in Chicago.

NYC will pay to house low-income residents outside the 5 boroughs – Gothamist “Park said the ability to move out of town with a CityFHEPS voucher will help a range of New Yorkers, including families who entered shelters to escape domestic violence and people pursuing jobs elsewhere in the state. She said the city will adjust its maximum payment standards based on local fair market rates set by the federal government.”

Zombie Renovations are Coming (Curbed) “The state’s 2019 rent laws eliminated almost every way a landlord could take a building out of rent regulation, but left in place a loophole around what’s called “substantial rehabilitation,” which is when a landlord has replaced at least 75 percent of “building-wide and individual housing accommodation systems.” It was originally meant to encourage the renovation of mostly vacant, dilapidated buildings, but now it’s just another way that landlords are trying to flip their aging buildings to market rate.”

Rain Wreaks Havoc on New York’s Mass Transit System (New York Times) “About half of all subway lines were either fully or partially suspended because of the rain. Service on the Metro-North Railroad, the commuter line connecting New York to its northern suburbs, was also badly affected. Travel in and out of Grand Central Terminal — the railroad’s main hub — was suspended because water had submerged the system’s electrified third rail network in the Bronx.”

Almost 1,000 migrating birds die Thursday in Chicago after crashing into McCormick Place Lakeside Center, a 40-year record (Chicago Tribune)“There are fixes for bird-building collisions, Willard said, including bird-friendly windows, but the issue tends to attract more attention than action. In Chicago, a City Council ordinance requiring bird safety measures in many new buildings passed in 2020, according to Prince, but has not yet been implemented.”

EYES ON THE STREET: Drivers Dominate Former W. 22nd Open Street (Streetsblog NYC) “To narrow the roadway along the block, DOT also installed five painted curbside semicircles with flower pots and flex posts, which make the roadway slightly tighter than the row of parked cars. Drivers largely whizzed through those without diminishing their speed.“