Legalizing Basement Apartments

I saw this article on Brownstoner today and it made me think about the apartments mentioned in the context of Sandy.  I don't know the details of the proposed legalization of these apartments and if it only refers to Manhattan, but this could be a really interesting point of investigation for us considering that these are the spaces that would be first to be flooded and leave people homeless in certain areas.  Perhaps we can follow this more closely and see if it should be part of our recommendation.