NYC e-bike owners wonder where to store them as landlords fear battery fires

The most unwanted tenants these days in New York City buildings are electric bikes.

An increasing number of landlords and management companies are putting the kibosh on residents keeping e-bikes in apartments and bike rooms, even if they meet international safety standards.

The crackdown comes as illegal or dangerous lithium batteries used in some e-bikes, scooters and mopeds have sparked 243 fires this year, killing 17 people, according to the city fire department. That’s up from 30 battery fires and zero related deaths in 2019.

West Harlem resident Manuel Mancilla said he wants to buy a cargo e-bike but can’t find a place to store one. The management company that runs his building, K&R Realty Management, has banned e-bikes, telling tenants in a letter that e-bike batteries are “an extreme hazard to the life, health, safety and well-being, body and property of all tenants.”

Mancilla is the cofounder of Oonee, a startup that installs secure bike parking pods in public places, with locations in Jersey City and Grand Central Terminal — but none in Mancilla’s neighborhood.

He said his landlord’s ban on e-bikes has left riders like him with “zero options and zero alternatives.”

Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which lobbies on behalf of roughly 4,000 owners of rent-stabilized properties in New York, said insurance companies are squeezing landlords over e-bike risks.

“Owners are incentivized to proactively be punitive against the renter on these batteries because they’re frankly scared of losing their insurance coverage if it’s found out that they have renters [who] are bringing these batteries into the buildings,” Martin said.

Earlier this month, a fire the FDNY said was caused by an electric scooter battery killed three family members across three generations in Crown Heights and seriously injured a firefighter.

The City Council has…