Attorney General Settles with Developer for Concealing Prohibited Rent-Controlled Tenant Buyouts

Upper West Side developer must pay $540,000 dollars in settlement costs. On June 6, 2016 New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced reaching a settlement for $540,000 with 165 West 91st Street Holdings, LLC for the loss of two rent-controlled apartments in an Upper West Side building, while it was being converted into a condominium, as a result of prohibited agreements to buy-out tenancy rights. The LLC owns an apartment building at 165 <Read More>


NYC Landmarks Law and Regulation of Open Space

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has jurisdiction over both buildings and landscape features on landmarks sites.   But the Commission rarely directly regulates changes to landscape features. For routine landscaping changes and in urban contexts, the landscape features are rarely a concern. In other cases the landscape takes on central importance. This is especially true where there where the existing landscaping and natural land features figure prominently in the beauty and importance of the site. In … <Read More>




Rent Stabilization: Preserving Low and Middle-Income Housing

Rent regulation is not a new issue for New York City. But the headlines in June 2015 were far larger and the reactions more contentious than at any time in recent memory. For the first time in its 46-year history, the Rent Guidelines Board decided that there would be no increase in rents for one-year renewals on rent-stabilized apartments; it also limited increases on two year renewals to two-percent. Not surprisingly, tenants hailed the decision … <Read More>


Rent Guidelines Board Holds Rents at Current Levels

Freeze vote first of its kind in Board history, applies to one-year leases in rent-regulated units.  On June 29, 2015 the Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-2 to not increase rents on one-year leases, affecting 1.2 million tenants of New York City’s rent-regulated apartments.  The vote marked the first occasion where the Board decided to freeze rents. The Board’s vote also increased rents on two-year leases by 2 percent, a historically-low rate.  The new rents will … <Read More>