Welcome to CityLand‘s eighth annual top ten stories of the year! We have selected a range of our most popular and prominent stories concerning New York City land use in 2019. Our 2019 coverage was highlighted by articles concerning land use approvals for large scale projects, affordable housing proposals, and projects that faced pushback from local communities who were concerned about infrastructure, access to transportation and local resources, and affordable housing. We at CityLand are excited to continue providing in-depth coverage of the latest land use projects, cases, and legislation in 2020 and look forward to seeing what the year will bring. Thank you for all of your support and have a happy new year!
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Owner of a five family house added unit intended for residential use. Nicolae Gogarnow, the owner of a five family house in Queens, lived on the first floor of the house. The house had five residential units, a commercial space that partially occupied the first floor, and an additional unoccupied space on the first floor. Owner Gogarnow filed a petition to evict one of the tenants, Rosalia Silvia. Silvia defended by claiming that she had a right to remain under the rent stabilization law. Owner Gogarnow responded that the building was not covered by rent stabilization because it had only five residential units, one less than the minimum of six residential units needed to trigger application of the rent stabilization law. (read more…)
27 West 96th Street in Manhattan. Image Credit: Google Maps.
Landlord not responsible for more than four years of overcharged rent. On August 16, 2018, the Appellate Division for the First Department held that the landlord for 27 West 96th Street in Manhattan did not engage in a fraudulent scheme to evade the Rent Stabilization Law and therefore the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) had miscalculated the amount of overcharged rent that was due back to tenants. (read more…)
Post-vacancy increases included in calculation for rent stabilization deregulation. On April 26, 2018, the New York Court of Appeals held that vacancy increases are included in determining if the rent amount triggers deregulation of a rent-stabilized apartment. Richard Altman sued 285 West Fourth LLC, its landlord, asking the court to declare that his apartment is subject to rent stabilization and requiring the landlord to offer Altman a rent-stabilized lease. Rent stabilization provides tenants with rates for rent increases set once a year by the Rent Guidelines Board limiting how much a landlord can increase the rent. (read more…)
25 West 24th Street. Image credit: CityLaw
Landlord attempted to evict three HRA clients residing in single-room-occupancy facility. In 2013 the owners of a single-room-occupancy facility at 25 West 24th Street, Manhattan, entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Human Resources Administration to set aside 30 units for clients referred by the agency. The referrals would register their attendance automatically by swiping their HRA benefits card at the facility. The landlord submitted monthly bills to HRA, and could also collect additional money from referrals if their income exceeded $359 per month. Under the agreement, the landlord could not evict or remove a tenant without the approval of HRA, but if the tenant became a permanent resident under the provisions of the Rent Stabilization Code, having resided continuously at the facility for 30 days or longer, the tenant could only be removed by a warrant of eviction or other court order. (read more…)
Image Credit: GoogleMaps.
Red Hook developer converted commercial buildings into residential apartments. Harbor Tech LLC in 1999 purchased a commercial complex located in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn that had been built in the 1920s and used continuously for commercial purposes. Harbor Tech by 2005 had converted the five interlaced buildings of the complex into 100 residential units.
Thirty-five residents of the complex in 2013 sued Harbor Tech to have the City’s Rent Stabilization Law applied to the complex. In response, Harbor Tech argued that the complex was exempt from the Rent Stabilization Code because the buildings were “substantially rehabilitated” as residential units after 1974. The residents argued that the exemption did not apply because the regulations define “substantially rehabilitated” as requiring the replacement of at least 75 percent of the building-wide and apartment systems. The Supreme Court rejected the tenants’ argument, ruling that rent stabilization laws did not apply because the complex had been converted from commercial to residential, and the percentage of systems replaced was irrelevant. (read more…)
