[NYtenants-online] NY Tenants Online 1/18/02

[Tenant]

NYtenants Online/TenantNet                               1/18/02
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IN THIS ISSUE ...

1. Virginia Fields Advocates Destructive DHCR program
2. EVICTION ALERT: "Hope Community" brings Dispair of Eviction
3. Liz Krueger Runs for State Senate in Feb. 12 Special Election
4. Tenants Return to Court Jan. 25 to Challenge Rent-Code Changes
5. Board 3 committee critical of museum expand plan

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Borough President Virginia Fields Aids Landlords
in Advocating Destructive DHCR Program

Some tenants might take the bad advice of Manhattan Borough President 
Virginia Fields to submit to the "mediation" program of the NYS Division of 
Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) not knowing that many experienced 
tenant advocates consider the program a sham, a giveback to landlords and 
could potentially result in tenants losing valuable rights, losing services 
or worse. Fields -- who receives unprecedented campaign contributions from 
the real estate industry, and who is glued at the hip to landlord and 
development-oriented Democratic political clubs -- recently put out notices 
suggesting tenants should use this program instead of filing DHCR Service 
Reduction complaints.

Long advocated by landlords, the "mediation" program was proposed during 
the Cuomo administration and implemented by the Pataki DHCR as an 
"alternative" to tenants making lawful complaints regarding loss of services.

While the general concept of mediation has value, it assumes both parties 
are on a level playing field and can negotiate an equitable compromise. 
Tenants, on the other hand, have absolute rights to various services as 
defined in the Rent Stabilization Law (those services provided on or after 
the base date) and should not be put into a position to give up the 
services or the right to complain. DHCR's mediation program, according to 
many tenant advocates, does just that. It pressures tenants to give up, 
mediate, negotiate or compromise on various services and rights they have 
otherwise guaranteed by law.

DHCR and landlords portray the program as a benign way to expedite the 
process. Indeed, DHCR bluntly tells tenants that if they file a services 
complaint -- it would take a long time to process. Experience has shown 
that DHCR often processes applications beneficial to landlords in record 
time (i.e., rent increases), but drags its feet when it comes to tenant 
complaints.

If a tenant Services Reduction complaint is determined in the tenants' 
favor, it results in a rent freeze until the owner restores the services in 
question. But landlords often use service reduction as a form of harassment 
to get tenants to move. So it makes sense for a landlord to drag out the 
processing of service complaints, hoping the tenants will become 
frustrated. DHCR enforcement is difficult (near impossible) even with a 
legal decision. While a service reduction order from DHCR is far from 
perfect, mediation solves none of the problems.

In practice (at least early on), the mediation program was staffed not by 
experienced DHCR staff members -- who at least knew the law -- but by legal 
interns without sufficient training. Tenants reported they were getting 
pressure to give up their rights.

Tenants can easily be threatened that if they decide to exercise their 
rights they invariably face lengthy delays. While this may be true, DHCR 
should spend it's time speeding up case processing.

One City-wide tenant advocate stated, "I have not heard much good about it 
from tenants who went through [the DHCR Mediation]. Occasionally tenants 
say the unit was helpful. We never recommend mediation -- mediation assumes 
that both sides are of equal power and both sides need to give up 
something. Clearly tenants don't have to give up anything -- they have an 
absolute right to repairs. The premise is bullshit."

Another potential ramification of tenants submitting to mediation is that 
they might lose their complaint base date. If tenants file a service 
reduction complaint, the date of the start of the accompanying rent 
reduction is calculated by the date they file the complaint. If they are 
delayed in filing a complaint (while they ponder or are pressured to submit 
to mediation), any resulting rent reduction (which is designed to pressure 
landlords to restore services) is delayed.

We canvassed a number of housing groups -- all of which stated that they 
would not (and have not) recommended the program for various reasons: 
alternatives exist in bringing an HP action in Housing Court or filing for 
a service reduction (with a rent reduction), that tenants are pressured to 
reduce their rights (when the rights should be guaranteed by law), and that 
a landlord that reduces services will most likely not alter his/her 
behavior from simple mediation. A few went further, stating they never 
recommend the DHCR program as it was designed to aid landlords. As one 
tenant advocate put it, "DHCR loves this ... it pits the giant landlord 
against the pipsqueak [tenant] ... tenants are plowed under in this process."

Perhaps Virginia Fields was just helping her Real Estate buddies.

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EVICTION ALERT (information from Met Council)

"Hope Community" is once again proceeding with the eviction of a disabled 
tenant.

Edna Greenaway, a disabled member of Met Council on Housing, has been 
facing eviction. While all evictions are horrible, Edna's was particulary 
unjust. "Hope Community," a non-profit housing developer which owns Edna's 
building on East 111th Street under the NEIGBORHOOD REDEVELOPMENT PROGRAM 
(a Giuliani/HPD program that gives buildings to connected developers and 
can result in a loss of affordable housing), had used false income 
information to inflate Edna's rent. After recalculating the rent beyond 
Edna's means, Hope Community then proceeded to sue Edna in court for "back 
rent". Despite numerous correspondence and meetings between Met Council and 
Hope -- one in which an employee admitted that Hope had registered false 
information -- Hope Community proceeded with issuing an eviction notice to 
Edna.

After a prior phone call campaign, pickets outside Hope Community's offices 
and complaints filed with the HPD Inspector General, Hope Community backed 
off from carrying out Edna's eviction.

Negotiations began between David Hershey Webb, an attorney representing 
Edna pro bono, and Hope Community's attorney. It seemed that an equitable 
rent was being arranged and then phone calls stopped being returned.

Simultaneously, the eviction notice went stale and a new one was never 
issued. Then September 11 happened. That was the last we heard from Hope 
Community. Then out of the clear blue sky, last Friday, Hope Community had 
a "six day" eviction notice posted on Edna's door. When we contacted their 
lawyer, he gave us some half-baked rationalization for the eviction, 
ignoring all the previous issues.

Edna suffers from Reflexive Sympathetic Dystrophy, a degenerative condition 
that causes her constant pain and severly limits her mobility. She has no 
where to go if she is evicted.

CALL EDNA'S LANDLORD, HOPE COMMUNITY!

All day phone and fax in to stop eviction: Friday, 1/17/02

* Tell them "community" housing developers should not be putting disabled 
people in the street...

* Tell them to STOP EDNA'S EVICTION and to set her rent at what it should be...

tel: (212) 860-8821
fax: (212) 289-6563

Call FRIDAY! EDNA MAY BE PUT OUT AS EARLY AS MONDAY. Your calls and 
presence stopped this eviction once before. Please follow through again. We 
will call the marshals office Friday to see if her eviction is scheduled 
(they only will tell you one business day before an eviction is scheduled). 
If her eviction is on for Monday we will be holding an eviction watch at 
her building in East Harlem.

For more info, contact Dave Powell at Met Council: (212) 979-6238 ext. 6

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UPPER EAST SIDE ELECTION
Liz Krueger Runs for State Senate in Feb. 12 Special Election

Governor George Pataki has called a special election for February 12 to 
fill the State Senate seat on Manhattan's East Side vacated by Roy Goodman, 
the last of the Rockefeller generation of Republicans.
Goodman has accepted a position in Mayor Mike Bloomberg's administration.

Housing and hunger advocate Liz Krueger---who challenged Goodman in 2000 
with strong tenant support, and narrowly lost after disputed absentee 
ballots were counted---is facing Republican Assemblymember John Ravitz.

Krueger, a nationally recognized policy expert, presented compelling 
testimony at the Rent Guidelines Board in the last two years against the 
"poor tax" surcharge on low-rent apartments, which was finally defeated by 
a 5-4 vote in 2001.

"Unlike John Ravitz, whose party has devastated rent and eviction 
protections and intends to continue in 2003, I have fought to preserve and 
extend tenant protections," Krueger declared. "Tenants in the 26th District 
need a real friend in Albany, not a Republican voting with the anti-tenant 
majority," added East Side district leader and Waterside Tenant Association 
president Steve Smollens.

Two years ago, Goodman trumpeted his supposed pro-tenant record in 
full-page ads and mass mailings to the district, which has a high 
concentration of tenants from Stuyvesant Town to the Upper East Side.

Many tenant advocates feel Krueger would have won in 2000 if it were not 
for Tenants & Neighbors and  Mike McKee supporting the Republican line. See 
http://tenant.net/pipermail/nytenants-online/2001-March/000057.html 
Goodman's margin-of-victory in 2000 was only about 200 votes, so a 
reasonable inference could be made that Goodman's ill-advised tenant 
support kept the Senate Republican Majority from diminishing.

It will be much more difficult for Ravitz to capitalize on this appeal, 
because as a member of the Republican Assembly minority, he has had little 
impact on legislation. Ravitz is expected to spend $2 million, and to break 
Bloomberg's record of $72 per vote set in November.

State Senator Eric Schneiderman, head of the campaign to wrest control of 
the upper house from Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, calls the 
February 12 special election "a huge race that could affect the balance of 
power in the Senate as we go into the 2002 campaign cycle and as we prepare 
for the battles over rent regulation in the coming year. Liz Krueger is one 
of the best candidates I've ever seen and a great advocate for tenants."

In addition to representing the Upper East Side in the Senate, there are 
wider issues to consider. The leaders of both parties -- Democrat Sheldon 
Silver (who controls the Assembly) and Republican Joe Bruno (who controls 
the Senate) -- are perfectly content to live with the status quo, allowing 
them to essentially do nothing and perpetually blame the other side. While 
various pro-tenant legislators will invariably introduce pro-tenant 
legislation in every session, they know it will go nowhere without both 
legislative houses supporting it -- and this never happens. Such one-house 
legislation only allows the various legislators to tell his or her 
consitutents that they's "fighting for tenants."

But unlike the Assembly, the Republicans control the Senate by only six 
votes. If the Democrats ever got off their collective asses and decided to 
take the Senate, they could do so. Some Democrats (for example, Eric 
Schneiderman) have even tried, but it seems as if the Democratic Leadership 
intentionally discourages such efforts -- or is strangely quiet when 
Republicans threaten punishment.

Why? If the Democratic Party actually controlled both houses in Albany, 
then there would be no excuse to the Democrats collective lethargy -- and 
they could no longer blame Joe Bruno. And then several of the infamous 
Democrats in the leadership would actually have to do the people's business 
for a living.

To help, contact lizforsenate@aol.com or call the campaign at (212) 988-2270.

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TENANTS RETURN TO COURT JAN. 25 TO CHALLENGE RENT-CODE CHANGES
Tenant/Inquilino, January 2002
By Dave Powell

On Dec. 10, over 60 tenants and their allies showed up at Brooklyn Criminal 
Court to support a lawsuit challenging recent changes to the state's Rent 
Stabilization Code. A pre-court picket drew close to two dozen tenants, 
while more waited up to a half-hour in line to get into the building. After 
getting past the metal detectors and learning that the room for the opening 
arguments had been changed, tenants were informed that the hearing had been 
postponed.

Because both sides had submitted last-minute briefs, Judge Richard Rivera 
postponed opening arguments, so as to have time to adequately review the 
briefs. Lawyers representing tenants saw the postponement as a positive 
indication that Rivera was reviewing the merits thoroughly. The tenant 
picket and presence, called by Met Council, also got the issue some 
much-needed media attention; Channel 11, WNYC radio, the New York Post, The 
Daily News and the Brooklyn Papers all dispatched reporters.

The lawsuit, filed by various groups including Met Council, alleges that 
the state Division of Housing Community Renewal (DHCR) overstepped its 
authority by making drastic code changes without the approval of the state 
Legislature, sufficient public input, or impact studies. Although the case 
is a state Supreme Court case, overcrowding at the Brooklyn Supreme Court 
building has forced the case to be heard at the neighboring Criminal Court. 
The change of venue appears to be incidental, but the symbolism of trying 
Governor George Pataki's DHCR in Criminal Court is not lost on tenants.

The new code gives landlords unprecedented loopholes for overcharging and 
removing apartments from rent stabilization, by replacing "legal registered 
rent" with "legal regulated rent," implying that a rent is whatever the 
landlord charges, regardless of what is registered with DHCR. Another 
provision in the new code limits the amount a primary tenant can charge a 
roommate, to a "proportionate" share of the legal regulated rent, usually 
50%. The new restrictions place real hardship on poor, elderly and disabled 
tenants on fixed incomes, who often rely on roommates to make ends meet. A 
tenant accepting greater than 50% of the total rent under this provision 
may face eviction. Another provision in the new code allows landlords to 
charge "surcharges" for appliances like washing machines or services such 
as cable hook-ups.
Although the changes were "codified" on Dec. 20, 2000, the DHCR has yet to 
issue bulletins explaining how they will be implemented. However, 
individual landlords have been trying out aspects of the new code. One 
Housing Court judge decided that a tenant who had charged her roommate more 
than 50% of the legal rent could be evicted, although that case is being 
appealed.

Other provisions of the new code make it harder for tenants to challenge 
major capital improvement (MCI) rent increases and to get reductions in 
rent for reductions in services. (If you are being taken to court or 
otherwise challenged by your landlord over issues relating to the new code 
changes, contact Met Council.)

The one-sided and brazen severity of the code changes has led tenant 
advocates to conclude that they were written with, if not by, lobbyists for 
the real-estate industry. They represent the latest installment of Gov. 
Pataki's career-long assault on rent regulation, and the over 2 million of 
us whom rely on it for protection. When he was elected governor in 1994, 
Pataki's transition platform emphasized his vision for dismantling tenant 
pro- tections. His subsequent transformation of DHCR, from a sometimes-fair 
agency to an openly pro-landlord unit, is known by virtually all tenants 
who have sought its assistance in recent years. Despite Pataki's 1997 
pledge to enact stronger harassment measures against landlords, the new 
code creates a provision allowing tenants to be evicted for "harassing" 
their landlords.

Tenants will return to Brooklyn Criminal Court on Friday, Jan. 25. For 
details, contact Dave Powell at Met Council: (212) 979-6238, ext. 6.

Friday, January 25, 2002
Brooklyn Criminal Court Building*
120 Schermerhorn St. (bt. Smith & Boerum)

Picket in Front of the Court House
9:00 am  9:30 am SHARP!
Pack the Court Room (Room 1002F**)
9:30 am  1:00 pm

SUBWAY: A/C/G to Hoyt/Schermerhorn, 1/2/ to Hoyt St.,
or 1/2/4/5/N/R to Court St./Borough Hall

*Although this is a Supreme Court case, we have been assigned a room in
the Criminal Court building. Give yourself an extra half hour to get
through the metal detectors.

** If our room is moved again, ask where to find Judge Riveras Court Room.
Our case appears on the calendar as:  "Brooklyn Housing  & Family
Services... vs  Joseph Lynch/DHCR", Docket # 14191-01

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BOARD 3 COMMITTEE CRITICAL OF MUSEUM EXPAND PLAN
The Villager, January 16, 2002
by Jennifer Jensen

Members of Community Board 3's housing committee last week "condemned the 
condemnation" of 99 Orchard St., claiming that the expansion of a private 
museum does not warrant an eminent-domain action by New York State. The 
Lower East Side Tenement Museum is hoping to take over its neighbor, 99 
Orchard St., through eminent domain by the state's Empire State Development 
Corporation. Museum officials have agreed to buy the building if the state 
succeeds in taking it over. Eminent domain is a process by which the 
government can force the sale of a private property if they believe it will 
result in the serving of the greater good of the public.

The building currently houses 15 apartments and the Congee Village Chinese 
restaurant, which employs about 40 people, according to the owner. If the 
state succeeds in taking over the property, the residential tenants will be 
relocated and the restaurant will have to leave. The building - a 
five-story, brick Italianate tenement - is owned by Lou Holtzman and Peter 
Liang, owner of Congee Village, which expanded into the building from its 
Allen St. location about a year ago.

In a proposal on the project, E.S.D.C. claims that the pending condemnation 
of 99 Orchard St. is necessary in order to allow for the Tenement Museum's 
expansion. Expanding the already-cramped museum will allow the state to 
move ahead with three-year-old plans to affiliate the Tenement Museum with 
two other important symbols of the city's immigrant history, Ellis Island 
and the Statue of Liberty. The Tenement Museum, at 97 Orchard St., is 
dedicated to telling the story of the living conditions of immigrant 
families living on the Lower East Side. In 1998, the Tenement Museum was 
officially linked with Ellis Island and "Lady Liberty," but the benefits of 
such an association - namely joint marketing and financial support from the 
National Parks Service - were put off because the museum is currently too 
small to accommodate the influx of tourists from those sites.

Ruth Abram, Tenement Museum director and founder, said at the C.B. 3 
housing committee meeting that the condemnation is necessary because 
construction at 99 Orchard has damaged the museum. Independent engineers 
hired by both the museum and Liang and Holtzman, determined that a crack in 
the Tenement Museum's wall was caused by construction at 99 Orchard St., 
according to documents obtained by The Villager.

"The crack is still wrapped like a sick patient in a 24-hour monitor," said 
Abram, in speech punctuated periodically by snickering from the audience or 
by committee members who urged her to speak more directly to the issue of 
condemnation. "As days turned to months, new cracks and damage appeared."

Abram said she feared the ongoing construction project would cause 
long-term damage to 97 Orchard St., which is listed as a National Historic 
Landmark by the federal National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 1998, 
97 Orchard St. was affiliated with the National Parks Service. Museum 
officials are seeking further protections for the building. The city's 
Landmarks Preservation Commission is currently looking into designating 97 
Orchard a city landmark, according to Mary Beth Betts, a Landmarks 
spokesperson. She said Abram met with Landmarks officials last spring to 
discuss designating the building. It is currently not protected by any of 
the city's landmarks preservation laws.

"We have an obligation to this site for the people and the community," 
Abram said at the meeting. "We were unable to ensure the safety of this 
landmark."

Jeffrey Lynford, an emeritus trustee of the National Trust for Historic 
Preservation and a trustee of the Tenement Museum, supported the museum's 
efforts to take over 99 Orchard St.

"The trustees of the museum believe they are facing the certain mutilation 
of their historic property at 97 Orchard St.," Lynford said in a statement 
at a Jan. 9 E.S.D.C.-sponsored public hearing on the project at University 
Settlement attended by almost 200 people the day before the C.B. 3 meeting. 
"As fiduciaries, [the museum's trustees] are bound by New York State law to 
protect the assets of the trust."

Lisa Kaplan, C.B. 3 chairperson, was concerned that there is no mention of 
any concerns about the stability of the building or poor construction 
practices of its neighbors in the proposal submitted by E.S.D.C.

"It doesn't mention in the 25 pages a threat to the integrity of the 
building's structure," Kaplan said at the committee meeting. "There's a 
real disconnect here."

Joe Patillo, a lawyer for E.S.D.C., acknowledged that Abram's concerns with 
construction next door are not mentioned in the proposal, but he said the 
structural-damage issue was not irrelevant. He did not explain why there is 
no mention in the proposal of structural damage. Abram said E.S.D.C. got 
involved only after she appealed to them and several other governmental 
agencies for help with what she saw as disregard for a "cultural treasure."

"We're putting the museum in a position where it can expand," said Patillo. 
"The emphasis in our proposal is on the expansion."

According to New York City Department of Buildings records, 98 Allen Realty 
Inc., Holtzman and Liang's company, was issued violations by the D.O.B. and 
the city's Environmental Control Board on Nov. 16, 2000, for "failure to 
maintain" after Tenement Museum officials complained that construction 
there was damaging their building. According to the D.O.B. report, an 
inspector saw vertical cracks in the northwest corner of the Tenement Museum.

A similar complaint made two weeks earlier on Nov. 2, 2000, resulted in no 
action after a D.O.B. inspector could find no evidence of damage. Tenement 
Museum officials claimed the rear wall of 97 Orchard had cracks and bulges.

A stop-work order was served on the site again on Nov. 29, 2000, for 
Liang's failure to submit an engineer's report of the adjacent property. A 
construction permit was revoked on Jan. 5, 2001, because plans for the 
restaurant's expansion had not been filed. Violations were issued in six 
different cases, and according to a D.O.B. spokesperson, at least two 
stop-work orders were enforced at the site in 2001.

Holtzman called the construction complaints "harassment" and an effort by 
the Tenement Museum to acquire the property for less than what the owners 
had offered. He said, except for some minor finishing work, that the 
construction is now finished and that previous problems raised by the 
D.O.B. have been resolved.

"If I'm such a creep, how come I have a certificate of occupancy now?" 
Holtzman asked at the housing committee meeting.

Of the 15 complaints made to D.O.B. between Nov. 2, 2000, and Nov. 29, 
2001, no action was taken in nine cases. Citing confidentiality policies, 
D.O.B. will not disclose who made the complaints. Most of the complaints 
made were for work without a permit or after-hours construction.

Contacted after the C.B. 3 meeting, Andrew Flamm, executive director of the 
Lower East Side Business Improvement, echoed the housing committee's concerns.

"We're not convinced that eminent domain is the necessary next step in 
terms of the purchasing of this building. We're not sure whether there's a 
precedent for this," said Flamm. "The expansion itself, as a stand-alone 
issue, would be great for the neighborhood."

Some board members criticized the museum for not exploring other means to 
address the construction threat.

"I think there's a certain unseemliness about bringing in the bully of the 
state to solve this construction problem," said Barden Prisant, a housing 
committee member, suggesting that if the Tenement Museum was primarily 
concerned about 98 Allen Realty's construction practices, they should 
consider court action instead.

Abram said she had been advised not to pursue court action by lawyers and 
other consultants.

"Litigation doesn't stop this pattern of behavior," she said.

Harvey Epstein, chairperson of the housing committee, criticized the museum 
for not coming to the public sooner with their plans, and said it seemed as 
if the museum was trying to sneak its plans past the community.

The museum has agreed to pay all out-of-pocket expenses incurred by 
E.S.D.C. The estimated total cost of the project is just under $4 million, 
which includes $1.35 million for the purchase of the fully-renovated 99 
Orchard St. The figure was based on a January estimate by an independent 
appraiser. It also includes another $2.3 million for renovation of the 
building. The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs has already 
committed $2 million to the project through a grant.

Holtzman and Liang offered to sell the building to the Tenement Museum for 
$6 million in Jan. 2001, according to a memo from Howard Leder, a lawyer 
for 98 Allen Realty.

According to a source, the Tenement Museum is also negotiating to buy 91 
and 93 Orchard St.

Several years ago, C.B. 3 went on record supporting the Tenement Museum 
getting space in the city-owned Essex St. Market's Building D, south of 
Delancey St., two blocks from the museum. But the building was later 
included in the city's request for proposals to develop the last parts of 
the Seward Park Urban Renewal Zone.
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