BY WINNIE McCROY | The June 3 Community Board 4 (CB4) monthly full board meeting at Roosevelt Hospital ended on a hopeful note, when board member Joe Restuccia put into motion the first steps of a plan to battle against architects and owners who illegally harass tenants out of their homes, with the unwitting help of the Department of Buildings (DOB).
The issue in question was Agenda Item 21, a letter to elected officials regarding the enforcement of tenant protection plans during the construction of occupied buildings. On its face it seems innocuous — but the real meat of the matter has to do with architects who are reporting that buildings are vacant, then harassing remaining tenants into leaving.
“This is a letter about how architects are falsifying information on DOB forms,” said Restuccia. “Because if a building is listed as vacant, then no tenant protection plan is needed. But these architects are trying to game the system in order to get tenants harassed or bought out of the building.”
Restuccia continued by noting, “Four or five owners have honed this method to a science to empty out rent-regulated buildings,” in what he described as an intentional, systemic way.
Board members were affronted, with several seeking to involve the New York Police Department in the matter or to level claims at the DOB. But Restuccia told them this would not be possible. “You can’t make claims against them [the DOB] about false filings just because the certifications are false,” he said.
Instead, Restuccia recommended several friendly amendments to this letter, among them a toning down of the language, and a removal of CB4’s demand that the requested information be imparted in a specific manner.
He also recommended that these architects lose self-certification privileges, which allows them to declare that a building is vacant to begin with.
“They should lose their licenses,” said member John Sharp.
“But the Department of Buildings doesn’t revoke licenses,” said Restuccia. “This is what they can do here.”
According to Restuccia, when an architect loses self-certification privileges, not only do they have to pay for examinations of their properties, but their esteem plummets among their professional peers. These deterrents would be sufficiently daunting, he said.
Chelsea Now will keep readers updated on this situation as it continues to unfold.
