By John Bayles
When Mayor Bloomberg sent a letter at the eleventh hour to Governor Paterson, seeking to block the passage of a revised Loft Law, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver went into fighting mode.
Three minutes before the deadline for the governor to either pass or veto the law, Silver, the governor and the Mayor’s Office reached an agreement last month, marking a historic victory for loft tenants throughout the city and concluding a nearly three-decade-long fight for their rights.
“It’s something I’ve been battling for for a long time,” the speaker said. “And we achieved it tonight — it’s a great victory.”
For the first time since the Loft Law was passed in 1982, it has been expanded to cover the outer boroughs and to include buildings not covered previously. Most important, the law won’t have to be renewed.
Since its inception the law has faced annual renewals, often causing high anxiety to tenants as to their rights to remain in the buildings and, in certain cases, to have building owners bring the spaces up to code.
When the original law was passed in 1982, the New York City Loft Board was established and Chuck Delaney was appointed as its tenant representative, a role he continues to fulfill today. He praised Speaker Silver’s dedication during the last two decades in continuing to keep the law on the books, year after year.
“There’s no question that for the last 15 years the person who has been able to keep getting it renewed is the speaker,” said Delaney.
He noted that the most significant aspect of the law’s new expansion is that tenants need no longer live in fear on an annual or biannual basis.
“Making the law permanent is a very, very significant achievement,” Delaney said. “Number one, it relieves the tenants from this annual drama — and number two, it sends a clear message to those owners who have delayed legalization in the hopes that this whole thing will go away. It makes it clear it won’t, and is now here to stay.”
