By Skye H. McFarlane
Two months ago, Susan Barry received the type of letter that any New York City tenant would dread — a notice telling her that she had 60 days to vacate her apartment.
The 60-day vacate clause was written into the renewal leases of Barry and dozens of other 333 Rector Place renters. The tenants signed on, believing that their building’s new owner would allow them to either stay on as renters or purchase their apartments. Now, tenants are being offered the choice to leave or sign new, short-term leases for much higher rates.
The 333 Rector Place tenants don’t have disabilities or low-income rent controls, but many are long-term Battery Park City residents who say that they love their homes and appreciate rents that are slightly less than the average apartment in B.P.C. Many believe that their building’s new owner, a partnership headed by Buttonwood Real Estate, is taking advantage of loopholes in the state’s condo conversion law.
“I believe the intent of the law was to protect us,” said Barry at a Community Board 1 meeting Tuesday night. “The law says that you don’t [disrupt] a home just because the owner has decided it’s more profitable to convert it to condos.”
The law in question is the 1982 Martin Act, a state statute that protects tenants during the conversion of buildings from rental units to condominiums. The law states that under a “non-eviction” conversion, tenants must be given the option to purchase their apartments. Those who choose not to purchase must be allowed to stay in the building at market rents.
In February, Andrew Heiberger, the C.E.O. of Buttonwood, told the Battery Park City Broadsheet that his company was planning a non-eviction conversion at 333 Rector. Soon after Buttonwood’s purchase of the property from Rockrose was finalized, however, the 60-day vacate notices began coming. Leases without the 60-day clauses, tenants say, are not being renewed at all.
Instead, both victims of the 60-day notices and lease renewal applicants are being given the option to sign pricey short-term leases, some of which have required additional security deposits and clauses that allow the building owner to impose severe penalties — including confiscating the renter’s property — if the tenants do not vacate by the exact day their new leases expire. Adding to the tenants’ frustrations, new renters are being given short-term leases in the vacant apartments — often at cheaper rents than those being offered to current tenants.
Buttonwood’s spokesperson said the company has not yet decided whether to convert the building into condos or to keep it as luxury rentals, but the tenants must all go so that the building can be extensively renovated and “upgraded.” Construction will begin later this year.
The spokesperson said that by company policy, he was not allowed to be identified by name in the paper. He did not dispute any of Heiberger’s previous comments. As for allegations of any unfair or illegal treatment, the spokesperson simply said, “We respect the law and our tenants’ leases and we expect the tenants to do the same.”
Tenants said emphatically at Tuesday’s meeting that they do not believe Buttonwood is undecided about the conversion at all. In addition to Heiberger’s statement in the Broadsheet, Buttonwood filed a notice with the Battery Park City Authority that called the project a conversion. Instead of renovating the building before deciding what to do with it, tenants feel that Buttonwood is using a clever strategy to skirt the Martin Act.
Though the act protects tenants, it does not do so until the developer has filed official conversion paperwork with the state attorney general’s office, which Buttonwood has yet to do. An additional protection, called the “warehousing” clause, prohibits developers from stockpiling vacant apartments before a conversion. However, the apartments are only considered warehoused if they are vacant for five straight months before the paperwork is filed.
Tenants suspect Buttonwood is using short-term leases to protect the firm from the warehouse law, but since most of those leases expire in the fall, Heiberger is likely to have a mostly empty building just in time for him to file his conversion paperwork.
Tenants at the Sheffield building in Columbus Circle were similarly forced out before conversion paperwork was filed. Twenty-three of the tenants chose to stay in the building in violation of vacate orders. The tenants and the developer, Swig Equities, are currently duking it out in the courts. Although an initial court decision went against them, the tenants recently won the legal right to stay. The decision is being appealed, however, and 333 Rector tenants say that they would like to stay in their apartments without a costly legal battle. Based on a survey by the newly formed tenants’ association, as many as two-thirds of the remaining tenants would be interested in buying their apartments if they were given the option.
Bill Love, a 333 Rector place resident and a C.B. 1 member, is still hopeful that the tenants can work something out with the landlord, who as yet has refused to meet with them. Nevertheless, Love said, the tenants have already pitched in money for a retainer fee and will likely hire a lawyer. Love’s lease expires in September. He is just a few years shy of retirement and he loathes the idea of having to move from his home of 14 years.
Love has pulled in the support of the C.B. 1 Battery Park City Committee, which Tuesday passed a resolution calling on Buttonwood to stop evicting tenants and calling upon elected officials to correct the loopholes in the Martin Act. Regardless of what happens at his building, Love said he will fight to clarify the law so that the Sheffield and 333 Rector do not become the crest in a wave of wait-it-out style tenant evictions.
“When you create these ambiguities and loopholes you end up with people for looking for a way through,” Love said. “[Buttonwood’s] evading the intent of the law. The intent of the law is to protect the rights of tenants during a conversion and everybody knows there’s a conversion.”
Skye@DowntownExpress.com
