BY EILEEN STUKANE | The letters to elected officials and Chelsea Now practically shouted: “It’s happening here where I live!” The light that the Community & Residents Protection Working Group (CRP) started shining on the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) landlord applications opened local residents’ eyes to the fact that construction might be occurring in their permit-posted buildings without the required Tenant Protection Plans in place.
The CRP found that landlords have been falsifying applications, claiming occupied buildings as “unoccupied,” thereby absolving themselves of the need to institute the Tenant Protection Plans required for construction in buildings where people are living. Armed with this information, tenants are displaying a new boldness in coming forward to draw attention to the happenings in their buildings.
The clash is replayed too often — with tenants wanting to hold onto their affordable apartments, and landlords wanting to monetize their properties by reclaiming those apartments.
At 565 W. 23rd St. (aka 184 11th Ave.), the permanent residents of a hotel are in a different scenario because they are fully recognized tenants,. They’ve taken the landlord to task by writing to this newspaper and elected officials to argue the grounds of their Tenant Protection Program.
This is the same building recently in the news for the $226-a-month lifetime lease that Hamidou Guira, a cab driver, was able to score for a room residence, thanks to an obscure New York City Administrative Code law unearthed by one of the longtime tenants (more about that later).
TENANTS FIGHT CHANGE AT 565 W. 23rd St.
When tenants are determined to resist the renovation of a building in which the owner recognizes their residency and applies for a Tenant Protection Program, they can still find ways to stand their ground. At 565 W. 23rd Street, a four-story corner building on 11th Ave., in which 19 permanently affordable apartments are being planned, a resistance movement is being carried out by five remaining permanent residents (of the 10 original residents, five relocated). This Single Room Occupancy (SRO) building of 68 rooms with designated shared baths was — until this week — being leased by Jazz Hostels, which rented out rooms for visitors as the Chelsea Highline Hotel (aka Terminal Hotel). Jazz Hostels has terminated its business at the address, most likely to prevent another lifetime leasing situation.
In 2012, when investor Jonathan Leitersdorf (as Chelsea Skybox) closed on a 99-year lease of the building, along with a two-story building next door on 11th Ave. (since demolished), relocation negotiations with the 10 original tenants began. On the site of the former two-story building, Skybox plans a 20-story, 33-unit building of high-end rentals crowned by a roof deck with a swimming pool. For luxury construction to begin, however, Skybox must deliver the four-story 565 W. 23rd St. building, renovated with affordable housing, according to plans approved by HPD.
The 23rd St. building has a long history of tenant harassment by former owners and leasees of the property. One leasee even began gutting part of the second floor without permits, to create a “lap-dancing hotel.” Since HPD has recognized past tenant harassment, the building now qualifies for a Cure for Harassment. The Cure requires an owner to set aside 28 percent of floor area, or 20 percent of the entire development site, for affordable housing in perpetuity. Clinton Housing Development Company (CHDC) was hired by Skybox to transform the entire building into 100 percent affordable housing. However, as mentioned, this hotel has permanent residents who know the ins-and-outs of the city’s housing regulations, and for reasons that remain unclear, are against renovation, even if it means affordable housing for them.
THE RIPPLE EFFECT OF CRP’S WORK
Most of the 23rd St. permanent tenants pay under $300 monthly in rent and, according to Joe Restuccia, CHDC’s executive director, tenants who agreed to relocate were offered assurances that they could return to an ensuite studio apartment at whatever rent they’re paying today, for life.
At first it appeared that all would relocate, but five did not — and the plans for 24 units of affordable housing submitted to HPD had to be reclaimed by CHDC so that new plans for construction of 19 units could be created around the five remaining tenants. As of this writing, the new plans, approved by Community Board 4 (CB4), have been submitted to HPD with an application for a new Cure.
A permit application which recognizes the need for a Tenant Protection Plan has been submitted to DOB, primarily for the construction of an elevator shaft and a new staircase. In a March 2015 letter to the HPD, CB4 commended CHDC’s Tenant Protection Plan as “highly thought out” with “24 hour/7 day a week front desk staff…on site to provide additional tenant safety.” This has not satisfied the permanent residents.
Chelsea Now and elected officials were emailed by tenant J. Stephens, who argued that the developer was trying to renovate a building that lacked the required Certificate of No Harassment, and therefore construction could not begin. However, with its history of tenant harassment, the building does not qualify for a Certificate of No Harassment, only the Cure. A week after leaving phone messages for him, Stephens called to say that he and the other tenants were worried about safety, and the issue of No Harassment seemed to have evaporated. The application for the elevator shaft/staircase permit that had been submitted to DOB was now at issue.
Stephens also spoke about the fact that he had at first signed on to relocate as his girlfriend did, but moving from his decades-long Chelsea neighborhood to Hell’s Kitchen was ultimately not acceptable to him. “My girlfriend relocated to Hell’s Kitchen, and she was assaulted there,” he said. He also feared that if he relocated he would not be able to return, although in our interview with him, Restuccia was definite about either temporarily or permanently relocating tenants, depending on their choices.
Stephens’ call was followed by an anonymous caller who said that DOB’s Building Marshall and Manhattan Plan Exam Department had been sent letters because the tenants believed that their safety was endangered. The letters state that the DOB application does not designate the proper category for the extensiveness of the construction of the elevator shaft/staircase. The tenants cite this discrepancy as “falsification,” in the language of the CRP. Those letters, minus the signator, were faxed to Chelsea Now, along with a copy of a lawsuit filed between another fee holder and master lessee of the property, which may or may not affect the course of construction. Tenants should be pleased, however, that the DOB permit application has been re-filed in a changed Alt-1 category, since construction will remove a number of apartments. “I thought this was an Alt-2 [a category of less extensive construction], but you cannot remove apartments. It’s dead wrong,” says Restuccia. “I take responsibility for it fully, 100 percent.”
Now it appears that the same J. Stephens who spoke to Chelsea Now was also working to bring fellow cab drivers into 565 W. 23rd St. as fellow residents. An obscure law holds that it is legal for a resident of a hotel constructed before July 1, 1969 — which offered occupancy at less than $350 a month or $88 a week on May 31, 1968 — to request a lease to live on the premises long term at the 1968 rate. Hamidou Guira requested such a lease, reportedly on the advice of Stephens, and won his case in Manhattan housing court. The other case is pending. So today there are six permanent residents in the building. Although Stephens might have wanted to help a friend find housing, increasing the number of permanent residents who do not want to relocate clearly adds to the tenant resistance movement. Usually such resistance is against the creation of luxury housing, but at 565 W. 23rd St., affordable housing is being delayed.
It is difficult to determine the motivation of the tenants. Is resistance rooted in a strong attachment to a home and a desire for “no change,” or a hoped-for financial buyout (which Stephens denies), or concern about both safety during renovation and possible misrepresentation of the scope of construction (since rectified), which the anonymous caller cites? Restuccia iterated that CHDC does not do financial buyouts: “We said flat out, no one is paying anything. We will redesign the building around you.”
The tenant/landlord relationship, in general, simmers with suspicion. The CRP’s important work is changing behavior. Tenants are now tracking DOB applications to stay on top of possible changes to their residences beyond the CRP interest in Tenant Protection Plans.
It’s a new watchdog era.
