Tenants Beat Back RSA
Vallone Shelves Self-Certification Bill
by Deborah Schutt

Under heavy pressure from tenants, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone last month decided to withdraw a bill that would have allowed landlords to self-certify that they had corrected violations in their buildings.

The move came on the eve of the Council's scheduled Dec. 17 vote on the bill, Intro 994-A, which had been passed by the Housing and Buildings Committee Dec. 8.

Introduced by Councilmembers Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn) and Archie Spigner (D-Queens) at the request of the Rent Stabilization Association, 994-A would have allowed landlords to hire their own architects--instead of city inspectors--to certify that violations such as mice or roach infestation, broken or faulty windows, leaky ceilings, and fire hazards have been corrected.

"This is one of the worst pieces of anti-tenant legislation that I have ever seen," said Councilmember Stanley Michels (D-Manhattan)

"We have to be ready in case it is reintroduced next year," warned Met Council chair Scott Sommer.

Under the current system, landlords can self-certify if they file within six or 14 days, depending upon the severity of the violation. Intro 994-A would have removed these time restrictions and let landlords and their hired engineers certify whenever they saw fit. This would be especially dangerous for "C" violations, which are immediately hazardous and need to be repaired within 24 hours.

A 1995 report by City Controller Alan Hevesi and State Sen. Franz Leichter (D-Manhattan) found that 40% of the 100,000 violations certified as corrected by landlords that year were false. There isn't much chance of catching these landlords, as only 60% of self-certified violations are reinspected.

The Weiner-Spigner bill had virtually no penalty for landlords who falsely certified. The biggest penalties would have applied only when the city proved that architects and engineers "willfully" made a false certification.

"The teeth in 994-A were illusory," says Met Council executive director Jenny Laurie. "Forcing HPD to erase violations from the computer without verifying whether the conditions have in fact been corrected might make it easier for speculators to flip buildings at a profit, but it's hard to see how that would benefit the public."

At the Dec. 8 committee hearing, dozens of tenants and advocates signed up to testify. "This bill does not address the main weaknesses in the current code-enforcement system," said Anne Pasmanick of the Community Training and Resource Center. "There are not enough inspectors and the city does not have an effective emergency-repair system."

But after listening to approximately three hours of testimony overwhelmingly opposed to the bill, comittee chair Archie Spigner announced that he would conduct a vote on it and that the about 25 people who had not yet testified could speak afterwards. Outraged, the tenants immediately began chanting, "We don't want it" and "Kill the bill." Spigner asked Met Council board member Jon Lilienthal to leave after Lilienthal shouted out that this seems more like a "vaudeville show instead of a City Council hearing."

The committee passed the bill by a 5-3 vote, with Enoch Williams (D-Brooklyn) absent. Councilmembers Stanley Michels, Helen Marshall (D-Queens) and Guillermo Linares (D-Manhattan) opposed it; lame duck Antonio Pagan made a rare Council appearance to vote for it.

Met Council and other groups lobbied to kill the bill. The main reason landlords wanted it to pass, they argued, was to avoid reinspection and the new violations a city inspector might find in the building. In a December 12 letter to Vallone, Jenny Laurie pointed out that the Speaker's support for this anti-tenant measure had undone much of the good will he had garnered by his support of other tenant issues this year.

The pressure had its effect. On Dec. 15, on Brian Leher's WNYC radio show, Vallone asserted, "It's not a giveaway to landlords, but if people are not understanding it, then it will get shelved this year."

Marching to Astoria

On Dec. 15, a demonstration was held in front of Vallone's Astoria district office, organized by Met Council, Queens League of United Tenants, West Side SRO Tenants United and Astoria Concerned Citizens. The protest was "lively, loud and effective," said QLOUT's Penny LaForest. Vallone emerged from his office and was greeted by 125 tenants armed with whistles and drums shouting, "Peter Vallone, you can't hide, we know you're on the landlords' side."

Vallone got into his car without uttering a word to the tenants, but smiled and waved to them. Protesters gave out approximately 3,000 leaflets to neighborhood residents descending from the elevated N line, urging them to call Vallone and urge him to vote no on Intro 994-A. Longtime Met Council member Anita Romm wrote a song for the occasion titled "Marching to Astoria."

Cut the Baloney

The tenant pressure continued on Dec. 16 at Anthony Weiner's district office in Sheepshead Bay. Fifty or so angry constituents-most of them senior citizens-carrying signs that stated, "Tony, Tony, Cut Out the Baloney," demonstrated outside his office. They were surprised when Weiner actually came out to speak with them.

Weiner defended the bill, asserting that there are over 2 million violations clogging the system and that these violations need to be removed so landlords can sell their buildings. But long-term tenant activists were not buying that line. They were demanding that the city hire more inspectors than the mere 220 it employs now. Joe Weiss stated, "This bill could hurt all New Yorkers, not just tenants. Look at what happened on Madison Avenue-that building was self-certified."

After engaging the Councilmember in several heated debates, Met Council organizers felt inspired at just how effectively grass-roots organizing can work.

On Dec. 16, a tenants' news conference on the steps of City Hall was buoyed by the news that Vallone had pulled the bill. Vallone decided on the action after Mayor Rudolph Giuliani vowed that he would back tenants in their fight to kill the bill.

Giuliani's opposition was forced by the shutdown of a midtown section of Madison Avenue for more than a week, due to falling bricks at a building owned by Harry Macklowe-who won notoriety in 1982 for illegally knocking down a single-room-occupancy hotel on West 45th Street.

"The bill would be devastating to all tenants, but would hit low-income tenants the hardest," stated Elizabeth Kane from the West Side SRO Law Project. "The upkeep and safety of the buildings they call home depends on effective city code enforcement. Tenants' ability to take landlords to court is also an important factor. 994-A will badly undermine both the city's and a tenant's ability to force a landlord to make repairs. Given that, and the history of landlords in low-income communities falsely certifying, the grave consequences to our scarce and diminishing low-income housing stock is clear."

Bob Katz from QLOUT appealed to the Council to add more inspectors to HPD. Councilmembers Stanley Michels, Ronnie Eldridge, and Kathryn Freed also spoke.

In a concession statement, Weiner called for increasing the fine for false self-certification from $200 to $700. He is running for Congress next year, and may well have written the bill to troll for campaign contributions from the Rent Stabilization Association and other landlord groups.

However, landlord lobbyists are likely to continue the fight. As part of the next phase, the RSA is seeking to discredit 994-A's most effective opponents, such as the West Side SRO Law Project, whom they accused of "bargaining in bad faith." Spigner circulated a letter to all Councilmembers, falsely claiming that 994-A had incorporated objections to an earlier version that was shelved after fierce opposition in September.

"994-A did respond to some of the specific objections we had made earlier," said Betsy Kane. "But we never said we'd accept minor charges. The entire concept of removing violations from HPD's records without verifying that the violation has been corrected is unacceptable, and we will continue to fight any future reincarnations of this bill."