[NYtenants-online] NY Tenants Online 5/25/01

[Tenant]

NYtenants Online/TenantNet                                5/25/01
-----------------------------------------------------------------

IN THIS ISSUE ...

1. Training on HP Actions and Contempt Proceedings
2. Manhattan Plaza Renews HUD contract; Tenants Safe
3. Landlords May Cut Rent Temporarily (NY Law Journal)
4. Why Has a Convicted Brooklyn Landlord Been Let Off Easy? (Voice)

------------------------------------------------------------
TRAINING ON HP ACTIONS AND CONTEMPT PROCEEDINGS

Wednesday, June 6 from 2:30 - 5:00 P.M.
Legal Aid, 90 Church St., 14th floor
RSVP necessary

The City Wide Task Force on Housing Court is holding a training on HP 
Actions and Contempt Proceedings on June 6, 2001 from 2:30-5 pm.  Liz 
Fiekowsky from South Brooklyn Legal Services is the trainer. The training 
is at Legal Aid, 90 Church St, 14th floor.  The training is free but you 
must RSVP to Stephanie Townsend-Bakare at 212-962-4266 x11.

HP (or "Housing Part") Actions are tenant initiated suits to sue landlords 
into making repairs or services. Any New York City tenant in a multiple 
dwelling (that is, a building with 3 or more apartments) can start one. If 
the landlord refuses to do the court ordered repairs, the follow up action 
that you bring is called a "Contempt of Court Order", which is trickier.

------------------------------------------------------------
MANHATTAN PLAZA RENEWS HUD CONTRACT; TENANTS SAFE

Manhattan Plaza Tenants Association President Bruce Levine announced May 
24th that Manhattan Plaza Associates, Ltd., owner of Manhattan Plaza, has 
renewed its contract with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 
Housing Assistance Program.

In a letter dated May 23, 2001, Manhattan Plaza management stated that the 
"subsidy for the Section 8 Housing Assistance Program will end in 2017. The 
owners do not intend to withdraw from the program."

Levine stated, "this is a welcome relief to the approximately 3000 
residents of Manhattan Plaza in that it provides a reasonable certainty 
that their housing will not be endangered in the foreseeable future."

Opting out of the Section 8 program would have meant that all residents 
would have been forced to find a new home, many after living in Manhattan 
Plaza since its inception 24 years ago, and in today’s high rent 
free-market this would have pressured many to either leave the arts or 
leave New York entirely and made it nearly impossible for the elderly and 
disabled to find a new home at a rent they could afford.

For the past year the Manhattan Plaza Tenants Association has been working 
to ensure that all Manhattan Plaza residents were aware of the owner's 
potential opt-out and what residents options were if that occurred.

Manhattan Plaza's twin towers cover the entire block between 42nd and 43rd 
Streets, Ninth to Tenth Avenues. Constructed in 1977, it contains 1,689 
apartments under the HUD Section 8 program. The unique program was designed 
to create affordable housing for people in the arts, seniors, disabled and 
other residents of the Clinton neighborhood.

For more information, contact Bruce Levine at lfbkl@earthlink.net

------------------------------------------------------------
LANDLORDS MAY CUT RENT TEMPORARILY
New York Law Journal, May 23, 2001
by Michael A. Riccardi

Landlords may temporarily decrease rent under the Rent Stabilization Law 
and still use the legal regulated rent as a basis for future increases, the 
Appellate Division, First Department, ruled yesterday.

In a 3-2 unsigned opinion, the panel said a landlord's decision to grant a 
"preferential rent" to a tenant is not a waiver of the legally allowable rent.

But the dissenters, led by Justice Israel Rubin, argued that the Rent 
Stabilization Law does not empower a landlord to unilaterally designate a 
rent reduction as "preferential" in order to preserve the basis for future 
increases when the tenants renew their lease.

In Application of Missionary Sisters, 2341-2341A, the owners of an 
apartment building located at 222 E. 19th Street, a religious order called 
the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, asked for a rent increase upon 
renewal of a lease with its tenant, Alessandro Croseri.

The state Division of Housing and Community Renewal rejected the 
application for the increase, saying it was greater than the percentage 
allowed under the Rent Stabilization Law.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam dismissed the Article 
78 petition in which the Missionary Sisters asked for the increase, but the 
First Department panel reversed her ruling, holding that the landlord was 
entitled to use the market rent as the basis for the requested increase.

In the First Department majority were Justices Eugene L. Nardelli, Milton 
L. Williams and Alfred D. Lerner.

The dispute over the proper basis for the increase stemmed from the 
landlord's decision to grant a "preferential rent" below the legally 
allowable rental value of the apartment.

In a two-year agreement beginning May 1, 1994, the lease provided that the 
legal rent was $1,448 per month, but granted to Mr. Croseri a "preferential 
rent" of $1,379 per month.

The lease declared that the landlord was extending the "preferential rent . 
. . because of the present economically depressed market."

A renewal lease between the Missionary Sisters and Mr. Croseri extended the 
preferential rent for one more year. The lease quoted the legal rent at 
$1,477 per month, and the preferential rent to be paid by the tenant was 
$1,408.

In 1997, the landlord tendered a renewal lease at the legal regulated rent, 
but Mr. Croseri refused to accept it. The Division of Housing and Community 
Renewal agreed with Mr. Croseri's position that "renewal leases should be 
based on the preferential rent until the tenant moves out."

The Missionary Sisters, however, argued that the lease terms preserved its 
right to make increases based on the allowable rent under the statute.

Landlord's Right

The majority said that the "preferential rent" was an advantage granted to 
the tenant by the landlord, and was consistent with the policy underlying 
the Rent Stabilization Law.

"Surely, requiring a tenant to pay less than the full legal rent, no matter 
for how short a term, cannot possibly violate any public policy prohibiting 
the exaction of 'unjust, unreasonable and oppressive rents,' especially 
where the tenant is aware of the concession and the limitation on its 
duration," the panel said in its opinion.

The majority said that the Legislature placed no restriction on the grant 
of concessions and contemplated no waiver of the legal regulated rent when 
a concession was granted.

Moreover, the parties agreed not only on the preferential rent in the 
lease, but the landlord in that lease disclosed the legal rent allowable.

Dissenting Opinion

The dissenters, led by Justice Rubin, said that the majority was granting 
landlords too much leeway in diverging from the legal regulated rent.

The rent reduction granted by the landlord to Mr. Croseri, the dissenters 
said, was designated a "preferential rent" by the landlord unilaterally.

The preference, moreover, was justified in the lease as a response to 
market conditions, which in turn were defined solely by the landlord.

"It is the owner's position that the lease grants it the option to remove 
the preferential rent if, in its determination, market conditions are no 
longer 'depressed,'" Justice Rubin wrote. "[N]othing in the Rent 
Stabilization Law grants a landlord the right to make such a unilateral 
determination."

The dissenters agreed with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal in 
its reading of the Rent Stabilization Law. The reduction granted to Mr. 
Croseri should serve as the basis for future increases to him, they said. 
The legal regulated rent should be reinstated only when Mr. Croseri 
abandons his tenancy.

Justice Rubin was joined by Justice Betty Weinberg Ellerin in dissent.

The Missionary Sisters were represented by Patrick K. Munson of Kucker & 
Bruh in New York. Michael B. Rosenblatt, counsel to the State Division of 
Housing and Community Renewal, handled the case for the agency.

------------------------------------------------------------
WHY HAS A CONVICTED BROOKLYN LANDLORD BEEN LET OFF EASY?
Village Voice, May 211, 2001
by J.A. Lobbia

A recalcitrant Brooklyn landlord with a history of tenant abuses appears to 
have escaped punishment despite her conviction in criminal court on five 
counts of unlawful eviction. Sue Simmonds, owner of a landmarked Crown 
Heights mansion that was long ago divided into apartments, has ignored all 
but two of the 11 conditions of her probation set forth in her March 2000 
sentencing.

According to the order of Brooklyn criminal court judge Richard Allman, who 
sentenced Simmonds to three years' probation, the landlord was supposed to 
look for a job, perform 20 days of community service, provide tenants with 
leases and offer renewals, give access to the boiler room of her building 
at 96 Brooklyn Avenue, and not enter apartments without consent. Allman 
also ordered Simmonds to abide by an order of protection issued on behalf 
of tenant Elizabeth Parks, whom the landlord has repeatedly tried to evict, 
and forbade her from suing Parks for eviction without his approval.

"I have done everything that Judge Allman asked me to do," Simmonds told 
the Voice before abruptly hanging up.

But according to Parks, other tenants, and even the city's probation 
department, which is in charge of enforcing Allman's order, Simmonds has 
done none of those things. In fact, she appears to have honored only two of 
Allman's conditions: She has refrained from changing the locks on the front 
door and has generally provided heat, hot water, and electricity.

"She was supposed to give a lease, but she never did," says Natalie 
Johnson, who has lived in the building since 1965—30 years before Simmonds 
bought it. "She doesn't do what she's supposed to do unless someone keeps 
on her."

That was the task of the city's probation department. Jack Ryan, an agency 
spokesman, acknowledged that Simmonds has not met Allman's terms. "All of 
this is being investigated now," Ryan said, adding that it is unusual for 
the department to handle cases against landlords. "I don't know why she 
hasn't met the conditions. We should have filed a violation report against 
her a long time ago, and that is also being investigated. We will file for 
a hearing before a judge, who can give her a simple admonishment, add more 
hours to her community service, or revoke her parole and send her to jail."

Parks was prescient about the possibility that Simmonds would continue to 
act with impunity. After the sentencing last year, Parks said she was 
"happy," but added, "I'm also hoping that something really does come of it. 
She's harassed me and shown no remorse. It's taken up four years of my 
life." Last week, Parks's assessment was similar. "I've gone through the 
entire legal system, and it's six years later, and I'm asking, what will 
they do to enforce this? Everyone continues to pass the buck. It's really a 
joke is what it boils down to."

Simmonds was convicted in part for busting up the bathroom fixtures in 
Parks's apartment and moving them into the kitchen; she is currently trying 
to evict Parks, claiming that the apartment is not her primary residence. 
Indeed, Parks had moved into a condo in Fort Greene in 1991, partly because 
96 Brooklyn had so degenerated under a previous landlord. In 1998, two 
years after Simmonds bought the building and tried to evict Parks and other 
tenants, a housing court judge ruled that Parks is indeed a legal tenant 
and should be treated as such.

Simmonds has also moved against other tenants, claiming in some cases that 
she needs their apartment for family members. The long and the short of it, 
says Johnson, is that Simmonds "just really wants us out of the building. 
She always tells us we're not paying enough." Rents range from about $150 
to $300 a month, low in part because of the years with unreliable heat and 
poor conditions. Rent payments go to the Department of Housing Preservation 
and Development (HPD) to cover the $20,650 in fines it has levied against 
Simmonds for violations including two months without hot water.

In 1998, Simmonds said on a local cable show that she wanted to use the 
mansion as a senior citizens' home, which would require booting the 
tenants. Ten years earlier, a Brooklyn judge shuttered a day care center 
Simmonds ran with a partner after they were accused of neglect and sexual 
abuse of five children, including two girls, aged three and four, who were 
found to have vaginal chlamydia. The four-year-old also had gonorrhea of 
the throat. Simmonds in the past has told the Voice that neither she nor 
her partner perpetrated abuse, saying the charges were contrived because 
she was a critic of the child-welfare system. She was not criminally 
prosecuted. The children were taken away, but because the records are not 
public, it is unclear why.

Simmonds's career as a landlord might be coming to a close even without 
renewed attention from the probation department and HPD, which says it will 
reinspect the building to evaluate if it should revive a lawsuit against 
her. That's because Simmonds's unpaid real estate tax bill has ballooned to 
$107,644.35, winning 96 Brooklyn a spot on last week's Department of 
Finance list of delinquent properties headed for a tax lien sale. Unless 
Simmonds pays the bill by May 31, the taxes on the 1888 mansion will be 
sold to a trust that can in turn foreclose on her. Records indicate 
Simmonds has not paid her property tax bill since December 8, 1995.