[NYtenants-online] NY Tenants Online 4/10/02
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Wed, 10 Apr 2002 10:06:11 -0400
NYtenants Online/TenantNet 4/10/02
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IN THIS ISSUE ...
1. HCC offers Free Legal Consultations
2. Bloomberg Brings Back Koch’s RGB Chair: The Return of “Marvin Markup”
3. He's Back -- City Limits on Marvin Markup
4. The Law on Lead Paint In the City (Times)
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HOUSING CONSERVATION COORDINATORS
OFFERS FREE LEGAL CONSULTATIONS
Housing Conservation Coordinators, Inc. continues to provide free legal
consultations in all areas of the law on a walk-in basis at our Legal
Clinic. The Clinic, staffed by a dedicated group of volunteer lawyers, is
often the only resource available to low and moderate income New Yorkers.
Our volunteer lawyers can refer you to other resources, assist with writing
letters, clarify legal rights and help determine whether a legal course of
action exists. However, the clinic is for consultations only. The lawyers
cannot represent you.
MONDAY EVENINGS FROM 7 TO 9 p.m.
PLEASE ARRIVE BEFORE 8 p.m.
CONSULTATIONS ARE ON A FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED BASIS
PLEASE CALL AHEAD TO CONFIRM THAT THE CLINIC IS OPEN AND BRING All RELEVANT
PAPERS.
2002 SCHEDULE
April 22
May 6, 20
June 3, 17
July 1, 15
August 5, 19
September 9, 23
October 7, 21
November 4, 18
December 2, 16
Housing Conservation Coordinators, a not-for-profit tenant advocacy group,
was founded more than twenty-five years ago. In addition to the citywide
Legal Clinic, we provide free tenant organizing and legal assistance as
well as an energy-saving program specifically for tenants who live in the
Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan. Our
hands-on training courses, which are open to all New Yorkers, cover home
maintenance and repair, heating systems and energy conservation for a
minimal cost.
For more information contact:
Housing Conservation Coordinators
500 West 52nd Street 4th Floor Corner 10th Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10019
Tel.# 212 541-5996 Fax.# 212 541-5966
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BLOOMBERG BRINGS BACK KOCH’S RGB CHAIR: THE RETURN OF “MARVIN MARKUP”
Tenant/Inquilino, April 2002
By Jenny Laurie
The Rent Guidelines Board held its first meeting of 2002 on March 26, with
its new chair, Marvin Marcus, fully at the helm. The board met with only
one tenant representative, David Pagan, as Mayor Mike Bloomberg has not yet
appointed a replacement for Jeffrey Coleman, the other tenant rep.
Despite tenants’ objections, Bloomberg appointed Marcus to head the RGB,
which sets permissible rent increases for the city’s 1 million
rent-stabilized apartments. He was apparently picked for the post by Deputy
Mayor Dan Doctoroff. Tenants remember Marcus, who was RGB chair in the late
‘70s and early ‘80s, as “Marvin Markup” for the extremely high guidelines
passed by the board during his tenure. Just as the housing-cost explosion
of the ‘80s was getting underway, the RGB imposed the highest rent
increases in the 34-year history of rent stabilization. From 1979 to 1981,
the board’s guidelines allowed increases of 12% to 14% on a two-year lease,
plus vacancy surcharges of up to 15%. Increases for a one-year lease topped
10% in 1980 and 1981.
Marcus has worked at several of New York’s top investment banks and is
chair of the Citizen’s Housing and Planning Council, a landlord think tank
that fronts as an independent real-estate research organization. CHPC has
long held the position that rent regulations are a destructive force in the
city’s housing market.
On March 26, RGB members heard a staff report, done every year, the
Mortgage Survey. Like last year’s report, this one showed that landlords
are doing very well. Despite 9/11 and the recession that began last year,
the mortgage market is still very good for owners.
The report, which is a survey of mortgage underwriters servicing
rent-stabilized buildings in the city, revealed that, thanks to continuing
low interest rates, mortgages are easy to get, relatively cheap (this
year’s average interest rate was 7.5%) and flexible (lenders are offering a
wide range of terms). The presenters implied that responsible owners who
want to get a new mortgage or refinance an old one have few impediments, no
matter where the building is located or what size it is. The report also
suggests that, relative to recent years, responsible owners are able to pay
their lenders—the survey shows low delinquency and default levels.
One portion of the survey asks the lenders questions about the conditions
of the buildings owned by their borrowers. Landlords must give banks
detailed information about the income and expenses on buildings when
applying for mortgages, and averages from these figures given to the Rent
Guidelines Board for the report. In “Characteristics of Rent Stabilized
Buildings,” the report shows that owners’ expenses have declined since last
year, to an average of $357 per apartment. (Those expenses include taxes,
insurance, labor, fuel and other items needed to run the building—but do
not include debt payments or interest.)
At the same time—in news not surprising to most tenants—rents increased by
8% over the last year, to an average of $800 per apartment. This section of
the survey also shows that while landlords’ collection losses stayed the
same, vacancy losses increased by 15% over last year. When questioned by
board members, the staff was unable to explain the increase, as such an
explanation was not asked of the surveys’ respondents. RGB members
speculated that owners were holding apartments off the market to wait for a
tenant paying higher rent, or in order to rehab them.
During the upcoming April 16th meeting, the RGB will release its annual
Income and Expense Report. That report contains data about landlords’
incomes from rent and their expenses, compiled from filings with the city’s
Department of Finance. That meeting will be held at the Department of City
Planning, 22 Reade St., from 9: 30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Call to confirm time
and place: (212) 385-2934.
RENT GUIDELINES BOARD SCHEDULE
It’s crucial for tenants to turn out for these meetings. Show the RGB we
won’t tolerate excessive rent increases!
Public Hearings
All at Department of City Planning, Spector Hall, 22 Reade St.
Tuesday, April 16, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Tuesday, April 23, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Tuesday, April 30, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
(Invited Group Testimony—Apartment Tenants, 1-3 p.m.)
Tuesday, June 4, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Preliminary Vote*
Tuesday, May 7, 5:30-9:30 p.m.
US Custom House, 1 Bowling Green
Public Testimony*
Wednesday, June 12, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Apartment Tenants: 1:15-6 p.m., 8:15-10 p.m.
Hotel Tenants: 10 a.m.-noon, 7:15-8:15 p.m.
The Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 E. 7th St.
Final Vote*
Tuesday, June 18, 5:30-9:30 p.m.
US Custom House, 1 Bowling Green
Meeting dates and places subject to change.
Call the RGB at (212)385-2934 to confirm.
* Tenant turnout especially important.
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HE'S BACK
City Limits
by Jill Grossman
The investment banker known for leading the Rent Guidelines Board in
passing the highest rent increases in the board's history is back. Noting
his experience in housing finance, Mayor Bloomberg on Friday appointed
Marvin Markus chair of the board that determines the rent increases for
stabilized and controlled apartments in New York City. Markus, a vice
president at Goldman Sachs, chaired the board under Mayor Ed Koch from 1979
to 1984.
Since then, he has held senior posts at PaineWebber, Kidder Peabody & Co.,
and Bear Sterns, and, from 1974 to 1979, at the city Department of Housing
Preservation and Development. He currently serves as president of the
Citizen's Housing and Planning Council, a housing and economic development
policy research group.
By all accounts, the time during which Markus first took the reins of the
board was a difficult one for landlords: Inflation and fuel costs had
skyrocketed. In 1980, to address their rising costs, the board-with Markus
as chair-approved 11 and 14 percent increases on one- and two-year leases,
respectively, for rent-stabilized apartments, up from an 8.5 percent
increase on one-year leases a year earlier. In 1981, the increases dropped
1 percentage point, and fell further, to 4 and 7 percent, in 1982.
While landlord representatives commend him for his fairness in using
economic research to determine the guidelines, among tenants Markus earned
the nickname Marvin "Mark-up."
"It was a tough economy," recalled William Rowen, director of the
Metropolitan Council on Housing at the time. "But we ended up reasonably
arguing that when landlords' costs went down, they didn't drop the
guidelines that much.... If you give it to the landlords when it's high,
you 've got to give it back to the tenants when it's low."
At least one landlord rep says it's not Markus' policy decisions that
concern her, but his ability to control a crowd. "In the early '80s, the
Rent Guidelines Board was an absolute circus," said Roberta Bernstein,
executive director of the Small Property Owners of New York. "Audience
participation was to a very extreme level with people acting out and even
getting occasionally violent."
Despite this, she hopes Markus will recognize the landlords' needs and
address them based on the Rent Guidelines Board's research on landlord
income and the rental market, to be released next month. While landlord and
tenant advocates alike are waiting for the numbers before nailing down
their own guidelines proposals, Jenny Laurie, current director of Met
Council, expects her group will ask for either no rent increase or a decrease.
Whatever this season's guidelines debate brings, Markus said he's happy to
be a part of it again: "It's an important job. There's no reason not to
want to be on the board."
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THE LAW ON LEAD PAINT IN THE CITY
New York Times, April 7, 2002
by Jay Romano
Earlier last month, a Manhattan appeals court reversed a lower-court ruling
that invalidated a 1999 law that replaced a 1982 law that established rules
for the identification and remediation of lead-based paint in certain
dwellings in New York City. Parties on the losing side say they will likely
appeal.
Confused? There's more.
On the day before the appeals court decision was published, members of the
New York City Council introduced legislation that would replace the 1999
law with yet another law. The bill, which was sponsored by most council
members, would make the 1982 law, the 1999 law, the lower court's decision,
the appeals court decision and any appeal that might be taken from that
decision moot.
What, then, is the current New York City law governing lead-based paint?
"Local Law 38 of 1999," said George Gutwirth, an assistant corporation
counsel for New York City.
The State Supreme Court had ruled that in adopting the law, the city had
failed to comply with the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the
City Environmental Quality Review law, both of which require the Council to
contemplate the environmental impact of pending legislation. And while the
Supreme Court's ruling would have resulted in Local Law 1 of 1982 being
reinstated as the current lead law, Mr. Gutwirth said, lawyers for the city
obtained a stay of the trial court's ruling pending appeal.
In its March 26 decision, the appeals court unanimously ruled, however,
that the city did comply with the applicable environmental laws, whereupon
it reversed the lower court decision, thereby clearly establishing Local
Law 38 as the current law regulating lead-based paint in New York City.
But that, it seems, will hardly be the last word on the subject.
"This is certainly not a closed issue at this point," said Matthew
Chachere, a staff lawyer for the Northern Manhattan Improvement
Corporation, a not-for-profit legal services agency in Manhattan. "It's
extremely important to understand that the Appellate Division was not
ruling on the merits of Local Law 38, but on the process by which the City
Council made its decision to adopt it."
Mr. Chachere said that if an appeal was taken, and it was successful, the
lead law in New York City would revert to Local Law 1 of 1982. But for now,
at least, the law governing lead-based paint in the city is Local Law 38 of
1999. But what does that mean?
Dan Margulies, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement
Program, an advocacy group for landlords of mid-size buildings in New York,
explained that Local Law 38 of 1999, which replaced Local Law 1 of 1982,
prohibited the dry scraping or sanding of lead-based paint, including
"paint of unknown lead content," in any dwelling unit in the city. Even
owners of single-family homes, Mr. Margulies said, are not permitted to
dry-scrape or sand lead-based paint in their homes. (Property owners who
want to scrape or sand paint surfaces must instead employ a "wet-sand" or
"wet-scrape" method if the surface is known to contain lead-based paint or
if the owner is unsure that it does.)
Local Law 38 also establishes requirements for owners of buildings with
three or more apartments that were built before Jan. 1, 1960. For example,
Mr. Margulies said, when an apartment in such a building becomes vacant, if
the owner cannot prove that there is no lead-based paint in the building,
she must inspect the apartment and repair any peeling paint using a
wet-scraping process.
Moreover, he said, when performing lead remediation work in an apartment,
workers must seal off the work area until all work is completed and all
surfaces must then be vacuumed with a HEPA vacuum — one with a
high-efficiency filter — or washed with detergent prior to repainting.
In addition, Mr. Margulies said, property owners in such buildings must
make sure that all windows are properly hung, that no painted surfaces bind
and that bare floors are smooth enough to allow accumulated dust to be
removed using normal cleaning methods.
Finally, Mr. Margulies said, the owners of all pre-1960 buildings are
required to send out annual inquiries to all tenants between Jan. 1 and
Jan. 16 asking whether any children under 6 live in the apartment. If the
answer is yes, or if the owner knows that there are children younger than 6
living in the apartment, the owner is required to inspect the apartment for
peeling paint, to determine whether painted windows or doors stick or bind
and to remediate any problems that are found.
According to some tenant advocacy groups, however, Local Law 38 does not do
enough to protect tenants.
Mr. Chachere, of the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, said that
the bill just introduced in the City Council, known as Intro 101, offered
more protection to tenants than Local Law 38.
For example, he said, Intro 101 would raise the child-age trigger for
inspections and remediation from under 6 years old to under 7, the age
originally contained in Local Law 1 of 1982. In addition, and also
consistent with Local Law 1, Intro 101 defines lead paint as paint that
contains seven-tenths or more of a microgram of lead in a square
centimeter. Under Local Law 38, lead paint is defined as paint that
contains a microgram or more of lead per square centimeter. And under Intro
101, landlords who perform lead remediation work would be entitled to J-51
tax benefits — that is, property tax credits based upon the cost of work
performed. That would give landlords an incentive to do work they might
otherwise not do.
Another significant difference between Local Law 38 and Intro 101 is that
the former does not define lead-bearing dust as a hazard. Such dust, which
is created when painted surfaces containing lead rub against each other,
can be present even when there is no peeling paint in a home or apartment.
In fact, Mr. Chachere said, the ingestion of lead-bearing dust is one of
the leading causes of lead poisoning in children.
To address that, he said, Intro 101 establishes parameters for determining
whether there are unacceptable levels of lead in dust, and then requires
remediation if unacceptable levels are found.
And while Local Law 38 does not address lead paint in common areas, Intro
101 would provide that peeling lead paint or lead paint on deteriorated
surfaces in such areas constitutes a violation. The proposed law would also
require owners to remove or permanently cover all lead paint on friction
surfaces — like windows and doors — when an apartment is vacated, even if
the painted surface is sound. Local Law 38 contains no such provision.
Finally, Mr. Chachere said, Intro 101 would extend lead-based paint
regulations to schools, day care centers and playgrounds, areas not
addressed by Local Law 38.
And while the fact that a majority of council members have sponsored Intro
101 might make it appear that it is assured of passage, Mr. Chachere said
that tenants' advocates, who preferred Local Law 1 to Local Law 38, were
taking no chances.
"We don't know what will happen with the new law," he said. "So I think its
extremely likely that we will be appealing the ruling upholding Local Law 38."
Robert Grant, director of management for Midboro Management, which manages
property in Manhattan, said that the city may end up with yet another lead
law — one that is a compromise between Local Law 1, Local Law 38 and Intro 101.
"There are some things in the proposed law that are hard to argue with,"
Mr. Grant said, pointing to the proposed coverage of lead dust in the
regulations, the extension of the regulations to schools, day care centers,
playgrounds and common areas, and the proposal to make J-51 benefits
available to owners who make repairs as examples of provisions that seem to
make sense.
"But after 20 years," he said, "it's getting hard to predict anything about
lead paint regulation in New York City."
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email: tenant@tenant.net
Information from TenantNet is from experienced non-attorney tenant
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