Several residents of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, including Council Member Dan Garodnick, appeared before a state housing agency on Monday to oppose a handful of proposed changes in rent laws that would, among other things, intensify luxury decontrol and charge tenants for removal of lead paint.
           
In what elected officials and tenant leaders are calling Governor George Pataki’s “last parting gift to the real estate industry,” the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), long known for its pro-landlord leanings, is also considering increasing security deposits from one to two months rent, allowing landlords to charge tenants when they do legally-mandated lead paint removal, and evicting tenants for overcharging secondary tenants.
           
“Each of these amendments unfairly shifts the balance of power to landlords over tenants, and I do not support the changes,” Garodnick said during his testimony at the Fashion Institute of Technology, focusing his attention on the amendment that would expand the number of apartments subject to deregulation.
           
“This is outside DHCR’s jurisdiction.  It is a usurpation of the power of the City Council by seeking to amend by regulation that our legislative body has established by local law.”
           
Under the current regulation, apartments in rent-regulated buildings that receive certain tax abatements are not eligible for luxury or vacancy decontrol until the end of the tax benefit periods.  The proposed amendment seeks to expand the class of units subject to deregulation by allowing luxury decontrol of units in buildings receiving these tax benefits. 
           
“When luxury and vacancy decontrol were established, the council made a determination that the apartments receiving these tax benefits should not be able to be decontrolled using these methods,” Garodnick said.  “It would be an infringement upon the authority of the Council for DHCR to change the regulations itself,” he added.
           
The councilman argued that even if the change were legal, the proposed amendment would be simply unfair to tenants as well as the city because property owners who applied for and received these benefits knew that in exchange they were subjecting themselves to restrictions on deregulations.
           
“To suddenly free them from those restrictions, without any corresponding benefit for tenants and the city, would constitute a windfall,” he concluded.
           
Peter Cooper Village resident and a member of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association James Roth, who seconded Garodnick’s testimony concerning the attempt to expand luxury decontrol, spoke against increasing the security deposits from one month to two months.
           
“As a long time tenant who pays his rent on time, I see no reason why the landlord needs an additional deposit which would only benefit them and the banks,” he said.
           
Roth also called DHCR’s proposal to pass the cost of lead paint removal onto tenants a “travesty.”
           
“It’s the poorest of the poor in the City of New York who are most likely to have that issue in their apartments,” he said.
           
“I do not see it necessary for me to pay an additional insurance,” rent-stabilizes Peter Cooper Village resident Ann Salzberg said of the plan to double security deposits.
           
“The landlords are making enough money as it is.  We’re not saying they can’t make money, but it’s outrageous while the city is becoming less affordable for myself and other people.  DHCR does not have a right to change the rules like this.”
           
Also testifying at Monday’s hearing was Congressman Jerrold Nadlor, State Senator Liz Krueger, Assembly Members Deborah Glick, Daniel O’Donnell and Linda B. Rosenthal, Senator-elect Bill Perkins, and representatives of Tenants & Neighbors, who later held a press conference denouncing what they called DHCR’s attempt to usurp the power of the state legislature by proposing the 11th hour regulatory changes that are inconsistent with state law.