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ALBANY OFFICE ●  Room  741 ●  Legislative  Office  Building  ●  Albany,  NY  12248  ●  T:  518-455-5802 ●  F:  518-455-5015 rosenthall@assembly.state.ny.us

THE ASSEMBLY

STATE OF NEW YORK

ALBANY LINDA B. ROSENTHAL Assemblymember 67th District

CHAIR Commission on Science & Technology

CHAIR

Subcommittee on Mitchell-Lama

COMMITTEES Agriculture

Corporations, Authorities & Commissions Energy Health

Housing Tourism, Parks, Arts & Sports

January 28, 2014 Hon. Bill de Blasio Mayor City of New York City Hall New York, NY 10007 Gilbert Taylor Commissioner New York City Department of Homeless Services 33 Beaver Street, 17th Floor New York, NY 10004 Dear Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Taylor: I am writing regarding the Imperial Court Hotel, located at 307 West 79th Street in my district in Manhattan. Michael Edelstein, the landlord of the Imperial Court, is currently attempting to strong-arm the City and the Upper West Side into allowing him to reopen an illegal hotel under the threat of entering into a contract with the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) for shelter services in this building. The Imperial Court is listed under its current Certificate of Occupancy from the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) as a “New Law Tenement Class ‘A’ Multiple Dwelling & Single Room Occupancy” (SRO), and indeed still has more than 50 permanent SRO tenants today. As a class A multiple dwelling, the Imperial Court is required to rent all units for a minimum of 30 days under decades-old provisions of the Building Code and Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL), as well as a State law passed in 2010 to clarify and strengthen those provisions. Mr. Edelstein, however, until recently had been flagrantly breaking City law for decades by operating an illegal hotel in the Imperial Court. The building was issued violations on multiple occasions by the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) for operating an illegal hotel. Even before the State law took effect in 2011, the Imperial Court received violations for its illegal enterprise. In fact, I even reserved a two-night stay at the Imperial Court in 2006 to expose the illegality of the rentals in the building and their impact on the building’s permanent SRO tenants. Mr. Edelstein, however, also refused to comply with the new State law and was issued new violations before shutting down his illegal operation at the end of 2012. Now, Mr. Edelstein is crying poverty to the City and asking for a waiver from the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals to continue running his illegal enterprise, with the threat of siting a homeless shelter in nearly 150 units that legally should be used as permanent, affordable housing. He filed an application with the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals on October 8, 2013 requesting permission to rent units at the Imperial Court transiently for a minimum of seven days. He claims that he should be grandfathered out of the 2010 State law, even though the provisions in the Building Code and MDL on class A multiple dwellings well predate that law.

If Mr. Edelstein cannot obtain a reasonable rate of return from his building, he has no one to blame but himself. Not only was his hotel operation illegal, but it also deprived him of many lawful rent increases for his hotel-stabilized SRO tenants. The New York City Rent Guidelines Board frequently requires landlords of hotel-stabilized buildings to rent a certain percentage of their units to permanent tenants in order to claim rent increases, which Mr. Edelstein has not done in anyone’s memory in this building. Not only has he sacrificed legal rent increases to further his illegal enterprise, but to this day he refuses to rent out the units that have sat vacant since he ceased renting SRO units to transients and increase his legitimate earnings. Mr. Edelstein first attempted to obtain a Certificate of No Harassment (CONH) to upgrade the building and attempted to argue to me and other elected officials that the blatant, shocking and well-documented harassment of his permanent tenants should be ignored so that he could earn a profit. Mr. Edelstein and his staff routinely verbally harassed, physically intimidated, brought frivolous eviction proceedings against and denied essential services (including basic repairs) to tenants. Even during the CONH proceedings, Mr. Edelstein’s team raised the threat to me of bringing in a homeless services contract should the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development issue a finding of harassment, as it did. Mr. Edelstein is once again looking to capitalize on the controversial placements of homeless shelters into the Pennington and Continental Hotels on West 95th Street by the previous administration over community concerns, without a prior public review process and with a belated, dubious Fair Share analysis. Knowing the community backlash to the 95th Street shelter, Mr. Edelstein now threatens to bring another shelter into this community unless BSA allows him to operate an illegal hotel. As we have seen repeatedly in the past, these shelters have been used as cash cows without delivering suitable services or assistance to the homeless, and as a means for slumlords to harass the remaining permanent tenants. The City should consider acquiring properties like the Imperial Court to help provide permanent, affordable housing to those who so desperately need it. The days of the City working with its worst landlords to open lucrative shelters under emergency contracts without public review should remain a memory of the misguided and destructive policies of the previous administration. It would be disastrous if DHS were to move forward with a contract for a homeless shelter in the Imperial Court, especially through an emergency contract without prior public review. These units should be returned to permanent, rent-regulated status—the use for which they were always intended and legally required. The City should not enter into any contract for shelter services in the Imperial Court, and I request a meeting with DHS to discuss this pressing issue. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Linda B. Rosenthal Member of Assembly – 67 AD cc: Hon. Gale A. Brewer, Manhattan Borough President cc: Councilmember Helen Rosenthal cc: Manhattan Community Board 7 cc: Marti Weithman, Executive Director, Goddard-Riverside SRO Law Project