The owners of a building on West 97th street between Columbus and Amsterdam that banned rent-stabilized tenants from the new gym may have violated discrimination laws, according to the city’s Human Rights Commission. The commission filed a notice on Thursday indicating “there was enough proof of age discrimination to merit an administrative trial,” according to the Associated Press.
Resident Jean Green-Dorsey had filed the complaint, noting that the rent-stabilized tenants tended to be over 65, while the market-rate tenants are generally younger. About 60% of tenants are rent-stabilized.
“You don’t get to make me a second class citizen in my own home — just not going to happen,” said Dorsey, who has been living in the building on W. 96th Street for more than 40 years.
Dorsey has said she’d be fine with paying a fee to use the gym, but the management hasn’t allowed the rent-stabilized tenants to do so. The development is known as Stonehenge Village.
The landlord, Stonehenge Partners Inc., stated in a statement Friday that it was in search of “an amicable resolution to the situation” and had made different proposals, which it declined to detail.
The organization has mentioned the fitness center was built to entice marketplace-price tenants, and the distinction wasn’t primarily based on age. Even though city law prohibits discrimination based on age, it really is silent on the subject of rent-regulation status.
Stonehenge told us last year that it had invested more than $5 million to upgrade the building’s common areas, including a rear courtyard, that benefit all tenants.
Several buildings in the city now have similar policies, so a ruling on this could have wide implications. Building owners are adding amenities to draw more market-rate tenants, but some have excluded renters who pay less.
It’s not clear when the hearing will be scheduled.
Actually, Ms. Green-Dorsey is the lottery-winning, first-class citizen supported by the taxpayers of New York. The second-class fleebs she refers to are the market-rate tenants.
Nasty comment; you have a shitty attitude. People who have lived here 40 years are the ones that kept this neighborhood going when your kind wouldn’t even venture above 72nd Street.
Now we’re supposed to disappear…
Not happening!
How? By not buying/taking a chance on a risky investment in the neighborhood and just renting instead? What, exactly, do you mean by claiming you kept the neighborhood “going” 40 years ago (before those of us under 40 were born and could help out) My elderly neighbors tell me the neighborhood was pretty unlivable until the late 80s/early ’90s and was mostly turned around and saved by co-op conversions and owners helping turn blocks around. Rent stabilized tenants do not deserve anything for simply being here longer unless, of course, white men also deserve to stay in executive/CEO positions simply because they’ve been in those positions longer than any minorities or women (and as such kept American industry “going”?)
That’s the point, Marie. The neighborhood was “livable”, just not full of Starbucks & Duane Reade on every corner. We were here then and I don’t think co-op conversions “saved the neighborhood. Those who lived here then and stayed are the ones who helped improve it. Thanks so much for coming in like a “White” knight to save the area and telling the peasants they are no longer needed. We pay taxes too.
of course rent stabilized tenants aren’t taking anything away from market rate tenants. that is easily provable: look at the numbers on the profit/loss of running rent stabilized buildings on the Rent Guidelines Board web site. they do extensive statistical work and it is all available.
running a rent stabilized building is extremely profitable for landlords — especially in Manhattan.
the rent stabilization system DOES somewhat redistribute wealth — AWAY from landlords and towards the rent stabilized tenants. Good for the tenants. this is no different, in principle, than a union negotiation that achieves better wages for the workers. rent stabilization was and is a form of protection for working and middle classes.
if some market rate tenants, who admittedly are getting screwed, are bitter at the rent stabilized tenants, it just shows that a) they haven’t really thought the issue through and/or b) they PREFER to throw their lot in with landlords instead of their fellow tenants.
if the market rate tenants were smart, they would organize to see if some of the same protections given to rent stabilized tenants could be extended to then.
I’m hardly coming and saving anything – I just live in a small, shabby-ish apartment instead of an even pricier and nicer apartment and use the savings for extra retirement contributions and travel. Regardless of the size of my apartment, I love living near parks, water and beautiful architecture and plan to stay on the UWS as long as it’s financially feasible. If it gets to be more than I can responsibly afford, I’ll move somewhere else or attempt to buy. I have no expectation that some form of private welfare will allow me to live where I can’t afford to live just like I don’t have any expectation that I can walk into Barney’s and pay what I can afford for a leather jacket and have them charge other customers more to make up the difference.
As of now, you enjoy a cost-of-living that is being held falsely low at the expense of others. If you’re fine with that then more power to you and please enjoy the spoils you feel you’ve earned by residing for years or decades in the same apartment. What you can’t expect, however, is that those younger people or those paying market-rate, are pleased with the inequality and won’t fight for the system to change. Each year I hear more anti-rent control comments directed at certain tenants in my building or in overheard conversations on mass transit/the streets and it’s only going to get worse as the inequality/gap widens and more people become aware of what an expensive, inefficient, aristocratic system rent stabilization is.
Nothing like invoking race and gender to fan the flames.
Well said, Elizabeth! Thank you!
Must you use such nasty language?
Yes, Elizabeth, tell it like it is—and how we lived through some horrible years in “Bloomberg’s Paradise.”
Get over yourself
Hardly !!! The woman has lived there 40 years…
The infamous and discriminatory “poor doors”.
If we are going to continue to use the term “poor door” then the name of the other door must be changed to “The rich jerks who just moved in and love to discriminate against any neighbor whose rent is less than their own door.” Or if that’s too long we can just call it what it is, “The rich jerk door.”
ye gods — you’ve gotta love Sally Smile. At least i do!
Very well said!
Who says Ms. Green-Dorsey doesn’t pay taxes! Living 40 years in under a legally-binding housing agreement is not lottery winning, it’s her right.
Well said, Jodie! Thanks you!
Make no mistake all so called affordable housing – rent controlled, rent stabilized, SCRIE, DRIE, Section 8 , IMD , etc in new york city is subsidized by somebody else – your neighbor , the taxpayer , the landlord.
Everyone else pays higher taxes, higher rent, higher costs.
That is the system. Yes, but to deny it is as anything else is wrong. Everything has a cost. everything.
hmmm… how about looking at it the other way? the super-profits achieved by landlords on so-called “market rate” housing and the super profits achieved by developers on condo conversions are subsidized?
and then let’s remember how much the taxpayer subsidizes mortgages… it’s called the mortgage interest deduction. and all the other tax subsidies available to owners. i once counted up 4 or 5 in a singe year. of course the mortgage interest deduction is the largest.
yes, i am pleased to receive it. but i’m honest enough to admit it’s a subsidy.
Here here!
woot woot
Reminder that recipients of subsidies and tax breaks include the developers of such buildings as One57 the superluxury building for billionaires on 57th Street – and many others like it.
We taxpayers pay to support billionares as well!
Absolutely right! Of course, the developers MUST be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts–it’s not like they’re getting anything in return, lol.
I fully support the efforts of Jean Green-Dorsey to provide housing equity to tenants who pioneered the development of the UWS when no one else would move here.
George, I think you misapprehend the word “equity.”
Characterizing the fight for extra benefits for subsidized renters is not a battle for “equity.” It’s a fight to use the gym.
If the rest of us fought to increase subsidized rents to match our own, that would be a fight for “equity.”
well George, thats an interesting rewrite of history. My family was here 40 years ago and so where tens of thousand of others.
Instead of the knee jerk extreme reaction just look into the facts with and understanding of new york tenant law.
All the tenants who are rent stabilized and rent controlled get to their apartments and all of the services that came with them. If there is reduction or elimination of a service the tenants get rent reductions. The same is not true for free market. they have no protections whatsoever.
So a landlord who 40+ years on adds something like a gym, and then later on decides to eliminate it, the RS protected get rent reductions. So the city law disincentives landlords from giving more to the tenants.
however the other improvements to the building – upgraded hallways, lobby, elevators that is paid in large part by the new tenants higher rents (yes also the RC/RS tenants contribute too).are full access to ALL tenants.
This lawsuit is a stretch at best. of course the existing tenants are older, they have been there longer, it is not age discrimination. If the old tenants were asian and the free market tenants another race, it would not be racism. There is not direct causation.
But, the judges and laws of NYC and the tenant entitlement is firmly entrenched on the left.
I don’t think people deserve credit for “pioneering” a neighborhood just because they moved in when the area wasn’t as desirable and are and have been paying subsidized rent! They got a steal! The rest of us have to pay up the wazoo!
or just because, by random luck/chance, they were born early enough to even BE pioneers. The stabilized tenants are, in fact, involved in “age discrimination” except that it’s in their FAVOR. Were they not the “elderly” age they are they’d be paying market rate like others. It’s good to be old in this city (or the princely child inheritor of an older person’s RS lease) – you have access to leases that no one else does haha.
She’s may be fine with paying a fee but I no be fine with that kind of English.
Also, the comma is superfluous.
And if not had invested…? Then what?
Feel better?
When *you* publish a typo-free neighborhood newsletter, please come back and play fifth-grade teacher here. Until then, don’t bother the rest of us with this childish display of comma-catching.
Avi, we appreciate you! Ignore the nail-biters.
The gym was not a service when the apartments were initially stabilized, so unless the new law passes, the landlord is not required to provide it.
Similarly the market rate tenants have new, renovated kitchens/bathrooms…. the landlord is not required to renovate stabilized units
The ‘heroes’ who lived here when this was a ‘bad’ nabe are the ones who actually invested in it by buying a coop, condo, or brownstone. Not those who stayed in their rent stabilized apartments cuz moving somewhere else was too expensive. Meanwhile this landlord who tried to do something nice for the tenants who actually earn him a profit has to pay lawyers for all this stupidity. Other landlords will be watching and the smart ones will give their free market tenants a voucher for a local health club, rather than going thru this mess. What a sense of entitlement!
The sense of entitlement on the part of these regulated tenants is breathtaking. They already have won the NYC rental market equivalent of hitting the lottery–all the benefits of owning without having to save up for a down payment. They have the opportunity to receive a large buyout or to pass their lease on to family members. The benefits they receive in the form of lower rent are not taxable. They don’t have to worry about moving expenses or broker fees like everyone else. But that is not enough for them–they also want the fringe benefits that other people are paying for. Who says landlords are the greedy ones?
So, the existence of rent-stabilized tenants in whatever buildings your co-op or condo is compared to for tax purposes does not benefit you personally ?!
Are you not receiving the Cooperative and Condominium Tax Abatement? Since the late 1990s?
Are Class 2 dwellings not taxed on less than their actual market value? Are increases not capped at +8% per year?
Or, in short, are you last Upper West Sider still hooked on crack?
Denton,
You have said it perfectly.
You hit the nail on the head here, Denton.
For what it is worth, in quite a few of the buildings in which the landlord is adding a “luxury” amenity such as a gym and/or converting to condo, the landlords are relatively new, having purchased specifically for a “short-term” business opportunity (unlike the “traditional” long-term lanlord). Also over the past 8 years or so, there has been quite a lot of speculative buying of residential buildings by real estate companies/investors, including foreign companies. Indeed, in some areas of NYC, it is foreign real estate investors who are “pushing out” NYC renters to transform into “luxury” residential.
What this article does not mention is that many landlords that make capital improvements to their buildings are paying for those improvements by charging rent stabilized tenants through added monthly MCI charges. These charges can add up to millions of dollars and are retroactive. So if the stabilized tenant moves out they have to pay the balance. Therefore, in effect, the stabilized tenant is paying for the improvements which attracts the market rate tenants the building would otherwise not have been able to attract. But the stabilized tenant is not allowed to use the new added amenity of say, a gym, even if they pay an extra gym fee. If we are going to make judgements we should know the whole story.
Thanks for doing that Elizabeth. I, too, am in the same predicament but we have less renters left in our complex. It’s really disgraceful. I have been here 30+ and am “banned” from the tiny gym they built downstairs.
Yet again I see the matter under discussion as rather complex and nuanced, finding reasonable arguments on both sides.
With regard to a case where a luxury amenity such as a gym is added by a landlord at considerable cost (and potential liability) to himself, in a building that has both rent-regulated tenants as well as market-rate tenants, my views are as follows. The argument that those tenants paying market rent should at least be given priority in the use of such a facility does not seem unreasonable to me. (And would seem consistent with existing laws concerning appliances in rented apartments, under which a landlord is only responsible for maintaining those appliances that were present in the apartment at the time that the original lease was signed.) But if the new facility-in-question (in this case, a gym) is capable of comfortably accommodating both the market-rent tenants as well as the rent-regulated tenants and the latter are willing to pay a reasonable fee for their use of such a facility, then I see no reason not to allow them to do so.
Not only that but for a landlord to do anything less would not only seem decidedly petty and ungracious but also ill-advised, short-sighted and even self-defeating. Why? Because such discrimination can only breed divisiveness, disunity, discord, resentment and jealousy between different classes of tenants living in the same building. Can such an environment be beneficial or desirable to anyone?
Still, I am not convinced that landlords should be legally compelled in this matter.
To those who continue to decry rent regulations as an illegitimate redistribution of wealth, I would like to pose some questions.
First, what about the numerous subsidies that developers, corporations and other private, wealthy business entities receive from the taxpayers? (At least some of which have been noted in comments made by others.)
Do you have any problems with any of these forms of wealth redistribution?
Or is it only when wealth is redistributed from the poor, working and middle classes to the corporate and other business/already-wealthy classes that you object? Only then that you find such redistribution fundamentally illegitimate and invalid, branding it, pejoratively, as you do, “socialism”?
To be continued, hopefully.
Seems that a number of readers are somewhat new to NYC and not familiar with some NYC background. (For reference, my family is fifth generation in NYC and we have family and friends in all sort of housing – coop, condo, rent stabilized and rent controlled)
The people who have lived in NYC neighborhoods —including the UWS- for decades are the people who kept NYC stable, particularly during the 1960s-1980s, regardless of whether they are in rental apartments or coops. They paid taxes, they voted, they shopped at Zabars or Macy’s, suportd Lincoln Center etc. And remember, coops were very uncommon until conversions started in the 1980s.
It is shocking to see the vitriolic comments made against NYC residents in rent stabilized apartments.
The next time you or a loved one goes to a hospital emergency room, will it be OK if the nurse who treats you lives in a rent stabilized apartment in Manhattan? (yes, someone I know)
I can only assume that the commenters are associated with the real estate industry and have some professional interest….
A few other notes…
No one would have predicted the expansion of luxury housing at its current pace and into traditionally middle or lower income neighborhoods.
As others have noted, numerous new luxury developments, such as some around Riverside South or One57, got subsidies and tax breaks worth millions.
Another issue to the cost of NYC housing is the increasing number of vacant apartments in NYC, used as pied a terre or just “investment” property. In parts of the East Side, data indicates that about a third of apartments are vacant nearly all the time. Housing costs are certainly impacted by foreign “investors” who seek to keep their money safe in the US and choose to do so in NYC real estate.
Thanks CS, you made some excellent points. And to webot who said our rents go down if there is a reduction in services, that is totally false. We do not get any reductions and pay for capital improvements like the new elevators we’re still paying for years later that break down constantly because the landlord is too cheap to make
proper repairs.Building went condo and they put less and less into improving the infrastructure. All cosmetic changes in the lobby. Laundry room out of service, not to mention problems with heat and hot water when temperatures were in the single digits. That’s how much they care. It’s all about the money, not the people. Don’t begrudge the seniors a livable space. Should they
be sent out into the wilderness to die to make it more upscale for your convenience?
Here is a link Liz for your information:
https://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/FactSheets/orafac14.htm
Sheet #14: Rent Reductions for Decreased Services
Tenant Rights When an Owner is Not Maintaining Services
I assume you are of a certain age and I respect that. But clearly you do not live in the subject building on 96th street. For instance, it has NOT gone condo (this landlord has not ever converted a building). So you are now a protected renter in a condo building you should be aware that those repairs are now the responsibility of the CONDO association – ie. your neighbors.
Certainly no one is asking seniors to “be sent out into the wilderness to die”. As I said before, they are protected and can remain in their apartments for as long as they wish. They can even get their rent frozen by the City if they qualify under SCRIE.
But you highlight a certain extremism and histrionics that accompany everything involved with rent protections. This is about a GYM, a service that was never part of the building and was added later. yes for the tenants who pay for it.
Sorry if that is offensive. Personally, I do not think so.
.
Why would you assume that people who don’t see the world the way you do are real estate industry folks? I’m not new to NYC, have a history degree and economics degree, do not work in any real-estate-related industry and think RS and RC are absolutely failed policies that should be ended immediately (and yes, I also decry the abatements/tax breaks given to developers). I have friends who live in RS apartments including one who felt so guilty in recent years that she vacated the apartment and allowed her friend who had bought the place in the early 80s to renovate it (bringing it out of RS) and sell it for market value (she actually bought the place back as she loved it). Anytime government creates classes of citizens based on something capricious (like the color skin they are born with or the year they were born and moved to NY and rented an apartment) there will inevitably (and rightfully) be a lot of angst and anger between the parties involved.
CS , thats a lovely story, designed to shame folks from the facts.
The rent stabilized tenants are free to stay as along as they pay rent (remember the fight for the 1% increase last year and demands for rollbacks.?)
They benefit from a vastly improved building, still paying artificially low rents.
No one here demanded their heads or even their eviction.
This lawsuit is about a gym. a G Y M .
one that never existed before in the building. That if removed would allow the RS tenants rent reduction (how much i do not know). This is about the unbelievable sense of entitlement.
BTW, I am tired of market rate renters being called rich. They are just that, market rate renters, usually young and new to the city (like we all were once). They either double/triple up or pay a huge % of their income to live here. Hardly rich 1%ers and oligarchs.
Speaking of which, subsdies for true luxury buildings ONe57 IS wrong too. The problem is NYC taxes are just high and no special interest should get lower taxes (rich or poor) , we need lower taxes for all New Yorkers, then we can talk about true affordability.
The following is a response to the post by “9d8b7988045e4953a882” dated April 6, 2015 at 8:26 pm
( https://www.westsiderag.com/2015/04/05/uws-building-that-bans-some-renters-from-gym-may-be-discriminatory-ctiy-sayscity-sets-hearing#comment-264963 )
All the benefits of owning? Really?
You mean like being able to sell one’s apartment?
Rent it out to others?
Spend as little time there as one wishes?*
These are all benefits of being a property owner that a rent-regulated tenant absolutely does not have.
(*Rent-regulated units are subject to a primary residency requirement.)
First of all, isn’t that only if and when the building goes co-op?
Secondly, just how “large” are these buyouts? Could you, perhaps, give us some idea?
Are the amounts sufficient so as to enable those receiving them to be able to afford to move into a market-rate rental if they had previously been unable to do so?
Succession is far less easy and simple than you and other opponents of rent regulation I have seen here make it seem.
Here is an excerpt from the fact sheet on succession rights from the New York State Homes and Community Renewal web site:
Even when the requirements have been clearly and unquestionably met, a family member may still face a battle in establishing their succession rights. Consider the following excerpt from the Metropolitan Council on Housing’s web site:
( https://metcouncilonhousing.org/help_and_answers/succession_rights )
I’m not sure just how you figure that. Firstly, wouldn’t whatever additional funds or assets an individual or family has as a result of having to pay less in rent be subject to the same taxes as any of the other funds or assets of said individual or family?
Secondly, by the logic you seem to be using, couldn’t you say the same thing about anyone who, for example, rents in the outer boroughs where rents are almost invariably considerably lower than those in Manhattan? Or even about those who choose lower-priced cars, homes, clothing, electronics or just about anything else over higher-priced options? Would you suggest that every time someone buys a Ford instead of a Mercedes, for example, that they be taxed for the difference in price between the two?
Implicit in that statement is an acknowledgment that a necessity to move frequently is endemic to the reality of an unregulated rental market. If that is indeed true then many, myself included, would contend that such a reality is itself a strong argument in favor of rent regulation.
Moving is disruptive, especially for families. Do you believe that society has a legitimate interest in promoting stability for families and even individuals? Aren’t conditions of stability conducive to order, peace, tranquility and productivity, while conditions of instability are the opposite, fostering chaos, disorder, stagnation, dissolution and even violence?
Also, your statement as it was presented, without any qualifiers or elaboration, could be construed as implying that even when a rent-regulated tenant moves, they are somehow exempt from the normal costs of moving and broker fees that others must bear. That is certainly not true.
The article states clearly that, “Dorsey has said she’d be fine with paying a fee to use the gym,” [emphasis mine- Independent]
As I stated in my previous detailed post on this matter (comment #12), I do not see a basis for legally compelling a landlord in a case such as this. But if a facility such as the one under discussion (in this case, a gym) can comfortably accommodate all of the tenants in a given building and the rent-regulated tenants are prepared to pay a fee for the use of such a facility, then why shouldn’t they be permitted (and even welcomed) to do so? Can you articulate a reason?