A state judge ruled that an apartment building on 79th street that had been reserved for low-income locals can rent rooms for as short a period as seven days, opening it up to tourists. The ruling allows the landlord at an SRO building known as the Imperial Court Hotel at 307 West 79th street to rent the rooms out for short-term stays, according to the Post.
Under city and state law, most buildings without hotel licenses are forbidden from renting out rooms for fewer than 30 days, although investigations have shown that some landlords do rent out rooms through Airbnb and other sites anyway. The owner of the Imperial Court, Michael Edelstein, has argued that he should be able to rent the room out to tourists, and has threatened to turn the site into a homeless shelter if he’s not allowed to use it as a hotel. Local politicians have fought him in the past, claiming he’s using the homeless shelter threat to scare the community into allowing him to turn affordable housing into a hotel.
The ruling could set precedent for other SRO’s to rent out rooms to tourists. Marti Weithman, director of Goddard Riverside’s SRO Law Project, told the Post that the ruling does not apply to all of the city’s 30-35,000 SRO units, but could affect “thousands” of them. The city is reviewing the decision and determining whether to appeal.
State assembly member Linda Rosenthal tells us she wants the city to fight this.
“This unfortunate decision by the New York State Supreme Court is not merely puzzling, but has the potential to upend four decades of state regulation and city enforcement on illegal hotels that has benefited long-term tenants and transient hotel guests alike. The City must appeal this decision, and I look forward to it being overturned.”
City Council member Helen Rosenthal has previously written an op-ed about this building, and her spokesperson tells us she’s working to make sure the building keeps the units as affordable housing.
“The Imperial Court Hotel has been warehousing affordable housing for years, and Helen has been outspoken about the issue since early last year. Helen is currently working with City Hall to return these units to their intended purpose as homes, rather than hotel rooms.”
Linda Rosenthal should take a stroll in the West 90s & 100s to see the havoc that her original legislation wreaked on the neighborhood. By making it illegal for SRO landlords to rent out rooms for short-term stays, not only did the tourists disappear, but so did the stable SRO residents themselves, when those very buildings were converted to badly run and dangerous homeless shelters.
So is the gist of this that the SROs would have the option to also rent to tourists? There are a bunch on my block. But some seem to rent to tourists already. Is that because they might have received official hotel licenses?
This reminds me of a saying by the late, great Leona Helmsley: “Tourists are just homeless people with better luggage.”
Which in turn reminds me of her famous “Only the little people pay taxes”
While the need for affordable housing is of prime importance. The ability to rent a percentage of the rooms at hotel rates will derive a higher income for the building owners. It would be my hope that they would use a portion of the increased income to upgrade and improve the conditions of the building. If they want to encourage tourists to stay in their buildings, the owners would have to offer pleasant, clean and safe rental sites. I am aware that some would try to improve the tourist rental rooms and leave the other rooms without improvements. Yet the requirement to improve all rooms, within a reasonable timetable might be an incentive for all parties (landlords, government, renters)to come to an agreeable resolution.
If this has the effect of insulating the west 70s from becoming anything like the west 90s, bravo.
Rosenthal doesn’t speak for me, and neither does her comrade in arms, Gail Brewer. Housing for violent schizophrenics over European tourists? That says it all about these two. I hope Edelstein wins big time.
Hope the landlord wins this one in a big way. Not only are Rosenthal/Brewer seriously misguided but why would anyone think housing homeless people on a busy, extremely prime/expensive street where foot traffic is heavy = good idea? We could help a lot more homeless people if we housed them in decent places in lower cost areas (give them free metro-cards or even shuttle services to insure they can easily commute to needed areas of the city for work/care etc.)
This decision comes by the grace of God because the loco politicians have lost their understanding of the new demographics that now reside here on the UWS. Let’s hope they stop acting historical and come to peace with the owners so the neighborhood doesn’t spiral down further. Politicians work for us not for their own political benefit. Restore all SRO buildings to 7 days and the UWS will be a better place to reside! Save our area Helen! Stop destroying it. Remember election time is coming for you and we remember your broken promises to close homeless shelters.
I think this means that I can finally come home one day in the near future to find no human fiecies outside my building. All I can say is THANK YOU JUDGE HUNTER FOR YOUR COURAGEOUS DECISION!