David Satnick, a partner at Loeb & Loeb, 316 West 95th Street and 330 West 95th Street

The owners of three Upper West Side single-room-occupancy buildings will pay $600,000 in civil penalties to settle claims they violated housing laws by renting out some of their roughly 600 units to short-term tenants and tourists. The agreement, approved by a New York state judge on Nov. 22, resolves a longstanding legal dispute with the city that spurred legislation last year clarifying that SRO units must be used for permanent residents only.

For almost a century, tourists and other temporary occupants have rented units at the properties — the Montroyal at 315 West 94th Street, the Pennington at 316 West 95th Street and the Continental at 330 West 95th Street, all between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive — and the owners have advertised the accommodations on travel websites, according to court records. [more]

Sharif El-Gamal and 1835 Amsterdam AvenueIf Sharif El-Gamal doesn’t show up to court Thursday, he could be sent to jail over the $63,133 his company owes the city in fines, fees and taxes for a Washington Heights property, the New York Post reported.

El-Gamal, the man behind the notorious Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, acquired the 14-unit apartment building at 1835 Amsterdam Avenue in 2008, public records show, although the price isn’t listed. Between July 2010 and May 2011, 150 complaints about rats, roaches, lack of heat and construction debris were filed for the building. [more]

An official in the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development responsible for the construction of affordable housing was arrested early this morning on federal racketeering conspiracy and bribery charges with six developers, two of them lawyers, the New York Times reported.

According to the charges, Wendell Walters, assistant commissioner for new construction, transformed the agency into a racketeering enterprise along with developer Stevenson Dunn.

Walters is alleged to have taken approximately $600,000 in bribes and kickbacks on about $22 million in moderately priced housing projects overseen by HPD in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn between 2002 and 2011, officials said. Walters had played a key role in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $8.5 billion housing plan to preserve and build 165,000 apartments for half a million middle-class and working-class New Yorkers by 2014. [more]

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development is looking for a developer to build up to 225 affordable housing units and 68,000 square feet of retail space along a vacant strip on Livonia Avenue, between Pennsylvania and Williams avenues in the East New York area of Brooklyn, Crain’s reported, issuing a request for proposals today.
The request is the first phase in what the department has dubbed the Livonia Avenue Initiative, a plan to revamp the strip.
“This retail corridor has been defunct for a long time,” said RuthAnne Visnauskas, deputy commissioner for HPD. The site’s proximity to the elevated L train line meant there was a lot of noise, which discouraged developers in the past, but building materials can keep out noise, she said. [more]

The New York City Housing Authority and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development are planning to overhaul a dilapidated Harlem block, DNAinfo reported, renovating 36 historic buildings at the Randolph Houses on 114th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, in the city’s first mixed-use public and affordable housing complex.

The city agencies have issued a request for proposals to create 140 units of public housing and a minimum of 155 units of affordable housing at the tenements.

This will be the first collaboration between the NYCHA and HPD that will result in public housing and affordable housing units being placed together, they said. [more]

New York landlords who haven’t repaid the city for addressing dangerous conditions in their buildings have run out of time, the Wall Street Journal reported, as yesterday marked the deadline for paying off emergency repair liens before the liens were sold to investors. This is the first time the city has sold the rights to collect charges for repair services.
“This should be a wake-up call for landlords who think they can continue to use the city as their personal repair team,” said Douglas Apple, first deputy commissioner at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
An estimated $6.6 million worth of liens will be sold off in the next few days, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance said. More than 700 properties around the city needed $12 million in repairs when the department first drew up a list of potential liens in May. [more]

Six New York City residents were arrested and charged this week with fraudulently obtaining low-income housing subsidies from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Section 8 program, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced today. Five of the defendants are alleged to have stolen between $5,775 and $76,000 apiece worth of Section 8 subsidies, which they obtained by submitting false information on their applications and income affidavits. In the sixth case, an individual acting as president of the tenants’ association poached some $97,000 from the bank accounts of 244-46 Elizabeth Street while it was part of the city’s Tenant Interim Lease Program. TRD [more]

New York Community Bank has unloaded the mortgages on Van Cortlandt Village, three foreclosed Bronx buildings on Sedgwick Avenue, in the latest in a series of note sales on distressed properties by the bank, according to Crain’s. It has sold mortgages on three dozen distressed buildings in the last year, said RuthAnne Visnauskas, deputy commissioner for development at the city’s Housing Preservation and Development, angering city officials and housing advocates.

“There’s obviously nothing wrong with a bank selling a mortgage,” Visnauskas told Crain’s, but “there should be more involvement on the side of the bank to make sure violations are getting corrected.” [more]

There was a public hearing today regarding the sale of a 406,000-square-foot parcel in East New York, Brooklyn to the Related Companies, which plans to bring a Walmart to the site, Crain’s reported (note: clarification appended). Previous attempts to open Walmart in Staten Island and Queens have been rebuked by the retailer’s opponents, but having seen the success of similar businesses such as Target and Ikea, Walmart renewed its efforts to come to New York by opening discussions with Related. Related settled on the East New York parcel, and agreed to pay $35 million for the site, which was appraised at $30.5 million. [more]

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has named Mathew Wambua, the commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, replacing Rafael Cestero effective April 4. As previously reported by The Real Deal, Cestero is vacating his role after five years of public service to pursue a position with L + M Development Partners. “We’re two-thirds of the way through completing the most ambitious affordable housing plan underway anywhere in the nation, and Mat’s leadership, intelligence and financial acumen will help us meet our goals,” Bloomberg said in a statement. TRD [more]