Rep. Charles Rangel and Lenox Terrace
Scandal-ridden Rep. Charles Rangel agreed to pay a $23,000 fine to the Federal Election Commission for using a rent-stabilized Central Harlem apartment for a campaign office, according to the New York Times. [more]
The Olnick Organization, owner of Harlem’s Lenox Terrace, which is home to Gov. David Patterson and Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel, is attempting once again to win tenant support for a plan that would almost double the size of the complex. Olnick first developed the plan in 2003, but it never got off the ground as a result of tenant opposition and a weak economy.
The complex was constructed by Olnick in 1958 on three square blocks between Fifth and Lenox avenues from 132nd to 135th streets. The six buildings currently house 1,700 units. According to the Wall Street Journal, Olnick aims to build six new apartment towers, renovate the complex’s retail space and turn asphalt parking lots into grassy fields. [more]
The latest in a string of tenant-led lawsuits charging landlords with illegal rent-deregulation has hit 444 East 82nd Street. Half of the 415 units in Clermont York Associates’ building are market rate, despite the fact that the owners raised rents on those units while receiving tax breaks from the city for renovations, said law firm Himmelstein McConnell Gribben Donoghue & Joseph, which filed the suit today. The suit is among a growing number of battles over rent deregulation that have been sprouting up in the wake of an October ruling handed down to owners of the massive Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex by the New York State Court of Appeals. The court’s decision said that landlord Tishman Speyer should not have destabilized rents in thousands of apartments while receiving the city’s J-51 tax benefits for building upgrades. Tishman Speyer, which has since handed the debt-laden property over to its creditors, was estimated to owe $200 million in back rent to tenants following the case. Last week, tenants at Lenox Terrace in Harlem filed a similar suit against their landlord, who could owe between $400,000 and $6 million, their lawyers said. [Crain's]
Tenants at Harlem’s Lenox Terrace — at 132nd through 135th streets between Lenox and Fifth avenues — have accused their landlord of illegally deregulating rents at the six-building complex while receiving J-51 tax breaks from the city, in a suit with strong echoes of last year’s tenant-led lawsuit at Stuyvesant Town. The landlord, a partnership led by the Olnick Organization, could owe anywhere from $400,000 to $6 million in rent overcharges, according to David Hersey-Webb, an attorney with Himmelstein McConnell Gribben Donoghue & Joseph, which filed the suit with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady. The two firms also filed a similar suit in November against the landlord at Chelsea’s London Terrace. Tenants in the estimated 200 to 300 apartments affected stand to gain $2,000 to $30,000 from a favorable ruling, Hershey-Webb said. Two of the buildings are still receiving the J-51 tax abatement, which expire in the other four buildings in 2008. Lenox Terrace counts Governor David Paterson and Congressman Charles Rangel as residents, though Rangel’s apartments are thought to still be rent-stabilized, and thus not affected by the suit. [Crain’s]
