State sides with landlord in Tribeca rent-stabilization case

Laurence Gluck was within his rights when he began charging market-rate rents at Independence Plaza North, the state’s housing agency has determined. Gluck, who took the 1,339-unit building at 80 North Moore Street in Tribeca out of the state’s Mitchell-Lama housing program after purchasing the property in 2004, began destabilizing rents gradually in a deal with tenants and the city, but by now, now one-bedrooms rent there for as much as $3,800 per month. A tenant-led case at I.P.N., charging that Gluck should not have been allowed to deregulate rents because he was still receiving J-51 tax abatements at the time, has been brewing at I.P.N. since 2005. But while the case was reminiscent of the one lost by Tishman Speyer last year at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, in I.P.N.’s case, the city mistakenly continued to grant Gluck tax breaks for two years after he removed the building from the Mitchell-Lama program. After he stopped receiving the abatement, Gluck repaid roughly $17,000. In April, Judge Marcy Friedman of The State Supreme Court in Manhattan asked the state’s housing agency, the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, to issue an opinion on the case. Friedman can now accept or reject the agency’s decision.