Agency Asks to Reconsider Its Ruling Against Tribeca Tenants

By Carl Glassman
POSTED JUNE 1, 2007

The tenants who live above City Hall restaurant got their first good news last month in a marathon struggle to stay in their lofts.

“It feels like we’re coming out of the the other side of the looking glass,” said artist Donna Dennis, a long-time loft tenant at 131-135 Duane Street. She and her neighbor artists have been fighting their eviction for nearly six years.

The case, watched closely by both tenant groups and landlords, has had many twists and turns over the years as the owners sought permission from a state housing agency to evict their rent stabilized tenants in order to convert the building to condos.

The landlords, Henry Meer, owner of City Hall restaurant, and Martin Gruss, a prominent financier, claimed the right to empty the building based on a clause in the rent laws that allows for evictions if the building is demolished.

The ownership, known as Duane Street Realty, claims its plan to gut the building qualifies as demolition, while the tenants, and tenant advocates, say such “phony demolitions” are a means to circumvent protections afforded to rent stabilized tenants.

Rulings by the Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR.) as recently as last year supported the owners. The tenants filed an appeal in State Supreme Court.

But a new governor took office since then and last month DHCR administrators appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer, asked the court to allow it to take back the case  and “determine the propriety of the [former] commissioner’s order.”

The Spitzer-appointed DHCR commissioner, Elizabeth VanAmerongen, is a former aid to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

“It’s good news,” said the tenant’s lawyer, Bob Petrucci, “but it’s not a win yet.”

Barry Slotnick, the owners’ attorney (famously known as the defense lawyer for “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz) said it is  “unfortunate and inappropriate” for the current agency to call for the review of a decision made by its former commissioner “and entire legal staff.”

“We’ve asked the judge to proceed so we can continue the plan to make the Duane Street residences work better for the community,” he said.

But Bill Hall, co-chair of Lower Manhattan Loft Tenants, an advocacy group, hailed the DHCR action. He said a win in court by the owners would have sent a signal to landlords around the city that they could “cherry pick individual units and run this phony demolition paperwork through DHCR. End of story.” According to the DHCR there are 56 demolition cases pending.

“The impact of this decision is difficult to overstate,” Hall added. “It’s a big deal.”

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