Tenant says: Do those capital improvements

Sharon Canns doesn’t think she’s asking for too much.

She said all she wants is for her landlord, Stellar Management, to complete her balcony renovations. In mid-September the company requested the right to permanently raise tenants’ rent – for what’s officially known as a major capital improvement (MCIs). Stellar submitted the request to the state Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), which oversees affordable housing, to cover the cost of the renovations that legally must be completed before applying for an MCI.

But Canns said some balconies in her building remain unfinished, and she is fighting the extra $57.52 per month she now has to pay for improvements she has yet to see.

In response to the Spirit’s inquiry, Stellar Management released a statement saying it remains “committed to providing our tenants with a safe and secure home.”

Canns said she moved into the building in 1977, when it was still in the Mitchell-Lama program, launched by a 1955 law that protects affordable housing for middle-income renters.

“This whole Upper West Side was built on Mitchell-Lama...but basically they’ve cleared the neighborhood out,” Canns said. She lamented the loss of diversity and community that has accompanied higher living expenses, and expressed fear that she, too, would soon be a victim of the race to build luxury apartments.

In the last two decades, according to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, approximately 151,000 rent regulated units have been lost. Though they were not created for this purpose, major capital improvements are one method landlords have used to push out their rent regulated tenants. By significantly improving a building – like, for example, installing a new boiler or rewiring the electrical system – landlords can apply to permanently raise tenants’ rent in order to make up the cost of the improvement, but only after the work is completed.

On Sept. 12, the Department of Housing and Community Renewal approved Stellar’s major capital improvement and granted them the right to charge each tenant $14.38 per room in their apartment for the cost of the balcony renovations. Canns, who lives in a four-bedroom apartment, now owes an extra $57.52 per month.

David Hershey-Webb, an attorney who represents the tenants’ association of which Canns is president, said MCIs have “outlived their usefulness.”

“The primary purpose now, as I see it, of the MCI program is to drive up the rents of stabilized tenants and try to force them out of the building,” he said. Council Member Helen Rosenthal, who has worked closely with Canns on the issues in her building, also had disparaging things to say about MCIs, and about Stellar Management.

“They have no interest in fulfilling their obligation,” she said. Throughout her office’s work on tenant issues, Rosenthal said she has found Stellar to be a frequent employer of tactics like major capital improvements, which the council member charged tend to be used to remove rent-regulated tenants. “They just want to get tenants out,” she said.

Sue Susman, who lives at another Stellar-owned building a few blocks away, said she has experienced similar problems. “There’s absolutely no enforcement, and that’s a problem,” she said. “One of the big issues that comes up in self-dealing, where the landlord is actually paying his own regular contractors to do the work.”

Canns reached out to Susman for assistance with her building’s issues and is making efforts to rally several other Stellar buildings to pool their resources against the landlord. For low- or middle-income tenants, advocating for themselves is expensive. Between hiring a lawyer and paying an engineer to assess the soundness of Stellar’s construction, the bills add up.

“A lot of things you have to let go simply because you can’t fight it,” Canns said.

A spokesperson for Stellar said the company communicates with tenants “to ensure that [construction] is done in a safe and timely manner, as well as complies with all rules and regulations.”

The statement added: “This is true for all of our properties, including the work being done on the balconies at 50 W. 93rd Street.”

What Canns said she finds most troubling is not that MCIs are so readily granted by the DHCR, nor that the rent increases they approve are permanent. Her biggest complaint, she said, is that Stellar has allegedly not done what they said they would.

“I would never argue if it was fair,” Canns said. “I’m not saying I live in a bad building.” She pointed out several blemishes on her balcony and spots where water pools when it rains because the drain doesn’t work properly.

“We’re in so much trouble because we don’t have DHCR looking out for us,” she said.

In response to request for comment, the department referred the Spirit to the DHCR website.

Madeleine Thompson can be reached at newsreporter@strausnews.com.