Opponents Bash Landlords Hardship Claims
100 protest de-landmarking effort by Stahl York Avenue By [Megan Finnegan Bungeroth] About 100 people crowded into an overheated room at Marymount Manhattan College this week to express solidarity and outrage against an application before Community Board 8"s Landmarks Committee. The application is from Stahl York Avenue Company, a division of Stahl Real Estate that owns and manages the City and Suburban First Avenue Estate buildings at 429 E. 64th St. and 450 E. 65th St. Stahl is attempting a feat that has only been attempted 18 times in the past 47 years's they want to strip the buildings of their landmark status in order to demolish them and build a residential high-rise in their place. The buildings were originally landmarked in 1990, but that designation was soon withdrawn as part of a shady political deal. The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) reinstated their landmark status in 2006, recognizing the buildings not only for their unique architecture but for their cultural significance as the first light-court tenements in the city, offering safe, healthy, well-designed housing to the working poor. In recent years, Stahl has declined to rent vacant apartments and make repairs to the buildings, and is now claiming hardship in achieving the 6 percent rate of return that LPC sets as the threshold of a fair amount an owner should make. Paul Selver, an attorney with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, outlined Stahl"s case. He said that, according to two studies commissioned by Stahl, maintaining the buildings, either by simply bringing them up to code or performing large-scale renovations, is not economically feasible and that the properties lost money last year. One study, conducted by Cushman and Wakefield, determined that the average achievable market rent for the modest apartments, many of which are 400 square feet or smaller, is $600-$888, a figure that was roundly disputed at the meeting. â??It is well known that over 50 percent of the apartments in these complexes are now vacant. Suffice it to say that if the owner made even minor repairs to these apartments and rented them rather than warehoused them, they would make the 6 percent return they say they cannot make, said Jane Swanson, reading a letter from City Council Member Jessica Lappin. Tara Kelly, executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District, pointed out a footnote in the Cushman and Wakefield report stating that â??the information contained in the report [â?¦] has been gathered from sources the appraiser assumes to be reliable and accurate; the owner of the property may have provided some such information. She explained that the appraiser is not responsible for the correctness or completeness of the information. She also noted that in 2009, the average rent for a walk-up studio with no doorman on the Upper East Side was $1,432, alleging that Stahl"s estimates are severely deflated. One current resident, Jay Kusnetz, said that he had listed his apartment, with photos, on Craiglist for $1,300 a month and held up a sheaf of printed email responses eager for more details. Jerry Bunting, a 16-year resident of 429 E. 64th St., compared some of the costs estimated in one of Stahl"s reports, conducted by Project Consult, of renovation to the apartments, saying that their application was based on unreliable math. â??Maybe some people on the Upper East Side pay $2,700 for a bathtub, but at Home Depot a bathtub can be had for $400, Bunting said. â??New doors, interior doors are going to cost $1,500's if they"re plated with gold, that"s an option. I"ve renovated places. You can get a new door for $120. Others came forward to praise the buildings themselves as worthy of preservation, regardless of the numbers. â??I"ve lived all my life in light-court tenements, said Kaitlin Griffin, who worked to organize many of the objectors. â??I would sooner move to Kansas than trade it for a modern box with a view of who knows what. Committee members echoed what the public voiced with barely any debate. â??I think we"ve got another applicant here who needs help with his business problems, said member Elizabeth Ashby dryly. â??He pays six times as much as he should for supplies, he charges one-10th what he should in rent; no wonder he"s facing financial hardship. The committee unanimously voted to reject the application and will bring their disapproval before the full board Wednesday, Jan. 18. The LPC will review the hardship application Tuesday, Jan. 24.