Soon, City Can Fight Illegal Hotels

By [Dan Rivoli] The city may be able to start cracking down on illegal hotels that have flourished for decades. Landlords that own buildings ranging from cheap, dorm-like spaces to luxury rentals have taken advantage of ambiguous language in the city"s housing laws to set up lucrative hotels that officials say are illegal. These rooms are advertised on websites aimed at tourists. But the State Legislature may pass a bill that would tighten the language around laws for transient and permanent housing. The bill already cleared the State Senate June 24 with 32 votes, all Democrats. â??Your doorman is a concierge and [airport taxis] from Kennedy are dropping tourists off with luggage, said the bill"s author, State Sen. Liz Krueger. â??And people you"ve never seen before are piling into apartments. Landlords can rake in much more money lodging tourists than collecting rent from low-income New Yorkers who stay in many of these units. The easy cash has led some landlords to harass and intimidate tenants out of the building to make way for transients. â??There are as many buildings, at this point in time, that are actually involved in or have some involvement in illegal hotels as there are legal hotels, Krueger said. The city has unsuccessfully tried to rein in these hotels. In 2009, an appellate court decided the city could not prove a residential building was being â??primarily used as a hotel unless 50 percent of the units were for transients. But that hasn"t stopped the Mayor"s Office of Special Enforcement from busting these operations through building code violations. In fall 2009, the city shut down two Upper West Side hotels run by Jacob Avid, who operates the Kore line of hotels. The buildings were partially vacated because of overcrowding and illegally subdivided rooms. â??Illegal hotels all too often erode our base of affordable housing while creating fire safety and security hazards and quality-of-life concerns in residential neighborhoods, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a statement supporting the legislation, adding that the bill would â??allow city agencies to issue summonses and initiate other enforcement actions against illegal hotels.