Another big win for tenants Judge rules against landlord in 90 West St. 421-g rent-regulation fight BY COLIN MIXSON Notch one more for the tenants in the battle for rent regulation in the increasingly pricey Downtown area. Residents of a tony West Street apartment building scored a major victory in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday when Justice Robert Reed ruled tenants are entitled to rent stabilization due to a generous tax exemption their landlord enjoys. The Kibel Company, which owns 90 West St., plans to appeal the decision, so tenants are now preparing themselves for the next, potentially decisive phase of the legal contest, according to one resident. “We’re prepared to go the distance,” said Taylor West, who moved into 90 West St. in 2009. “The [tenants] association got into this with its eyes open, realizing that even with a win they’re going to fight it.” The tax exemption, called 421-g, was designed to provide developers an incentive to renovate old Downtown office towers for residential use as businesses fled Lower Manhattan for cushy
Midtown digs in the 1990s. As part of the deal, developers were required to provide their residents with rent stabilization, which offers modest annual rent increases and guaranteed lease renewals, for the duration of the tax break. But just before the state Senate voted on the bill back in 1995, then Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno read the so-called “Giuliani Letter” into the record, in which the former mayor said the city’s interpretation was that rent stabilization under 421-g would be subject to luxury deregulation, which axes the protections for apartments renting above a certain amount — currently $2,700 per month. As the mayor of New York City, Guiliani had no official authority over the state’s legislation, but that has never stopped landlords from citing the letter as an excuse to deprive tenants of rent stabilization ever since. And the courts have sometimes backed the landlords’ argument. On May 2, Supreme Court Justice Shlomo
Photo by Milo Hess
Tenants of 90 West St. won a major victory in State Supreme Court in the ongoing battle over rent regulation at buildings receiving 421-g tax breaks, bringing the decades-old controversy one step closer to a resolution.
Hagler sided with the owner of 85 John St., with his ruling specifically citing the Giuliani letter as justification for withholding rent stabilization from tenants. More recently, however, Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled on July 10 that tenants at 50 Murray St. were entitled not only to rent stabiliza-
tion, but refunds and overcharge fees related to rent increases imposed since they signed their leases. In both decisions, judges Edmead and Reed wrote that the language of 421-g was unambiguous, and that the 90 WEST ST. Continued on page 14
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