IPNTA Newsletters

November 2003

400 Tenants Rally to Support City Council Mitchell-Lama Protection Bill

Capping months of furious organizing, IPNTA proved how effective it was in on Wednesday, October 29, by getting out some 400 tenants, union officials, social service leaders, and others in support of Intro 523, the Mitchell-Lama Conversion Protection Bill.

The occasion was a press conference and subsequent hearings called by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who introduced the bill last August.

As of this writing, the bill has 38 sponsors (and counting) in the Council, which offers an excellent chance of passage.

In brief, the bill would impose stiff burdens on ML owners, like Laurence Gluck who now owns IPN, prior to allowing them to opt out of the Mitchell-Lama program and charge market rents.

Under current law, owners can opt out by paying off the remaining mortgage, and then charge market rents. Gluck has informed tenants of his intention to do just that.

The bill would require owners seeking to opt out to prove that the buildings have “substantially complied” with all the rules and regulations of the complex from the time the buildings were first occupied. In the absence of compliance, the City can fine the owner three times the cost of damages to tenants or the city.

Also, landlords will have to fund a city study on the impact of the buyout on tenants, and will have to either “mitigate” those impacts or pay for the City to mitigate them.

These and other provisions can be waived, if the landlord and tenants negotiate a mutually satisfactory agreement, under which rents remain affordable. In effect, this bill levels the playing field between landlord and tenants: it provides tenants with the power they need to keep their homes affordable. At present, the law grants tenants no such powers.

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