Public Housing Versus Private School At Trinity

Upper West Side New Yorkers have been getting priced out of Manhattan for years, but tenants of the Trinity House on 92nd Street hoped they would be safe, given that their apartment complex is a part of the Mitchell Lama non-subsidy governmental housing guarantee. But their building is also partially owned by a neighboring private school, The Trinity School, that raised rents last fall, and is now trying to move forward on building plans that could displace some of the Trinity House tenants. The 199-unit complex, located at 100 West 92nd St., found itself in a long-running battle over the rent increases last fall, which hiked rents by as much as 13 percent in one year. Now, a battle is brewing over the school’s plan to expand. The school has finalized plans to raise a playing field by two stories, allowing for two more floors of classrooms. The problem the tenants association has with this plan is that it would knock out the balconies of their fourth floor loggia, an area designated as a quiet place for families to relax, offering an outdoor play area for children, and a space to garden. “We aren’t asking them to not to build, those kids deserve more classrooms and a field of their own,” said tenants association member Jim Paul. “We are simply asking them to compromise by adding more space between our building and their new field.” The proposed space between buildings is currently set at around 10 feet from the western apartments’ windows, and Paul and his colleagues are asking for at least 30 feet of distance, allowing them to keep the fourth floor loggia balconies intact. Paul and his wife Susanne have lived in the Trinity House since 1977 and said that the school has continuously neglected the tenants, often going forward with construction without consulting the apartment complex. “This is a perfect example of how they have treated us over the years,” Paul said. “It’s been a long and rather complicated history between us.” The school is now in the process of getting approval from Community Board 7, which asked the school for several revisions to its plan. One of the major concerns focuses on the parking garage, which is currently used by Trinity House. The garage runs underneath the playing field that is set to expand, and the construction would sacrifice about one third of the parking spots. Trinity House leases the garage to a private parking company, which earns the building around $600,000 per year. This money helps keep rents down, and offers tenants a reliable place to park their cars. The tenants association is proposing that if losing part of the garage is necessary to the school’s plans, the school should pay a fee to Trinity House, making up for the lost income. The tenants’ association has been handing out flyers to parents at the Trinity School, and earlier this month Paul led a demonstration in front of the building to protest the planned construction. Paul said tenants are “simply asking the school to act in a way they claim to teach their students, which preaches the importance of things like community service, and being caring citizens of the city and the world.” “Today it seems that we are living in a time when the rights of the tenants are no longer being respected, which goes against the original intent of this building,” Jerry Weiner, a tenant since 1976, said. Weiner raised his two children at Trinity House, and worked as an educator for over 30 years. “Manhattan was once a place where we tried to include everyone, now that isn’t the tone.”