A new law will protect New York City tenants and tourists from the dangers of illegal hotels. The bill, sponsored by State Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, was signed into law July 23 by Governor David Paterson.

For decades, landlords have exploited ambiguous wording in state and city laws to set up hostels for tourists, renting out small Single Room Occupancy units in apartment buildings to tourists looking for a good deal. Tourists, often drawn in by online ads, don’t always realize until they arrive that their housing is not in a bona fide hotel.

The new bill will make it easier for government agencies to prosecute landlords who rent out rooms to temporary visitors, and to collect the appropriate real estate taxes.

“By removing a legal gray area and replacing it with a clear definition of permanent occupancy, the law will allow enforcement efforts that help New Yorkers who live in SRO units and other types of affordable housing preserve their homes,” Paterson said, in a statement.

Permanent residents will no longer have to worry about the risks posed by illegal hotels.

“This is a real win-win for New York City residents and visitors,” said Kruger in a statement. “Residents will no longer see their apartment buildings overrun by transient tourists and visitors will no longer have to worry about arriving to find that their hotel is actually an apartment building.”

Residents of SRO units have been chased out of their homes by landlords seeking to make more money by renting their rooms out to tourists.

“This legislation is a crucial step in the preservation of affordable housing and SROs,” said Yarrow Willman-Cole, of Goddard-Riverside West Side SRO Law Project.

The real estate industry has been critical of the law. Real estate attorney David Satnick, partner with Loeb and Loeb, said that the rent from the transients allows landlords to improve their buildings. Without that funding, he believes that the apartment buildings will fall in to disrepair.

“It will turn away budget minded tourists who can’t afford pricey hotels and 1,000’s of workers will lose their job because of this bill,” he said.

The new legislation includes exceptions for roommates and boarders who rent rooms along with permanent occupants.

Putting a stop to illegal hotels will also put thousands of apartments back on the housing market.

The law is set to go into effect on May 1 of next year.

Students will soon have greater protection from school bullying, now that state lawmakers have passed the Dignity For All Students Act June 22.

Once signed by Gov. David Paterson, prejudice and harassment based on gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, weight and religion will be prohibited on school grounds. Teachers and administrators will be taught to tackle instances of harassment, and they will be required to report episodes to school officials. When abusive incidents occur, schools will be encouraged to respond through offering support services and counseling rather than disciplinary action.

“No child should be terrified to go to school simply because of who they are. There is no place for bullying and discrimination in New York’s classrooms,” said State Sen. Tom Duane, the bill’s author who is openly gay. “Punishing students after the fact does little to address the root cause of the problem.

Upper West Side Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, who is a bill sponsor, said the legislation can be easily implemented in schools.

“Too many students are bullied based on real or perceived differences with their classmates,” he said in the statement.

For the New York branch of the ACLU, the most important aspect of the bill is its protection of at-risk groups.

“Bullies will be put on watch,” said Erica Braudy, Lead Organizer at the NY ACLU. “There will be clear prohibitions put on bullying that will not be limited to certain groups.”

In addition, Paterson has presented a complement to the legislation that will create a state-wide hotline number and require schools to follow the state’s human rights laws against discrimination.

Nannies and other domestic employees in New York have been working in the shadows of the city’s economy. They cook, clean and watch children so parents can pursue careers—all without a guarantee of needed time off or other job benefits that many employees take for granted.

Last week, all 32 Democratic State Senators and one Republican voted for legislation that guarantees the 200,000 domestic workers in the metropolitan area paid holidays, sick days, vacation, a day off each week and overtime pay. Employers would be required to give their nanny at least two weeks notice if they want to fire them. Domestic workers would be allowed to sue if the new regulations are violated, and their bosses could face criminal charges.

“This law is, in a sense, a message that domestic workers are real workers, that homes are workplaces and that these workers deserve to have rights and deserve to be protected like other workers,” said Priscilla Gonzalez, director of Domestic Workers United, a group that lobbied for the legislation.“What we hope comes out is a law that guarantees basic labor rights that they otherwise wouldn’t able to negotiate for themselves.”

The Assembly passed a bare-bones version of the bill last year that provides overtime pay and a day off per week. Now that the State Senate pushed through a more robust legislation, the two chambers will reconcile the different pieces of legislation for the governor to sign.

Gov. David Paterson has expressed support for such a bill, but his spokesperson said he is uncommitted to signing the legislation at this point.

With the state’s rent stabilization laws set to expire next year, Gov. David Paterson announced a package of proposals that would change when landlords can charge market rate for regulated apartments. The package also addresses the uncertainty of how the Stuyvesant Town ruling on tax benefits and rent regulation affects tenants and landlords.

But West Side legislators who have written and pushed for pro-tenant bills have reservations about the governor’s plan, and hope that this is merely the start of a debate about new housing laws.

Under Paterson’s proposals, the threshold for vacancy decontrol—the point at which a newly vacant unit is taken out of the rent regulation system and converted to market rate housing—would be raised to $3,000 a month in rent, up from $2,000.

But Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, author of a vacancy decontrol bill that has been bottled in the State Senate, wants the practice completely lifted. Paterson’s proposal on raising the limit to $3,000 barely changes the existing law.

“The problem is, landlords can get it to $3,000 as easy as they can get it to $2,000,” Rosenthal said. “Clearly, this is a gift to the landlords.”

Landlord organizations, however, are griping about the package just as loudly as tenant supporters.

“That’s perhaps the most ridiculous proposal amongst them,” said Jack Freund, executive vice president of the Rent Stabilization Association, about raising the decontrol level. “People who can afford $3,000 rents don’t need rent protections.”

Paterson also tried to clear up confusion around the State Court of Appeals decision regarding J-51 tax benefits. The state’s highest court found that Tishman Speyer, owner of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, wrongly used a tax benefit—known as J-51—to make renovations and raise rents, ultimately deregulating apartments. Freund said the decision has frozen transactions because building values are uncertain now that longstanding practices have been ruled unlawful.

Under the governor’s plan, tenants in wrongly deregulated units can recoup money from owners who wrongly overcharged rent. Rents can be claimed from up to four years prior to the court’s 2009 decision. Owners in the rent stabilization system would also be allowed to apply for rent deregulation when a unit becomes vacant and the rent hits the proposed $3,000 level, even if the landlord receives the J-51 tax benefit.

That doesn’t sit well with State Sen. Tom Duane, whose district covers the Upper West Side as well as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

“It undercuts the Court of Appeals decision,” Duane said. “To say landlords and developers can take advantage of J-51 and not be in the rent stabilization system is philosophically wrong.”

In his Jan. 6 State of the State speech, Paterson laid out an ambitious plan of long overdue regulations to whip Albany back into shape. Some highlights:

Photo by Andrew Schwartz

• Drastic cutbacks on allowable campaign contributions, including an outright ban on corporate donations;

• A requirement that legislators disclose outside income;

• Public financing for campaigns, much like the city’s arrangement;

• Term limits for all state offices (six, two-year terms for Senators and Assembly members; and two, four-year terms for other statewide officials)—something that’s sure to be an uphill battle;

• An independent state government ethics commission to replace the broken Commission on Public Integrity, which effectively lets legislators police themselves.

While these reforms sound like a good government group’s dream, some legislators are suggesting that the governor is merely trying to boost low poll numbers. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver pointed out that his house has previously passed campaign finance reform, but Paterson opposed it. “If he had a change of mind, I welcome him,” Silver added. “I’m still sponsoring a public campaign finance bill.”

At press time, the Legislature was reportedly working on a reform package as well. We’re happy to consider what lawmakers put forward, as long as it is as comprehensive as Paterson’s plan. But the danger here is that our representatives—Paterson included—will get mired in politicking and use that as an excuse not to act.

Quite frankly, we don’t care why anyone supports reform, so long as the proposals being supported have teeth and will make headway in changing the way Albany does business. Yes, lawmakers need to focus on job creation and balancing the budget, but these tasks become exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, when special interest groups control the debate. That can change with proper campaign finance reform.

Now is the time for everyone in Albany to stop making excuses and start making changes—or voters will do it for them.

The man who once played the role of liberal minority leader in the State Senate is now the voice of reason, playing the part of a stable pragmatist. He has pursued a policy of slash and burn in the state budget. He knows that his constituents are hurting and that they have no tolerance for civil servants, even those who deliver health care, education and social services. These good people don’t deserve what they are about to get. We are talking about the poor and the mentally ill and sick people with no health insurance. We are talking about inner-city school children. We are talking about college kids who go to the state and city universities and whose parents can’t afford to help them out. Paterson will follow the formula in constructing his fiscal plan: no new taxes and cuts in state services. So far, people love the guy.

Of course, most people don’t have the slightest idea how many billions are in the state budget and the press knows it. They write the obligatory stories, but they concentrate their real work on the horse races, the contests that people can understand. One such story is the fight over who will be United

Gov. David Paterson faces fiscal crises, Senate appointments and a legislature in disarray. Photo By: Andrew Schwartz

States Senator. The two top candidates seem to be Caroline Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo. Rumors persist that Senator Chuck Schumer doesn’t want either of these two show horses and would prefer someone less well-known, like upstate Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand. Hillary Clinton, who probably lost her race to Barack Obama because of the Kennedy (Ted and Caroline) endorsement of Barack, has been described as “…close to putting the kibosh on Caroline.” Payback doesn’t make her look good. Poor Paterson may have to make a choice between the Kennedy and Cuomo dynasties, and it is a lose-lose situation if there ever was one.

Of course, he could put a place holder in the job, like outgoing Chief Judge Judith Kaye, but that would leave him with a mess when he has to run in a few years, and the Senator will have to run with him. He’ll need someone in place who is popular and who can raise money. He can’t appoint himself because New York is currently without a lieutenant governor and either the hapless Malcolm Smith or the distasteful Dean Skelos would take over the governor’s job, depending on how that mess comes out.

Then there is the small matter of the Senate leadership. The Republicans theoretically are outnumbered, but they are trying to pull the Gang of Three over the line to keep them in power. In retaliation, we hear that the Democrats are trying to bring a couple of moderate Republicans over to their side. Paterson will have to get a budget through and this mess is just what he doesn’t need. It looks like he has been helping the so-called Gang of Three pull off their brand of political blackmail, and no one understands why he is doing that.

Usually I think I know what to do, but this is one time I just don’t. I’m glad I’m not Paterson.
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Alan S. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette.