The Indypendent e-news
While Oscar Tenorio lives in a one-room apartment on the Upper West Side, his living situation is quite different from his more affluent neighbors. He shares bathroom and kitchen facilities with other tenants. In the hallways, wires and pipes hang from the ceilings, and crushed bedbugs dot the walls. There are holes in the walls and floors and bare light bulbs illuminate the hallways.
With such untenable living conditions, Tenorio’s address, 244 West 99th Street, also known as Hotel 99, might seem a bit confusing.
Hotel 99 is a Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) building that was illegally converted into a hotel. Its SRO status means that the building is rent stabilized and intended for low-income New Yorkers, which only offers management companies a fraction of the profits that can be made by charging tourists a nightly fee of up to $179.
Vacated late last year, Hotel 99’s closure, along with a handful of other hotels clustered in the Upper West Side, is part of the most recent crackdown on illegal hotels in the city.
According to Hotel 99’s partial vacate notice, which was issued by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, the hotel portion of the building was closed down for fire code and other violations.
While the hotel section of the building is still empty, it remains to be seen for how long its doors will stay closed. There is currently no law against illegal hotels in New York City, and the city is often limited to fining hotels for violating fire, occupancy and zoning codes in an effort to keeping these establishments in check. Building owners caught operating illegal hotels in buildings zoned for residential use are only fined $800, what Yarrow Willman-Cole, a tenant organizer with the Goddard Riverside SRO Project, calls a “cost of operation.”
“It’s a legal gray area and enforcement is happening specifically where there are safety concerns, but there are other issues that can be considered [in trying to shut illegal hotels down], such as zoning, permitted use in the certificate of occupancy and the fire code,” William-Cole said.
Hotel 99 is just one part of a complex web of illegal hotels throughout the city. According to the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, a nonprofit group that seeks to provide safe and affordable housing, as of 2009 there were 270 illegal hotels across Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.
Tenorio, who was asked by building management to move to the back of the building to make way for the construction of the hotel, has, like many of the other residents, not seen the hotel section of the building, which features lapis-tile hallways and cream-colored walls.
The original construction permit that Ronald Oved, the building’s coowner, obtained in 2009 indicated that he would refurbish the public areas of the SRO building. Instead, Oved was constructing a hotel. Oved declined to comment for this article.
In addition to being subjected to substandard living conditions and waiting months for repairs, SRO tenants at Hotel 99 are prohibited from installing air conditioners in their rooms, having guests and bringing alcoholic beverages into the building.
Hipolito Sierra, one the building’s tenants, has waited several months for repairs and improved sanitation in the residential half of the building. Sierra last spoke to Peter Cabrera, the building manager, two months ago. “I think [Cabrera] prefers the tourists, because he makes money. But with [tenants] he doesn’t care about where they have to live,” Sierra said. Cabrera also declined to comment for this article.
Willman-Cole is organizing Hotel 99 tenants to participate in a lawsuit for repairs. Though she believes that management will eventually repair the residential section, a lawsuit will help expedite the process and empower tenants, Willman-Cole said. She declined to discuss the details of the lawsuit, as well as the number of tenants participating, due to fear of negatively affecting the outcome of the lawsuit.
Many tenants are afraid to confront landlords. Some are full families, violating codes allowing only two tenants per SRO and barring children. Others are undocumented and fear owners will call Immigration Services in retaliation.
Tenorio has joined a slowly growing number of tenants who have signed on to the lawsuit and, while he is undocumented, is glad to represent other undocumented residents who are reluctant to come forward.
Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) has been working to increase the fine and clarify the city’s stance against illegal hotels. “We were not able to change that law [at the city level], because we have to go through the state,” Brewer said, “It has been two years.”
Bob Kalin, tenant organizer from the Housing Conservation Coordinators (HCC), which also funds the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, explained that many in the New York City tourism industry oppose legislation against illegal hotels because of some “old, traditional hotels that exist in New York City that aren’t strictly in compliance with some laws.” Kalin said the HCC is still “plugging away” toward legislation.
The HCC currently has a group of tenants and elected officials — including State Senator Tom Duane, Speaker Christine Quinn and Brewer — working to address the issue of illegal hotels in New York City. While converting illegal hotels into affordable housing is definitely a goal, this effort will take a significant amount of effort from the mayor’s office, city council and the state legislature, said Jackie Del Valle, HCC’s organizing director.
While the future of legislation banning illegal hotels is uncertain, Del Valle said housing advocates expect that there will be a move towards better enforcement and clearer legislation on illegal hotels as the state legislature resumes this month.
Comments
These illegal hotel operators are a dangerous cancer preying on the most vulnerable people in the city, low income tenants. I find it highly offensive that these hotel owners file false permits, like in this case applying for a permit under fraudulent pretenses (Claiming a public area improvement), while in fact the real motive being to illegally convert the property into a hotel.
What is more despicable is how the SRO tenants that still remain in the buildings are "Prohibited from installing air conditioners in their rooms, having guests and bringing alcoholic beverages into the building". Are the tourists that visit this hotel been prohibited from having a guest? probably not! Do the hotel rooms have air conditioning? Most likely.
So what we have is clear cut harassment and discrimination. Make them feel like they are in a prison living in solitary confinement, make them swelter in NYC summers until they leave, that's the goal of these illegal hotel operators, plain and simple.
The latest NY Times story shows that this type of conduct is clearly out of hand;
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/nyregion/29vantage.html?emc=eta1
Same principles, same mode of operation, same greed. Attorney General Mario Cuomo needs to file a lawsuit against these folks just like the other property owners and return the housing to it's originally intended purpose and SRO.
I think the big problem is a lack of enforcement. The City and the State just are not motivated enough to pass decent legislation to wipe these oily players from the hotel scene. Why is that? I can't believe that the all powerful illegal hotel lobby has that much clout. Of course, these illegal hotels popped up because of the outrageous price of hotel rooms in Manhattan and a real lack of hostels and low priced, decent rooms for backpackers and budget travelers.
I have lived threw many year's of illegal hoteling. This building is a doorman building on the upper east side. It is not just happening in sro's. Most are tourist from out of the country. They are tought to say that they rented for a month. I work at a museum in the area and when tourist come to visit. Some say I am staring at an apartment for a week and I am not suppose to say anything. I worry about fire sanitation and security. The doormen of these building is usally the one's that check them in and they fear their jobs of not complying. At one time I had 11 tourist on my floor. Real Estate company's lease several apartments in my building. Then it is left up to them who they want to put in the apartments. Most are short term or tourist. Keep up the good work and when I see something I always say something but the officials never get pass the doormen. Thanks
"There is currently no law against illegal hotels in New York City"
Then they cannot really be called illegal, can they?
Illegal hotels exist in a no man's land. They most certainly are not legal and operate is a gray area. The city was able to shut them down no questions asked until Jan. of last year, when the NY Supreme Court issued a murky decision saying that some times there are illegal hotels and sometimes not - kind of. The court, in an awful decision, said that if a building had more than 50% of it's units operating as illegal hotels, it was illegal. This creates the illogical situation that a 4 family home where two apartments are used as hostels is illegal but a 100 unit apartment building where only 49 apartments are illegal hotels is semi-legal or at least protected from the city shutting them down (kind of).
This contravenes the spirit of the rent laws and residential zoning. The rent laws were set up to preserve the affordable housing stock and the housing stock in general and illegal hotels artificially deplete the available housing stock - this is quite pronounced in Midtown Manhattan (UWS, Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea & UES, Murray Hill). Ilegal hotels also violate residential zoning because the hotel/hostel is a commercial venture.
The city is still targeting illegal hotels, but using different enforcement mechanisms such as code violations (the truth is that many illegal hotels violate fire and safety codes). Legislation is sorely needed to close this loop hole in the laws.
âProhibited from installing air conditioners in their rooms, having guests and bringing alcoholic beverages into the buildingâ.
were all rules in place when these tenants moved in, they knew this and if it they didn't like it they were not required to take the apt. The lack of a/c is HPD's fault. The landlord can not update the electric so how can the building support multiple tenant plugging in a/c units. it would blow out the power in the entire building. it is the landlord who pays the electric bill not the tenant, so he would be taking on an addition cost when the current rent most likely does not even cover existing taxes, insurance and operating costs.
there has been a long history of issues with alcohol and guests in SRO buildings, hundreds of people have been killed due this deadly combination since SRO laws were enacted 4 decades ago. that is not the case in hotels, and that is a fact.
i take issue with the implications of the post above.
if you follow this logic, should anyone be able to buy, say, a public housing complex and convert it to luxury condos? SROs meet the needs of a vulnerable subset of NY's population and illegal hotels are depriving them and others of that critic affordable housing stock. if you buy up a property you need to respect the regulations that govern it. or if we take "property owner's rights" to their extreme, should we allow landlords to convert units in residential buildings to nightclubs, irregardless of the negative impact that would clearly have on other tenants in the building?
Oh, so much self-righteousness. When is the last time you have been around a SRO?
They mostly house illegal immigrants (99 hotel was exclusively housing illegals) crack addicts and whores. It has nothing to do with rent-protection. On the other hand, those low budget hotels brought about much needed tourism to our neighborhood ( 90' uws), which supports mom & pop businesses. It was so great having those young people from all over the world. This is exactly what was needed here. But hey there will always be the bleeding heart that thinks it is more important to have Pedro, who doesn't pay taxes, live on the upper west side than young Europeans who support our local economy. You should be happy now - they are all gone. On a different note, the city has to come with a plan to encourage the opening of new budget hotels. With the current real estate prices, it is not economically- viable to do so. The result is loss of young tourism and shorter stay durations as a result of the high hotel rates.
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