How a Lone Tenant is Holding Up a $70 million Condo Deal in NYC
 

This article is behind the NY Times paywall and I am not a subscriber.
But, I was able to reading some of it on my smart phone, and apparently Manhattan renters that hold out on a building bought by a developer can make millions. The article said that one renter in the rental building that proceeded one of the the Central Park West billionaire towers got like $17 million and another top floor apartment in the same neighborhood with a Central park view.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/16/r...west-side.html

Same article but no paywall:

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...on-condo-deal/

Well, isn't that too fucking bad! Good for the tenant.

Why is that good for the tenant? What public policy is served by driving up the cost of construction and blocking new housing and tax revenue?

This happens all the time in NYC. The dude is probably gonna get an eight figure payout, and the resulting condos will be even more lavish and outrageously priced, to compensate for the delays and sunk costs.

Yeah, this is not a good thing or anything to be celebrated. There are intelligent individuals who absolutely abuse towns and cities that have tenant friendly laws in place.

If you want to watch an absolutely worst case scenario, watch the last episode of the new Netflix show 'Worst Roommate Ever'. It's a pretty horrifying show in general, but the last episode the guy knew the tenant laws very well and screwed over numerous people.

it's good because they can't push him around, they gotta pay him off.

no different that what needs to be done with the developers, inspectors, unions and construction companies.

i swear people act like there was nothing there at some of these redevelopment sites. well of course there was. and nyc isnt losing any tax money here. its assured that at least 75% of the future tenants are already from the metro. this ain't west london. anyway, based on the media they probably have to pay him off even more now. boo hoo. maybe the developer will plan ahead better next time.

A $30k buyout is downright insulting lol. The initial offer should've been 10x that at minimum.

Nevermind. It's not a rent-stabilized unit. Yeah, he would've been at the landlord's mercy without the pandemic. But the landlord could make this go away tomorrow by just writing a check. They have the power to end this whenever they want to.

Of course NYC is losing huge tax revenue.

The current building produces no income. The future building will produce massive income. If this guy holds out for a year or two, that's probably eight figures in lost municipal revenue right there. And for what?

Even worse, the guy appears to have quit his job for this charade. Pre-pandemic, there wasn't a hold on evictions, but during the pandemic, unemployed New Yorkers can't be evicted. So this guy is refusing to work in the middle of a full employment/employee shortage, to preserve his apartment. The fact that this makes economic sense is public policy madness.

no it wont. as i said, but your cherry picking ignores, the vast majority of residents who would live there already live here.

and so who cares if he holds out or how he does it? i would too. covid or no, hes playing by the rules. this happens quite often, if not as extreme, because more often developers handle it earlier and better.

i refuse to take the developer side with this kind of issue, moreso because much more often its the owners and redevelopers harrassing and chasing the residents out via illegal tactics. publicity will probably save this guy from that.

So instead you take the side of unemployed-by-choice people in non-rent controlled apartments angling for 8 figure buyouts and their lawyers like David Rozenholc, who specializes in tenant holdout cases and who collect one-third of the settlements? A third of 8 figures is guaranteed to be north of $3 million. Plus all those delay tactics to buy more residential time for his client? What a racket.

Ozsu can only do this because of the pandemic renter-relief program, which was not intended for instances such as what we have here.

Maybe developers more often than not screw over the little guy as you claim. But that doesn't appear to be what's happening in this case.

I'm pretty sure the landlord is using intimidation tactics to coerce him out. Creating noise with the fan is a classic tactic that is used by landlords in NYC to get tenants out of rent-stabilized units without paying them to leave. Is the tenant exploiting a loophole? Yes. Is he wrong to do so? No, not really.

Yes and no.

True, Mr. Ozsu would normally not be entitled to such tenant protections as a renter of a non-stabilized apartment. And he is taking advantage of the rent relief program's protection to its maximum.

And it's true that the world has plenty of unemployed (or not - https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/...rent-28-months) who take advantage of NY's liberal tenant protection laws and courts to their maximum.

But it doesn't appear to be the case here, at least not to an extreme extent:
1. Mr. Ozsu was let go from his job due to the pandemic, and is now working. He is a long-time rent-paying resident of the building since 2006, and would have continued to pay the rent were it not for the pandemic shutdown in 2020.
2. Crawford mentions the fact that the city is losing property tax revenue from the potential condo development, all over one tenant holding out. But is that really an uneven tradeoff?

Think about it.

On the one hand, there is less revenue generated from the jobs created to design & construct this building, along with the tax revenue to be collected yearly from each condo.

On the other hand, there would only be 11 condo units in this building, many of which would likely be investment properties or pied-a-terres for the wealthy. And what is it replacing? A rental building with 128 units, occupied by working class people who now need to search for new apartments in a city with short housing supply.

So really, is the health of the city improved by the design/construction jobs, doorman/maintenance/building super jobs, and property tax revenue created by the new 11 story condo? Or would it be better with 128 apartment units being maintained within a city that has a housing shortage? You decide.

Where did you get this information? The building planned on the site would be about 50% bigger than the existing building, 21 storeys tall. Not sure how many units it will have, but almost certainly not 11 units, since it would mean 12,000+ sq ft per unit, which is crazy. I am assuming it will have comparable number of units, but bigger.

An 11-unit superluxury development will generate many multiples in city taxes than a 128 unit single room occupancy dwelling. And there should be no SROs on superprime land on the UWS.

And it's unlikely any of the units will be pied-a-terres or investment properties, not that it matters much for tax purposes. The Upper West Side condo market is overwhelmingly oriented towards locals. And people don't typically buy gigantic, four-five bedroom family-oriented pied-a-terres or investment properties.
That's not the choice. The choice is between an empty building with one holdout generating virtually no revenue and a full building of families generating tens of millions in revenue. The city can build SROs on cheaper land, but of course the same people advocating for these absurd tenant laws simultaneously oppose new housing.

They can pay him to leave.

Right, I'm also not understanding the 11 units claim. The replacement building could be built up to the (functional equivalent) of 21 floors (it will likely be more like 18 given the huge ceiling heights these days). I find it very hard to believe that there will only be 11 units, as the fanciest family-oriented buildings in NYC don't have 10,000 sq. ft.+ units. That's gigantic.

These will be huge Upper West Side family units, but that typically means 2,000-3,000 square foot apartments. Maybe the baller penthouse floors will have 4,000 square foot apartments. Huge has a different meaning in NYC. But the tower is highly unlikely to have less than 30-40 units, even if a few might be combined.

This building will have 150K sq ft as of right development. No way will it only have 11 units, the NYT journalist has no idea. Even if these are ultraluxury $40 million units, it will still be more, unless they come with their own private indoor golf course.

Right, and they will.

But the point is that the process is absurd and ridiculously inefficient, as it's driving up the cost of housing while reducing city revenues, for no public policy purpose.

And it won't be $40 million units. This a very prime location, but not a $40 million apartment location.

At 150k square feet, definitely at least 30-40 units, even if extreme high end.

Perhaps now they will have to be $40 million units, after paying off this guy.