Corrupt Rangel violating rent control laws

Rangel Rents Apartments at Bargain Rates

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: July 11, 2008
While aggressive evictions are reducing the number of rent-stabilized
apartments in New York, Representative Charles B. Rangel is enjoying four of
them, including three adjacent units on the 16th floor overlooking Upper
Manhattan in a building owned by one of New York's premier real estate
developers.

Mr. Rangel, the powerful Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee, uses his fourth apartment, six floors below, as a campaign
office, despite state and city regulations that require rent-stabilized
apartments to be used as a primary residence.

Mr. Rangel, who has a net worth of $566,000 to $1.2 million, according to
Congressional disclosure records, paid a total rent of $3,894 monthly in
2007 for the four apartments at Lenox Terrace, a 1,700-unit luxury
development of six towers, with doormen, that is described in real estate
publications as Harlem's most prestigious address.

The current market-rate rent for similar apartments in Mr. Rangel's building
would total $7,465 to $8,125 a month, according to the Web site of the
owner, the Olnick Organization.

The Olnick Organization and other real estate firms have been accused of
overzealous tactics as they move to evict tenants from their rent-stabilized
apartments and convert the units into market-rate housing.

Tensions are especially inflamed in Harlem, where the rising cost of living
and the arrival of more moneyed residents have triggered anxiety over the
future of the historically black neighborhood. And Vantage Properties, a
company established by Olnick's former chief operating officer, has
attracted billions in private equity financing by promising investors that
it can aggressively convert tens of thousands of rent-stabilized apartments,
many in Harlem.

Yet Mr. Rangel, a critic of other landlords' callousness, has been
uncharacteristically reticent about Olnick's actions.

State officials and city housing experts said in interviews that while the
law does not bar tenants from having more than one rent-stabilized
apartment, they knew of no one else with four of them. Others suggested that
the arrangement undermines the purpose of rent regulation.

"There are families who manage to get two, when one tenant marries another,
things like that," said Dov Treiman, a lawyer who publishes The Housing
Court Reporter, a legal trade publication. "But I've never heard of any
tenant managing to get four."

Mr. Rangel's use of the fourth apartment as an office, in addition to his
2,500-square-foot residence, was especially troubling to some advocates,
given the city's chronic shortage of housing for low- and moderate-income
residents.

"Whether it's an elected official or not, no one should have four
apartments, especially when one is being used as an office," said Michael
McKee, treasurer of the Tenants Political Action Committee, who was not
aware of Mr. Rangel's situation when he was interviewed.

Mr. Rangel, who was first elected to Congress in 1970 and is one of the city's
most recognizable elected officials, has written and spoken extensively
about his devotion to his home in Harlem, but does not appear to have ever
publicly acknowledged that he has been permitted to lease four
rent-stabilized apartments there. According to a public records database and
interviews with neighbors, he has lived in the building since the early
1970s, but it is not clear when he amassed the four units.

Mr. Rangel, 78, declined to answer questions during a telephone interview,
saying that his housing was a private matter that did not affect his
representation of his constituents.

"Why should I help you embarrass me?" he said, before abruptly hanging up.

Olnick officials declined to discuss when or why they decided to permit Mr.
Rangel to lease multiple rent-stabilized units. Asked why he had been
allowed to use one as an office, Jeanette Bocchino, a spokeswoman for the
company, replied: "This is a private matter for the Olnick Organization and
Mr. Rangel to evaluate."

Mr. Rangel is not the only prominent resident with a rent-stabilized
apartment at Lenox Terrace. Gov. David A. Paterson told The New York Sun in
May that he pays $1,250 for a rent-stabilized two-bedroom apartment in the
complex that rents for $2,600 or more at market rates. Basil A. Paterson,
the governor's father, pays $868 per month for his apartment there, in the
same building as Mr. Rangel's apartments, according to state records.

Percy E. Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president and a longtime ally
and friend of Mr. Rangel's, also lives at Lenox Terrace, though records
about his rent were not available.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/nyregion/11rangel.html


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