IPN Tenants In Face Off with Landlord They Fear
by Ronald Drenger   Reprinted with permission from The Tribeca Trib, October 2003

Independence Plaza North tenants finally got to meet Larry Gluck, the man whose name has stirred fear among them for more than a year.

On Oct. 16, tenants of the three-tower Tribeca complex packed the P.S./I.S.89 auditorium to fire questions at their new landlord and tell him their worries over his plan to pull the complex out of the government's Mitchell Lama housing program that has kept rents well below market rates. While some of them later said they thought Gluck came across as a nice guy, the encounter seemed to do little to quell their fears about Gluck's plans, or to create hope that owner and tenants will find common ground any time soon.

Cordial and low-key as he faced his tenants from the stage, Gluck pledged to be a kind and gentle landlord. He said he came to the meeting against the wishes of his advisers and knowing that he would be "barbecued." But on perhaps the most burning question‹what kind of rent increases he envisions for tenants‹he said it would be at least a couple of months before he could answer.

"If you just give the process a little more time, I will negotiate and we will make a deal that is equitable all around," Gluck said. But the tenants had neither the trust nor patience that the owner asked of them. Gluck began his appearance by asserting, as he has in the past, that about two-thirds of IPN tenants have incomes that qualify them for enhanced, or "sticky," vouchers , a program in which the federal government pays the difference between market rents and the amounts that tenants have been paying under Mitchell-Lama. IPN's tenant association has questioned how much protection the program will really provide, and whether that many tenants will be eligible.

But much of the discussion focused on the tenants who will not qualify for the vouchers and whose rents Gluck says will go up. People in the audience repeatedly pressed him to divulge the size of the rent increases and how quickly they will be implemented.

"I'm feeling very vulnerable," Renee De Santis, the mother of two small children, told Gluck. "I have no idea what to do. Do I try to find a new home for my family? Do I tell my kids they have to leave the only neighborhood they've ever known?" She added, "I need some information. I need to know if I will be able to live here or not. And I need to know now."

Fabricant charged that Gluck had not lived up to a promise to have a proposal on the table by September, and had instead offered promises that he would be "gracious."

"We can't live with 'graciousness.' We can't live with 'reasonableness,'"Fabricant said. "We need a number. What's the number?" "We don't have a specific plan yet for non-sticky voucher folks," Gluck responded, saying that he first had to consult with government officials.

After repeated prodding, he explained what he was waiting for: he has to work out with the government how much money he will get for each subsidized tenant. "My best guess is that it will be a couple of months," he said, before he knows how much he needs to earn from non-subsidized tenants.

"Once we get that amount we will come to the tenant association to negotiate increases for the non-sticky voucher folks," he said. "The more money the federal government gives me under that program, the more generous we can be to the tenants not protected by sticky vouchers.

But Gluck tried to assure the audience that he "will implement a gradual, equitable increase" for non-subsidized tenants.

"I will not throw those tenants into the harsh waters of fair market value too quickly for them to adjust," he said. "I am going be as gracious as anyone can possibly be in my position." He expressed confidence that he will reach a compromise with the tenants association.

Tenants were skeptical. Emily Stein said that even gradual rent increases will price out moderate-income families. Others appealed to Gluck to reconsider his plans.

"You said you want to leave a legacy to your children and grandchildren," said one woman who did not identify herself and later declined to give her name. "You could be an honorable hero and sell this complex to the tenants or leave it in Mitchell Lama. That would be a legacy to your children."

Gluck has rebuffed the tenant association's bid to buy IPN.

Another tenant, who said she moved into IPN 25 years ago when she was three, asked Gluck where the "humanity" was in his approach.

"I came here tonight expecting some huge guy, like a monster, but you look like a nice guy," she said. "You're a businessman, you're interested in the bottom line, I understand that, but you're in a business that affects people's lives."

Two tenants questioned him about Park West Village, a rent-stabilized complex on the upper west side that Gluck and a partner, Joseph Chetrit, purchased in 2000. Tenants there have filed at least 26 rent overcharge complaints with the state, in most cases claiming that the owners exaggerated how much they spent to renovate vacant apartments so that they could remove the units from rent stabilization. Tenants also went on a 13-month rent strike over chronically broken elevators and charged that the owners improperly tried to deny some lease renewals.

Gluck said that he is only a minority partner in Park West Village‹he has a 22-percent ownership interest and a 35-percent interest in its management company, according to the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

"I'm not the managing agent and I have no control over what goes on there,"he said. "It's an investment." He said it was "unfair to tar me with the sins of Mr. Chetrit, with all due respect." Gluck acknowledged that there have been "several overcharge complaints, one or two won by management, one or two won by the tenants."

As of last spring, the State Department of Housing Preservation and Renewal said that it had ruled for the tenants in 17 of 18 cases, with eight cases still pending.

Gluck urged IPN's tenants to look at his other properties he owns and manages numerous residential and commercial buildings in the city, including Phillipse Towers, a former Mitchell-Lama complex in Yonkers. where he said he has strong, mutually respectful relationships with tenants.

After more than an hour of questions and impassioned statements from residents, Neil Fabricant, the tenant association's president who was moderating the dialogue, loudly and aggressively demanded that Gluck say "yes or no" to a series of commitments to protect tenants that Gluck was not able to answer affirmatively. At times Gluck slowly turned away from Fabricant until he practically had his back to him.

Once Gluck left the meeting, Fabricant made clear that he was unimpressed by Gluck's appearance, and sought agreement from the crowd. "Does anyone know more than when we got here?" he asked. One hand went up. "Not a thing," Fabricant said.

"Were Mr. Gluck's answers uninformative and unresponsive?" A roomful of hands.

"He's on his best behavior now," Fabricant said. "Wait till he really gets a hold on this place."

While IPN's tenant leaders question Gluck's pledges, they are hoping to gain some protection from a proposed City Council bill that would make it tougher for building owners to withdraw, or "buy out," from the Mitchell-Lama program and would require them to mitigate a buyout's impact on tenants. A Council committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill on Oct. 29.

As they were leaving the auditorium, several tenants said that Gluck had made a good impression, but most who were interviewed echoed Fabricant's wariness about their landlord.

"He's in business to make money so he will do the best thing for him, not for us," said one man, who asked not to be identified because he was afraid " about management giving me a hard time." He and his wife, both retired, moved into IPN after more than a decade on the wait list. "We thought this would be our last stop in life," he said. "We're very worried."

"He came across as somewhat compassionate," Bea Schulman said of Gluck. "But he's playing a game here. What we saw from him is not what we're going to get."

But she added a touch of hope that the meeting may have been productive. "I think he looked at us and he heard the sound of us and on some level I pray that we touched him."