DHCR Permits Modification to Phone-Based Intercom Without Rent Reduction

(Decision submitted by Jessi Maduro, Esq., of the Manhattan law firm of Borah Goldstein Altschuler Nahins & Goidel, P.C., who represented the landlord.)

Landlord applied to the DHCR in 2012 for permission to modify building-wide services in a rent-regulated building by replacing a regular bell and buzzer system with a telephone-based intercom system. The DRA ruled for landlord, granting permission to modify services on the following conditions: (a) all apartments must be equipped with a telephone land line; (b) landlord must reduce tenants' monthly rents by $15 per month on a permanent basis, retroactive to May 1, 2011, in order to offset each tenant's cost of maintaining the land line; and (c) landlord must compensate any tenant without a land line by paying for the cost of installing one in tenant's apartment.

Landlord appealed, and the DHCR denied landlord's PAR. Landlord then filed an Article 78 court appeal. The case was sent back to the DHCR to consider landlord's new evidence showing that the new digital entry system could be operated by either land line or cell phone.

The DHCR issued an Order of Remand on March 21, 2018, and sent the case to the DRA for redetermination. No tenants objected or otherwise responded. The DRA ruled for landlord and revoked the rent reduction. Landlord's provider stated in a letter that the new system didn't require a telephone land line to function, worked with both cell phones and land lines, and could be used with a non-network adaptor card and apartment telephone hand set for intercom usage only. Landlord also pointed out that some of the tenants involved already had cell phones and may not wish to maintain land lines. The DRA revoked the $15 rent reduction for tenants involved since landlord satisfactorily demonstrated that the system installed satisfied the DHCR's policy objectives without the necessity of installing land lines in all apartments. 

AEJ 534 East 88th LLC: DHCR Adm. Rev. Dckt. No. AS410031RO, DRO Dckt. Nos. HM410007RP, HM430008RP (1/18/23)[6-pg. document]