Landlord Can Convert to Automatic Elevators

Landlord asked the DHCR for permission to modify required services by converting from manual to automatic elevators. Landlord also filed a second application, asking permission to reduce doorman hours from 24 to 14. The DRA denied landlord's request to reduce doorman hours. But the DRA ruled that landlord could convert the elevators on the following conditions. Landlord must provide a lobby attendant during the night shift; a doorman or lobby attendant must view surveillance cameras and monitor the lobby area 24 hours, seven days a week; landlord must provide security and assist tenants with packages; the doorman must continue to announce and screen visitors; the recorders must be maintained in good working order; and the conversion cost would be excluded from any MCI increase landlord obtained for the new elevators.
Tenants appealed the elevator ruling, claiming that the lobby attendant left the lobby between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. to collect trash on upper floors and that landlord shouldn't get an MCI increase for the new elevators. Landlord appealed the doorman hours ruling, claiming that there never was a lobby attendant between midnight and 8:00 a.m.
The DHCR ruled against both sides. Conversion to automatic elevators with the security measures ordered by the DRA was an adequate substitute service. And provision of a 24-7 doorman was a condition of the elevator conversion approval that landlord didn't appeal.

100 Riverside Drive: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket Nos. TI430061RT, VI430065RO (7/24/09) [5-pg. doc.]