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Comments from an AP history
and government teacher in Raleigh, NC.
e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com
Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you.
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Friday, July 11, 2008
Sorry, Charlie
Charlie Rangel is one lucky guy. First he gets the federal government to spend millions for a monument to him, the Charlie B. Rangel Center at City College of New York.
Now it turns out that he has also somehow managed to have four rent-controlled apartments in New York when there is a shortage of housing for middle and low income residents.While aggressive evictions are making rent-stabilized apartments increasingly scarce in New York, Representative Charles B. Rangel is enjoying four of them, including three adjacent apartments in a sprawling penthouse overlooking Upper Manhattan, courtesy of one of New York’s premier real estate developers.How convenient for the Congressman. Rent control has been very, very good for Charlie.
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, six-tower luxury development with doormen that is described in real estate publications as Harlem’s most prestigious address.
The current market-rate rent for similar apartments in the 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 them 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 boisterous critic of other landlords’ callousness, has been uncharacteristically reticent about Olnick’s actions.
State officials and city housing experts interviewed by The New York Times said that, while the law does not prohibit 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's probably nothing illegal about this, just distasteful and embarrassing. And Rangel knows it.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.Charming media relations technique there, Congressman.
“Why should I help you embarrass me?” he said, before abruptly hanging up.
One can well imagine what Rangel would have been saying about this if it were a story about a white Republican congressman.Labels: Congress
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Charlie Rangel is one lucky guy. First he gets the federal government to spend millions for a monument to him, the Charlie B. Rangel Center at City College of New York.
Now it turns out that he has also somehow managed to have four rent-controlled apartments in New York when there is a shortage of housing for middle and low income residents.
There's probably nothing illegal about this, just distasteful and embarrassing. And Rangel knows it.
One can well imagine what Rangel would have been saying about this if it were a story about a white Republican congressman.
0 comments
Charlie Rangel is one lucky guy. First he gets the federal government to spend millions for a monument to him, the Charlie B. Rangel Center at City College of New York.
Now it turns out that he has also somehow managed to have four rent-controlled apartments in New York when there is a shortage of housing for middle and low income residents.
While aggressive evictions are making rent-stabilized apartments increasingly scarce in New York, Representative Charles B. Rangel is enjoying four of them, including three adjacent apartments in a sprawling penthouse overlooking Upper Manhattan, courtesy of one of New York’s premier real estate developers.How convenient for the Congressman. Rent control has been very, very good for Charlie.
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, six-tower luxury development with doormen that is described in real estate publications as Harlem’s most prestigious address.
The current market-rate rent for similar apartments in the 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 them 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 boisterous critic of other landlords’ callousness, has been uncharacteristically reticent about Olnick’s actions.
State officials and city housing experts interviewed by The New York Times said that, while the law does not prohibit 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's probably nothing illegal about this, just distasteful and embarrassing. And Rangel knows it.
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.Charming media relations technique there, Congressman.
“Why should I help you embarrass me?” he said, before abruptly hanging up.
One can well imagine what Rangel would have been saying about this if it were a story about a white Republican congressman.
Labels: Congress
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