RBSCC is educating loft tenants on their legal rights. — Photo by Diego Cupolo

RBSCC is at it again this spring with more tenants’ rights workshops following its first workshop this past March.

The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council — specifically its legal department, Bushwick Housing and Legal Assistance — has been conducting a series of tenant workshops designed to inform apartment and loft dwellers about housing rules and regulations in New York, and how renters can hold landlords to them.

At a Loft Law workshop held at The Bodega on St. Nicholas Avenue at Troutman Street, the focus was on the current loft law and problems that can arise from misinterpretations and illegal conversions.

Loft dwellings, according to the city, are units within industrial, commercial, or manufacturing buildings that the building’s owner converts into residential spaces. In recent years, many Bushwick conversions have taken place without sanction from City bodies.

"The conversion may not have been completed in a manner that lives up to the City’s standards for safe housing. These standards include requirements for the fire-proofing of the structure, proper methods of egress in a fire, light, air, and other measures pertaining to sanitation," said attorney Sally Robinson. "If a prospective tenant is presented with a commercial lease, that person should be aware that the normal protections that a residential tenant in New York enjoys may not be available to them." 

According to Robinson, if the loft has been properly converted, and the building is in compliance with fire and safety codes, and the tenant has signed a residential lease, loft tenants can exercise a Warranty of Habitability, an implied promise, that the landlord will maintain the building in a way fit for residential living. Tenants in these buildings should not be subject to hazardous or dangerous conditions — such as exist in many commerical or industrial buildings — that could affect their health and safety. This is a right recognized under state law.

There are more workshops for newer Bushwick residents to come, including another housing-law workshop led by Robinson and the RBSCC in late April or May. For more information, please email Sally Robinson, srobinson@rbscc.org for housing questions in Bushwick.