June 21, 2010

Hon. David Paterson, Governor

The Executive Chamber, State Capital
Albany, New York 12224

Dear Governor Paterson,

We are writing to express our concerns with A-5667-C and to respectfully urge you to
disapprove the bill, if agreement cannot be reached today on chapter amendments that
would address our concerns.

We are long-time supporters of the rights of tenants, and we favor a strong renewal of the
Loft Law. However, we believe that the blanket extension of coverage of the Loft Law to
buildings that were illegally occupied for residential purposes during the period between
January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 will displace manufacturing businesses and
blue-collar jobs — in the very locations that the City and State have previously sought to
protect them.

While there are numerous buildings previously occupied by manufacturing uses where
long-term tenants should be provided with tenant protections and a path to legalization,
this legislation is over-broad and undermines important protections set out in State and
City law. The original loft law was much more limited in scope in regard to which
buildings it covered. We encourage you to support instead a more limited version of this
bill that would still protect loft tenants without undermining important City and State job
retention policies.

This legislation would give a large windfall to building owners who knowingly rented out
space to residential tenants in violation of the City’s zoning laws. We call your attention
to a 2004 report, “Illegal Residential Conversions in the East Williamsburg In-Place
Industrial Park,” by the New York Industrial Retention Network, which describes how
almost two dozen landlords converted a half-million square feet of industrial space to
residential use without ever applying for a legal building permit.

Many of these buildings present substantial safety hazards to the occupants because
existing and previous manufacturing in the buildings currently use or may have used
chemicals, pressurized gases and other hazardous materials that are incompatible with
residential space. Additionally, many of these structures do not comply with the building
and fire codes as they do not have two means of egress, sprinklers, or adequate fire
separations from legal industrial uses in the buildings.
Both the State and City of New York have recently constructed legal protections within
the city’s “Industrial Business Zones” (IBZs), in an effort to retain manufacturing jobs for
a local workforce. The IBZs provide critical protection to industrial businesses and
manufacturing jobs, preserving tens of thousands of local jobs. These zones were
adopted precisely to preserve space for manufacturing, at a time when so much space in
the city that was once home to manufacturing uses has been converted to residential
development. The core idea of the IBZs, adopted in State and City law, is to keep them
free of residential development. If we allow blanket recognition of illegal conversions
with the IBZs, we are insuring further conversions, and conditions that will ultimately
displace many thousands of manufacturing jobs and harm New York City’s economic
growth and vitality.

We therefore respectfully request that you disapprove A-5667-C, unless substantial

chapter amendments can be agreed to today that would resolve the issues addressed in
this letter. We encourage you to support a more appropriately targeted path to
legalization for illegally-converted loft apartments that would protect tenants without
undermining New York City’s zoning laws and jeopardizing manufacturing jobs.

Sincerely,

Jerrold Nadler Nydia Velazquez

Member of Congress Member of Congress

Diana Reyna Brad Lander

Council Member Council Member
34th District, Brooklyn/Queens 39th District, Brooklyn