POUGHKEEPSIE – A plan to
require apartment buildings in the City of Poughkeepsie with nine or more
units to have live-in superintendents isn’t going over well with
building owners.
Several spoke during an initial public hearing Tuesday night.
Typical was Ken Stickle, who owns several buildings. His contention is that the proposal would be economically self-defeating, and isn’t really needed.
“You take away more profit out of somebody’s pocket, you’re not going to turn around and have anybody wanting to invest, Stickle said. “We want to attract investors in. You don’t penalize them and say ‘oh, well, you have to have a superintendent’.”
Stickle said there is information posted in all of his buildings letting tenants know how to reach him.
Mayoral candidate Ken Levinson, a registered Democrat, who runs a business that rehabs housing in the city, cited simple economics.
“Taking money out of the landlord’s pocket would either increase rents … if you have a 10-unit building and you make one for free, the rents have to go up ten percent, or, expenses have to be decreased 10 percent.”
That, Levinson said, would erode the city’s housing stock.
Others claimed that bad landlords would likely hire unqualified supers.
Another speaker, who had managed buildings in New York City, said she
viewed the concept to be “not necessarily a burden,” ”but,
found the Poughkeepsie proposal “riddled with defects.”
Council Chairman Christopher Petsas said the proposal is in a very eaerly
stage and is far from being in final form.
“The current proposal up for discussion tonight is not the final law, nor will it be,” Petsas said. “There are many more months ahead of us of dialog, of research and, hopefully, of compromise.”
No further hearings have been scheduled.
