Oteri v. Temporary State Housing Rent Commission

Per Curiam.

In this article 78 proceeding, petitioners appeal from an order confirming respondent’s order fixing the maximum rent in respect of the premises here involved. Petitioners maintain the premises are not subject to rent control. The premises consist of a four-story, eight-family apartment house formerly located at 2240 Wallace Avenue, Bronx County, which was acquired by the City of New York in 1947 and sold to petitioners’ predecessor during 1950. The apartment house was thereafter removed to 2248 Holland Avenue, Bronx County. Apparently the building was never used for any purpose other than housing accommodations. Two of the tenants (apartments IB and 2B) were tenants of the structure prior to its removal from 2240 Wallace Avenue.

We hold that decontrol of the premises resulting from the ownership and operation thereof by the City of New York (State Residential Rent Law, § 2, subd. 2, par. [e]; L. 1946, ch. 274, as amd.) terminated on the sale of the premises by the City of New York; that the said decontrol was dependent upon and coincidental with its ownership and operation of said premises. We also conclude the premises were not completed on or after February 1, 1947, within the meaning of paragraph (g) of subdivision 2 of section 2 of the State Residential Rent Law.

The underlying purpose of the rent control law is to relieve ‘ ‘ a serious public emergency * * * in the housing of a considerable number of persons” and an “acute shortage of dwellings ”. (§1, subd. 1.) Although by definition a housing accommodation includes ‘ ‘ land and buildings appurtenant thereto, and all services, privileges, furnishings, furniture and facilities supplied in connection with the occupation thereof” (§ 2, subd. 2), neither the removal nor the relocation of a structure theretofore and thereafter used for housing accommodations is the equivalent of ‘ * housing accommodations * * * completed on or after February first, nineteen hundred forty-seven ” (§ 2, subd. 2, par. [g]) any more than any change in “ services, privileges, furnishings ” or any of the other incidents of housing accommodations serves to exempt or decontrol them. (See Matter of De Rosa v. Weaver, 3 A D 2d 729; Matter of Goldner v. Abrams, 2 A D 2d 763; Matter of Dajohn Realty Corp. v. McGoldrick, 1 A D 2d 835; Matter of Fiesta Realty Corp. v. McGoldrick, 284 App. Div. 551, revd. on other grounds 308 N. Y. 869; Matter of Paikoff v. McGoldrick, 280 App. Div. 996.)

The order should be affirmed, with costs to respondent.