By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — Housing activists are planning victory parties, but lawyers for New York's so-called "illegal hotels" are vowing to fight a new law that cracks down on running hotels in residential buildings.
The hotels, many of which are on the Upper West Side, have until May to comply with the new law, which Gov. David Paterson signed on Friday.
Attorney David Satnick, who represents several of the affected hotels, said he'll spend the next few months working to convince lawmakers that the new rules are "misguided."
Satnick contends that his clients, including the Candy Hotel and Hostel on W. 95th Street, provide jobs, revenue, and inexpensive rooms for budget travelers.
"We can't afford to lose these jobs, we can't afford to lose the tax income and we can't afford to send away budget tourists," Satnick said. "We want them to come to our city and spend money."
Satnick said if he can't persuade lawmakers to change the law, he'll take the matter to court.
He added, "This is the wrong bill at the wrong time."
Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who pushed for the new law, disputed that idea. "According to them there's never a good time to do this because they're making profits hand over fist at the expense of people who live in these buildings."
Rosenthal said long-time tenants in buildings that rent rooms to tourists suffer because tourists don't treat the building with the same care as permanent tenants.
"They lose a lot by having people stay there who don't feel a responsibility to keep it clean and nice," Rosenthal said. "When there are transients there, they feel like they can do whatever they want."
Housing activists say the hotels — where tourists rent rooms in buildings with permanent tenants — are eating into the city's stock of affordable housing because landlords are converting apartments into hotel rooms.
They say longtime tenants are denied services and encouraged to move out so landlords can rent their rooms to tourists.
Maids make up visitors' rooms while hallways go uncleaned, said Jackie Del Valle of the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, a group that has worked to combat the spread of hotel rentals.
"Tenants feel harassed and treated like second-class citizens," Del Valle told DNAinfo on Friday.
But Satnick says his clients are providing a service that's increasingly difficult to find in New York: a cheap hotel room for budget-minded travelers.
The most expensive room at the Candy Hotel and Hostel costs $104 a night, according to the its website.
Satnick also argued that when residential buildings cater to tourists instead of other transients, neighborhoods improve. In the past, the buildings became magnets for prostitutes and drug dealers, Satnick said.
"If the state continues to press this bill, it's going to revert these buildings back to their old dilapidated condition and you're going to see more urban blight," Satnick said.
