The owner of a controversial Queens hotel site that's being used as a homeless shelter is suing the hotel's operator, opening up a second legal battle that threatens to undermine Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans to house the city's homeless.
Harshad Patel runs the Holiday Inn Express at 59-40 55th Road in Maspeth. This summer, he announced plans to lease rooms to the city's Department of Homeless Services for use as temporary housing. The news prompted boisterous protests from local residents, which were strongly condemned by the de Blasio administration.
While Patel built and now runs the hotel, his firm, New Ram Realty, leases the land it sits on from Kimcomatt Realty Corp. That company, which is run by Barry Haskell, denied Patel's Aug. 25 request to rent the rooms in bulk to the administration, citing a clause in the ground lease that permits rooms to be rented only to hotel guests.
As the backlash over the shelter plans reached a crescendo in early September, Patel told media outlets that he was backing off the deal due to community opposition. But the new lawsuit alleges that shortly thereafter, New Ram Realty quietly worked out an agreement to rent the rooms to the city anyway, in a deal that was specifically structured to circumvent the use restrictions in the ground lease.
On Oct. 10, around 30 homeless adults were moved into the hotel. About two weeks later, Kimcomatt filed the lawsuit in Queens Supreme Court, asking a judge to block any more homeless individuals from moving into the building, and to rule that New Ram is in violation of its lease. "The potential profit to New Ram must have been too great to turn down," the suit said, "because in blatant disregard of the terms of its lease and in contradiction to its representations to the community, New Ram has begun the conversion of the hotel to a homeless shelter."
Complaint against New Ram Realty, owner of the Maspeth Holiday Inn by crainsnewyork on Scribd
10 comments:
Will the court and judge rule in the property owner's favor, or in the City's favor?
Just another case of American blind justice... But
This is, for a lack of a sophisticated word or two, FUCKING SCANDALOUS
It looks like the constituency is on the hook for another million or two to Debevoise & Plimpton.
Crossing my fingers that this gets corrected and this goes back to being a hotel.
One can only hope.
I'm amazed that this story isn't in every New York publication, news cast and talk show. It proves clearly how deBlasio thinks he's above the law while trying to convince people he's doing it for the homeless.
the city is spending millions on housing the homeless, but as a business owner, I see more and more homeless in my stores at night and panhandling during the day right in front of my businesses. where are these dollars going??? this city is heading down the wrong path.
I counted 12 homeless roaming Queens Blvd in Forest Hills tonight. One was half naked another was screaming vulgarities. All of them were dressed in filthy clothing and coats.
"The Dishonest Media" Donald Trump
Isnt this Jimmy Van Bamers district. Nice to see that he ignores this while pushing legislation letting perverts with gender identity issues into girls restrooms.
THATS the guy for the mayor's chair in city hall - Washington will love that when its time to ask for money for the city.
Why doesn't the government just issue gift cards to hotels and then the homeless population can stay at any hotel and the general public wouldn't know where they are staying.
It would be a win win for everyone.
So why are they there?
Where is that fucking crooked borough president, Melinda Katz?
Too busy opening her thighs fo some developer pal?
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