Matter of Waldman v New York City Dept. of Hous. Preserv. & Dev.

Matter of Waldman v New York City Dept. of Hous. Preserv. & Dev. 2007 NY Slip Op 00381 [36 AD3d 501] January 18, 2007 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, March 14, 2007

In the Matter of Rachel Waldman et al., Respondents,
v
New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Appellant, et al., Respondent.

—[*1] Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York (Victoria Scalzo of counsel), for appellant. Tenenbaum & Berger, LLP, Brooklyn (David M. Berger of counsel), for respondents.

Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Walter B. Tolub, J.), entered January 23, 2006, which, insofar as appealed from, granted petitioners' application to annul respondent New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development's (HPD) determinations denying petitioners succession rights to the subject Mitchell-Lama apartments, and remanded for further proceedings, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

HPD improperly circumvented its rules and regulations by proceeding pursuant to 28 RCNY 3-02 (p). That regulation, which sets forth the process by which an individual can seek to succeed to the apartment of a family member, does not give HPD or the housing company the authority to initiate or prosecute proceedings regarding improperly obtained family succession rights. Instead, because petitioners had been issued leases by the housing company, albeit without the required approval of HPD, the proper procedure was for the housing company to commence lease termination proceedings pursuant to 28 RCNY 3-18 (see e.g. Matter of Verdell v Lincoln Amsterdam House, Inc., 27 AD3d 388 [2006]). We have considered HPD's other contentions and find them unavailing. Concur—Tom, J.P., Mazzarelli, Saxe, Marlow and Catterson, JJ.