Press Release: SPS Properties GR-8, LLC

August 12, 2008

On July 10, the landlord SPS Properties GR-8, LLC (owned by Ken and Gayle Dubensky of Ardsley, New York), pled guilty to a violation of the City Zoning Ordinance in City Court.  SPS Properties had rented a house at 8 Lincoln Avenue to a group of six undergraduates; as a single family unit in an R-1 district, 8 Lincoln Avenue could only be legally occupied by a "functional and factual family unit."  This guilty plea was the final result of a ten-month campaign by a large group of residents and homeowners of the West Side to have the zoning laws enforced in this case. 

The guilty plea to the violation of Section 410-26 of the City of Binghamton Code of Ordinances carried with it a fine of $1,500.00 and a one year conditional discharge.  The conditional discharge agreement states that the landlord may continue renting the premises only under the conditions that the house be rented to no more than three individuals and that no additional violations of the law occur there.  If SPS Properties violates the agreement, the conditional discharge will be revoked and enforcement to the full extent of the law begun.  Accordingly, enforcement of any new violations will be streamlined by use the conditional discharge agreement reached on the prior violation.

This story was initially covered in the media (Press & Sun-Bulletin, the Pipe Dream and various TV stations) in mid-December.  At that time, the landlord and its attorney, Douglas Walter Drazen, framed the issue as one of faculty versus students, since two professors live in one of the two neighboring households that brought the initial complaint to the City of Binghamton. 

Despite their efforts, as the case has unfolded in the course of this past year, it has become amply clear that this has been a matter of a neighborhood attempting to preserve its residential character.  Eleven households from lower Lincoln signed a letter to the Zoning Board asking that it uphold the law restricting occupancy of a single-family unit by the equivalent of a family; an additional 100 residents of Binghamton's West Side signed a petition to that effect.  On February 5, when the Zoning Board heard arguments regarding this case, 28 West Side residents were in attendance, and several spoke to the issues involved.  At no point has this issue been an issue of faculty versus students.

Indeed, there were only two players here: the landlord renting a house in an R-1 district to six unrelated tenants and the City with the ability to enforce the violation, subject to the review of the ZBA.
 
The Zoning Board of Appeals concluded that the landlord knew he was renting to the students in violation of the Zoning Ordinance.  The lease provided that the tenants must vacate within thirty days of their occupancy being found to be in violation of the Zoning Ordinance.  It also purported to forfeit any cause of action the tenants may have had against the landlord due to the termination of the lease due to a violation of the Zoning Ordinance.  The lease even included a pre-typed statement that "the group has expressed its intention to inhabit the property to be leased as a family unit, sharing living expenses, utility costs, and providing mutual mental and emotional support to one another."  That statement conveniently addresses the criteria set forth in the Zoning Ordinance's definition of "Factual and Functional Family Equivalent." 

By including provisions of this kind in a lease agreement a landlord may attempt to insulate itself from City enforcement and lawsuits brought against it by tenants it is forced to evict as a result of an ongoing violation.  However, incidental to including those protections, a landlord may reveal its intentions to actively sidestep the Zoning Ordinance.  Noting those intentions upon their review of the matter, the ZBA here found that the six tenants were not a family and the City was prepared to commence enforcement proceedings against the landlord in City Court. 

However, the landlord received a stay of enforcement from the City Court by applying (in April) for a use variance from the ZBA to convert 8 Lincoln into an "off-campus dormitory."  But on June 4, 2008, the day of the public hearing, the landlord withdrew the application prior to the opening of the public hearing on the matter; a public hearing for which at least fifty concerned residents had taken time out their day to appear, voice their concerns, and protect their property interests.  The late withdrawal of the use variance application led many to wonder if the application for the use variance was merely a stalling mechanism which would allow the tenants to continue living in the house and paying their rent for the remainder of the lease term which expired on May 25, 2008.  Many of the concerned neighbors reached the conclusion that the use variance application was just that and worried that the issue of enforcement would become moot in the eyes of the City court because the tenants would have vacated the house by the time the variance application was dropped.

Nonetheless, the City continued to pursue the prior violation; the resulting guilty plea and conditional discharge are to be applauded, since this outcome assures Binghamton residents that the City of Binghamton intends to protect its neighborhoods by prosecuting violations of its zoning laws.