284 A.D. 810 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1954
Petitioner owns a building in Queens County, in which there are several apartments. Prior to 1949, the second floor front apartment consisted of three rooms and had a maximum registered rental of $35 a month. Some time in 1949, and 1950, petitioner’s predecessor in title installed partitions in the said apartment, making a five-room accommodation therefrom, and made other improvements at considerable expense and in good faith, intending to rent it for professional use. A certificate of occupancy for professional use was obtained. Petitioner acquired title on August 30, 1950. The accommodation was never rented for professional use. In 1952, one of the partitions was removed and the apartment was rented for housing use at $70 a month. The tenant filed a claim for overcharge. The landlord filed an application for an increase in the maximum rent from $35 to $70 a month. After the State Rent Administrator gave notice that he proposed to determine that the maximum rent was $50 a month, the landlord claimed that the apartment was not subject to rent control pursuant to clause (1) of paragraph (g) of subdivision 2 of section 2 of the State Residential Rent Law (L. 1946, ch. 274, as amd.), and subdivision 4 of section 9 of the State Rent and Eviction Regulations, in that this was a housing accommodation created by a change from a nonhousing to a housing use after February 1, 1947. The local rent administrator thereafter fixed the maximum rent at $50 a month, which order was affirmed by the State Rent Administrator on June 8, 1953, on the ground that the statute and regulation in question contemplated a situation where an accommodation was not used as a housing accommodation on February 1,1947, and is then or thereafter changed to a housing accommodation. In an article 78 proceeding to review this order, Special Term annulled the determination on the ground that the use on February 1, 1947, is immaterial; that all the regulation requires is that the housing use shall have been created