300 N.Y. 176 | NY | 1949
Appellant landlord challenges the validity of those provisions of the Administrative Code of the City of New *179
York which restrict the right of landlords to evict tenants from "apartments in the city" (Administrative Code of City of New York, § U41-7.0, subd. c, as validated by L. 1948, chs. 4, 699). That challenge is levelled at the local law as it read before the amendment of October, 1949 (Local Laws, 1949, No. 73 of City of New York; see F.T.B. Realty Corp. v. Goodman,
Appellant desires to evict twenty-nine families from three apartment houses in order to demolish the buildings and construct a loading platform for its adjacent warehouse. The landlord has not made provision for relocation of its tenants, an essential condition under the local law upon its right to a certificate of eviction for that purpose (Administrative Code of City of New York, § U41-7.0, subd. g). Since the temporary city housing rent commission could not have granted an eviction certificate under those circumstances, appellant properly sought to challenge the local law by these dispossess proceedings in the Municipal Court (see Matter of Wong v. Finkelstein,
The asserted conflict with Federal law is without substance. We consider that law as it stands today (see Quaker Oats Co. v.City of New York,
Appellant's chief contention is that the local law deprives a landlord of property without due process of law, because it denies to him the power to withdraw his property from the rental market. Conceding that the issue may be posed thus — for the condition upon appellant's right to evict its tenants for the purpose alleged below should be regarded as prohibitive under the present emergency — the argument, nevertheless, must fail. Similar restrictions upon the power of a landlord, induced by an earlier and lesser emergency, were said to fall within the lawful scope of "the police power in its proper sense, under which property rights may be cut down, and to that extent taken, without pay" (Block v. Hirsh,
The orders should be affirmed, with costs.
LOUGHRAN, Ch. J., LEWIS, CONWAY, DESMOND, DYE and FULD, JJ., concur.
Orders affirmed. *181