Bernstein On WestHelp

We are publishing Mr Bernsteins Press Release as a courtesy as other media sources will only focus on Mr Feiner. This is in the effort of fair play and not an admission of agreement or endorsement with what is said.

Democratic candidate for Greenburgh town supervisor Bob Bernstein said today Supervisor Paul Feiner's proposed 18-year lease of the 108 county-owned apartments at WestHELP – once the Town's largest non-tax source of revenue – is a “complete mess that can't be fixed and won't guarantee affordable housing or revenue to the Town.”

According to its lease with the county, the town is required to use the 108 apartments for low or moderate income rental housing. Mr. Feiner twice failed to respond to a county request to extend the WestHELP lease for an additional 10-year period through 2021 and has kept the premises vacant and deteriorating for the past 21 months with no revenue to the Town.

With the County Board of Legislators threatening to place the town in default for not maintaining the property or using it as required, Mr. Feiner has proposed entering a lease with Group MRH, a start-up company with no affordable housing experience, that previously proposed $2 million in repairs, which it offered to allow the Town to hold in escrow, and a $500,000 a year rent payment to the Town.

The proposed lease makes no mention of the $2 million in renovations or any escrow and provides no protection at all to taxpayers the property will be maintained, properly managed, or even used for affordable housing. Furthermore, even though no school-age children are expected to live there, the lease gives the town the right to divert a substantial portion of the rent to the Valhalla School District in “property taxes” which the Town says it will levy and pay for itself, thus giving the Valhalla School District revenues a court had previously ruled were illegal.

Under Mr. Feiner's proposed lease, all the Town can do in the event MRH fails to pay rent, to use the property for affordable housing, or maintain the property, is demand MRH “cause the Premises to be vacated” and “deliver vacant possession” to the Town.

“This makes no sense,” Mr. Bernstein said. “It means if there's ever a default, the town would have to force MRH to put innocent tenants on the street in order to get a new company to come in and make things right. No municipality would ever do that.”

Under the terms of the county's lease with the Town, no subleasing is permitted without the county's express written consent. Mr. Bernstein said Mr. Feiner's proposed lease is “such a non-starter that the WestHELP apartments will now probably remain vacant and deteriorating for the foreseeable future – much to the delight of the Tea Party Republicans who never wanted this housing built in the first place.”

The town-wide Democratic Primary for Town Supervisor will be held Tuesday, September 10.