U.S. Says Many Apartments Violate Law on Disabled

Facing potential lawsuits by the federal government, developers and landlords in New York City may need to spend tens of millions of dollars to renovate more than 100,000 apartments built since 1991 to comply with federal housing laws barring discrimination against tenants who use wheelchairs, real estate industry officials say.

For 20 years, residential developers have complied with a city law requiring them to ensure that all the apartments they build are accessible to disabled tenants. Considered path-breaking legislation when it was enacted in 1988, the city law essentially meets the federal requirements of the Fair Housing Act, developers and city officials say.

But the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has sent letters to about a dozen of the city’s most prominent landlords and their architects saying that some of their buildings were “not accessible to persons with disabilities,” which would constitute discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. The recipients included Related Companies, the Durst Organization, Rose Associates, Rockrose Development and Silverstein Properties.

The letters said that doors were not wide enough, and that kitchens and bathrooms were not big enough to allow someone in a wheelchair to maneuver. Also, the letters said, tenants could not install “grab bars” to lift themselves in or out of a tub, because the walls had not been reinforced.

The federal prosecutor’s office, which began sending the letters in January, has asked owners for meetings, building inspections and all the records of the design and layout of the apartments in specific buildings. Until recently, the real estate industry had hoped that the matter would quietly go away.

But last week, the United States attorney’s office filed a lawsuit against one of the recipients, AvalonBay Communities, and its architects, charging them with discrimination against disabled people by failing to provide sufficient access at Avalon Chrystie Place, a building on the Lower East Side with 361 apartments.

Article by "Mr.Charles V.Bagli"