Owner Downstairs Wants to Convert Apt into Rental Unit
Hi, I need a bit of advice from my friendly Browstoners. Our brownstone building is currently a three owner occupied building. We have the top two floors, lady below us has the 1st & 2nd floor and there is one other lady on the garden level. The lady downstairs wants to convert her 2nd floor…
Hi,
I need a bit of advice from my friendly Browstoners. Our brownstone building is currently a three owner occupied building. We have the top two floors, lady below us has the 1st & 2nd floor and there is one other lady on the garden level. The lady downstairs wants to convert her 2nd floor into a separate rentable apartment. She would like to add a kitchen.
Now, looking at the building bylaws, I know that she needs to get our permission to do this. What I’m wondering though is, will the value of our place take a hit from allowing her to go ahead with her plans? The building does have a subletting policy which allows renting out the spare floor, but I’m wondering what the repercussions would be if she added a kitchen.
One last thing, we would like to have a roof deck installed and obtain roof rights. We would probably get these signed in exchange and she would give us her spiral staircase between floors that she would no longer need which we could add to ours (b/w floors 3 & 4) for access to the roof.
All in all, what do you guys recommend?
Any advice very much appreciated.
Look into fire codes, I think everything does change from 3—>4 — sprinklers, fire escapes. BFAG may know the answers to that or you can check DOB website
All, thanks very much!
You asked much the same question in October. Just sayin’.
Whether this is a co-op or a condo, there should be provisions in the governing documents about this situation. In the co-op I lived in, all the expenses of a conversion like this would be borne by the shareholder who wanted to do it. All permits, contractors, inspections, etc.
But what does the Lady on the Garden Level get out of all this?? Hopefully she’s reading this and figuring out what she can ask for!
Our old LL converted his brownstone to four units each with its own furnace and hot water heater and he wound up paying $10K in annual property taxes, while the folks on either side (identical footprint, but still grandfathered in to no-C of O) were each paying $2K.
It’s not a trivial difference to go from three to four units. Not for tax purposes.
Adding a kitchen is what makes it a unit.
Perhaps the next step is a board meeting with everyone and with a professional or two (say, architect and co-op/condo attorney, perhaps) to discuss what would be invovled legally and financially in each of these steps and what the implications would be. Let the professionals make the plan unpalatable rather than you, and you look like you tried.
Is this a co-op or a condo? I think you can be open to the downstairs neighbor’s idea, with a commitment that both of you do this in an above-board permitted fashion. Since yourse seems relatively straightforward and hers seems either impossible or greatly expensive, hers will fail. Creating a new legal apartment is a HUGE deal in any building. let alone one with joint ownership. If she creates an illegal apartment, you all may be cruising for a bruising (as would you be if you sublet part of your space and created your own illegal apartment).
You can kiss the roofdeck goodbye if this other owner can’t get her way. That’s why I would suggest trying to make it so unappealing to this unit owner (i.e. she bears the cost and responsibility for all code upgrades, assessments, etc.) But I think it might be worth giving up the roofdeck idea, if it’s going to save the building from major alterations to bring it up to code.
Don’t the fire suppression regulations–building-wide–change with the fourth unit?