Rangel defends apartment deal, lashes out at NY Times story

A defiant Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) responded to critics on Friday after the New York Times reported what he said is a false story charging the New York congressman of paying below market rates on four Manhattan apartments.

The Times reported that Rangel, the chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, rents three adjacent apartments on the 16th floor of the Lenox Terrace building, located on 135th Street in Harlem, and rents a fourth non-adjacent apartment which he uses as an office.

The newspaper suggests that Rangel's apartment situation may violate local rent stabilization laws and federal ethics rules. The Times said Rangel paid a total monthly rent of $3,894 in 2007 while the current market value would total $7,465 to $8,125 a month for Rangel's 2,500-square-foot residence.

The building's owner, the Olnick Organization, has been accused of "overzealous tactics as they move to evict tenants from their rent-stabilized apartments and convert the units into market-rate housing," according to the Times. "Yet Mr. Rangel, a critic of other landlords' callousness, has been uncharacteristically reticent about Olnick's actions," the Times reported.

The Times located at least one critic, Dov Treiman, a lawyer who publishes The Housing Court Reporter, to question Rangel's arrangement. "There are families who manage to get two, when one tenant marries another, things like that," said Treiman. "But I've never heard of any tenant managing to get four."

"Some Congressional ethics experts, while saying it appears legitimate for Mr. Rangel to have one rent-stabilized apartment, question whether his acceptance of the additional units may violate the House of Representatives' ban on members' accepting gifts of more than $100," according to the Times.

Politico.com called it a "sweetheart deal" and another web site called it a "rent-controlled mansion."

But Rangel, 78, has lived in the building since the 1970s and it's not clear why the story has just emerged now. The news comes just a month after Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, came under fire for a "sweetheart mortgage deal" he allegedly received from Countrywide Financial. Both stories could be used this fall to undermine the Democrats in Congress.

"I don't think it's a big deal at all," New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright told the New York Daily News. Wright, who also lives in a rent-controlled apartment, called the Times story "ridiculous" and said "If he's paying his rent, everything's cool. I have never heard of a landlord who says: 'You're paying me too much rent.'" Wright also said that other people at Lenox Terrace have the same deal. "He's not the only one," Wright told the paper. "Charlie's a big target," he said.

New York Governor David Paterson rents a $1,250 two-bedroom apartment in the complex and former Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton also lives at Lenox Terrace, according to various news reports.

The New York Sun newspaper editorialized about the Rangel story today. "To our view the question raised here is not particular to Mr. Rangel. The question raised here relates to the entire system of government price controls on housing in New York City," the paper said. 

The editorial continued: "We have nothing but high regard for Chairman Rangel, a towering figure whom we like and admire a great deal and who, as far as Democrats go, is among those least hostile to capital formation. He's just doing what every New Yorker in a rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartment is doing -- enjoying the privilege that a bad law affords a lucky few at the expense of the rest of us. If his own penthouse underscores to the public the illogic of the law, he will have rendered the city a great service."

Rangel Responds In Friday Press Conference

Congressman Rangel held a news conference outside his apartment Friday afternoon and answered reporters questions about his living arrangement. Rangel's staff also released the following statement:

I called this press conference to respond to a puzzling article in today's New York Times that was critical of my living arrangements in my hometown of Harlem. The story said I live in a penthouse, and insinuated that I have some sort of sweetheart deal with the landlord. Nothing could be further from the truth.

All you have to do is look at this 50-year-old building to see that there are no penthouses, certainly not my apartment. I pay the maximum legal rent, and in fact, would be violating the law if I paid more.

When my family moved in, apartments were not scarce in Harlem, and rents were relatively low, including those in Lenox Terrace. Because I have not moved the rents have increased only incrementally each year, and therefore have remained low, especially compared to today's "downtown" rentals.

My wife, Alma, and I moved into 40 West about 20 years ago. Our apartment - the same place we live in today -- was two units combined into one by the previous occupant, Dr. Eugene Callendar, a prominent minister and community leader. It is where we raised our two children and where our three grandchildren visit with us.

A few years ago, as our family grew, we rented a small unit next door to our apartment, which served as a sort of den and work room for me and as an extra room for our children, and now our grandchildren, to sleep when they visit us.

The office mentioned in the story is a small apartment, which I use for working and to make fund-raising calls. When the apartment was rented about 10 years ago, there was no question about whether it was appropriate in view of the fact there were -- and still are -- other offices in the building.

The main point that I wish to make today is not only that the rents I pay are the maximum allowable by law, but that the units I've rented for close to 20 years are my home. What has been described as a double apartment is the same apartment it's been even before we moved in; the small unit next door is just another room in our house.

Some people are surprised that in my 78 years I've basically lived in two places, 40 West 135th Street, and before that, in a brownstone three blocks away on 132nd Street, which was owned by my grandfather and where I was born and lived for more than 50 years. It is for that reason that rents have not increased that much for me. Not because of any sweetheart deal.

I know what it's like in the rental market today: apartments are scarce, rents are high, and some unscrupulous landlords and using under-handed means to evict tenants. For years, I've been fighting them, including owners who have relationships to the owners of this building.

In my role on the Ways and Means Committee, housing has been a top priority. Since 1986, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which I authored, has been responsible for the development of 2 million rental units across the nation, and over 6,500 affordable units in Upper Manhattan alone. This year, I am working on adjustments to the tax code to expand the credits by 10 percent.

I am grateful that the G.I. Bill provided me -- a poor high school dropout from Lenox Avenue -- with the education to become a lawyer and to eventually make my way to Congress, where my position on the Ways and Means Committee is allowing me to make a difference in the lives of my constituents, friends and neighbors. Harlem will always be my home.

Rangel also read a slightly different, and much more defiant, statement when he spoke to reporters at the press conference. That statement, according to the New York Times, accused the paper of distorting critical facts. Here below is Rangel's spoken statement:

First of all, to get the general theme of the New York Times story, which starts off with Rangel living in a luxurious penthouse. It's very difficult to do this when you don't live on the top floor.

It's even more difficult to do it with a building that does not have a penthouse, but that is the general thrust of the story, in terms of talking about a guy that was born and raised in this community, and for close to 80 years lived in two places: 74 West 132nd Street and as I used to joke about it, became a big shot, moved uptown three blocks from 132nd Street and Lenox Avenue to 135th and Lenox Avenue.

I feel so terribly proud of never having to leave my neighborhood. I feel so proud that my wife, no matter what small successes we've had, has never felt to leave the neighborhood. If there's an implication that I could live someplace that's more expensive, then I would say yes and it's none of The New York Times's business where I decide to live. Nor do I think it is The New York Times's business how much space I think need for my family and friends, who used to be able, when I owned a home in Washington, to spend a night and visit, and when I lived on 132nd Street, in a brownstone, to do the same.

What is true in the story is that I pay the maximum legal rent for my apartments.

[Story updated July 11, 2008 at 7:08 p.m. EDT.]