From the fire escape of Dave Mitchell’s building, an industrial space on Dobbin Street now converted into residential lofts, you can look across a gray roofscape to the end of the block. On this industrial badland, wild parties were once held, but no longer. Now a gated metal fence—one of several baby-safe upgrades to come—cuts off the fire escape from its surroundings.
“This used to all be open,” Mitchell said. “You used to be able to get on the roof.”
The reason for the change is that residents of the building, located in an Industrial Business Zone in Greenpoint, filed an application with the New York City Loft Board to have their units declared legal residences. Although the application is still under review, their landlord has already begun bringing the building up to code.
As more buildings like Mitchell’s file for residential status, the famously bohemian culture of Brooklyn loft-dwelling is mellowing into something only slightly grittier than regular apartment life. It isn’t exactly the suburbs, but already, Mitchell says, families with children have begun moving in.
For decades, illegally converted loft buildings have been a fixture of New York City housing, drawing people who like living off the grid. Mitchell, a 27-year-old skateboarder who has shared a Greenpoint loft with several friends for the past six years, is such a person. Loft-dwellers like him gain privacy and low rent in exchange for a lack of basic services, rent stabilization and other tenant rights.
The loft law, passed in June 2010, has begun to change that landscape. Based on a similar 1982 law that focused on Manhattan loft-dwellers, the new law makes it possible for occupants of commercial buildings in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg, North Brooklyn and Maspeth IBZs to obtain full residential rights. One requirement of the application is that at least three units of the building must have been occupied continuously from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2009.
In Mitchell’s building, the one leading the drive for legalization was Leah Hebert. She organized a meeting for all the occupants to decide whether they wanted to pursue protections under the loft law. Most of her neighbors showed up, and they took a vote. It was unanimous in favor of applying.
Hebert serves as chief of staff for Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a longtime affordable housing advocate and the sponsor of the 2010 loft law. She says her knowledge of that law—acquired by working for Lopez—has allowed her to advise her landlord on the legalization process and soothe his concerns.
“He was very hesitant at first,” she said. “It took a lot of mediation.”
Other landlords aren’t so willing to join hands with their tenants. “Sometimes landlords will look at [the loft law] as something impeding their ability to get the biggest financial return on their investment,” Hebert said. “They will try and claim incompatible use, they will try and claim all kinds of things.”
In response to the reported bullying of tenants by landlords, which occurred in the wake of the loft law, Lopez sponsored another bill, this one guaranteeing loft-dwellers basic services such as heat and water while they await the result of their Loft Board application. It also grants them the ability to plead their case in housing court if their landlord is abusive. The bill went into effect in April 2011. However, Rich Mazur, executive director of North Brooklyn Development Corporation, suspects the harassment has not stopped since then but has simply become less overt.
“I’d say the percentage of abusers is about the same,” he guessed. “Economics dictate [that they not] lose sight of their ultimate goal.”
For now, Hebert says, the relationship with her landlord is good but precarious. Tenants who have not individually applied for legal residency status are still technically illegal occupants unless and until the owner registers his building with the Loft Board. Hebert’s landlord says he’s going to register the building, but hasn’t done it yet.
Mitchell understands the desire to protect what’s yours, but feels bad about forcing his landlord to spend money to make the building legally habitable. These costs, however, are passed on to the tenants over time.
What’s worse, legalization “changes the whole feel of the neighborhood,” Mitchell said. By his own admission, he performs “glorified manual labor” building window displays for fashion houses like Louis Vuitton, and currently splits a $2,000-a-month rent on a five-bedroom loft with six others. By contrast, he says, new residents are “creatives and people that are making a lot of money.”
Lacy Davis typifies the new breed of loft-dweller. Recently arrived from Oklahoma, Davis, 28, a girlish blonde with an open face, is subletting from a man who moved out because his dog died and he could no longer bear to live in the unit they had shared. He left behind an extensive book collection, including works by Michael Chabon and the Marquis de Sade. He also left a mess.
“The place was filthy,” Davis said, and she and her roommate promptly set about cleaning it up.
Despite her willingness to tackle dirt and grime, it’s hard to imagine her making a home here during the days when, Mitchell says, “squatter laws” prevailed and a Russian gambling establishment operated out of the building. The police eventually shut down the illegal gambling operation but they left the tenants alone.
“People were evicted, and still living in their apartments. It was wild, man. Now it’s pretty much just like a normal apartment building,” Mitchell said.
Davis is paying less than $1,000 a month for her share of the loft, and is happy with that. “I think he’s still making money off me,” she said of her landlord.
Without air conditioning or central heat, living in a loft can still be “gnarly at times,” Mitchell said, but his building is no longer the Wild West frontier town it once was. He seems more than a little nostalgic for the bad old days. “It used to be a lot more, like, you could do whatever you want,” he said.
Asked why she moved in four years ago, before protections for loft occupants were in place, Hebert is unequivocal. “They’re beautiful spaces,” she said. “Tall ceilings, huge windows and we are walking distance from the Bedford stop. Who wouldn’t want to live here?”
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