No more hot plates, now they're cookin' with gas

After more than seven months, gas once again is piping through 500 W. 235th St.

The seven-story, 87-unit building finally passed a government inspection allowing residents there to once again use gas-powered stoves and other appliances — something they haven’t been able to do since the end of October.

“I think they weren’t treating it as much of an emergency as I believe they should have,” said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who publicly pushed for gas to be restored in the residential building. “After all, it’s not the landlord suffering, it’s the residents of the building.”

Those residents were told gas would be off for a short time Oct. 26 when Elbridge Realty Corp. — which manages the building for landlord A. Richard Parkoff — hired Advanced Plumbing, Mechanical and Sprinkler Corp., to do some repair work on the lines. The work, however, failed a number of inspections by the city’s building department, Dinowitz said, preventing Con Edison from restoring gas to the building.

The landlord did not respond to a request for comment.

The outage became a nightmare for residents, who were forced to use hot plates in order to cook. Inspectors visited the building at least twice before Dinowitz stepped in last month, both times citing incomplete work that left gas lines exposed.

“In most buildings — and this one included — the gas is part of your rent or your maintenance, as the case may be,” Dinowitz said. “It is part of what you’re paying for. And when you’re not getting it, you have to use hot plates. It might not be costing you a lot more, but you’re still not getting the gas you’re entitled to and you’re paying for.”

Many of the residents were afraid to speak out initially out of fear Parkoff would jack up rent, Dinowitz said. A good number of the leases at 500 W. 235th were signed with preferential rent — rent that is typically lower than the going market rate.

Landlords could opt for preferential rent if they are struggling to fill a building otherwise. But nothing in current law prevents the landlord from increasing the rent as much as he wants when the lease comes up for renewal, meaning the tenant will either have to pay that higher rent, or move.

Teresa Colon, the constituent relations director in Dinowitz’s office, reached out not only to the landlord, but also ConEd and the city’s building department, to try and resolve the problem. Dinowitz himself sent a public letter to the landlord May 10.

While the gas problem at 500 W. 235th is resolved, there are still more proverbial fires the Assemblyman must attend to.

“We have a lot of interactions with landlords throughout the district,” Dinowitz said. “People think everything is perfect in Riverdale, but it’s not true. It’s very often a battle to get landlords to do the basic things they’re supposed to be doing.

“We shouldn’t have to intervene, they should do the right thing, but unfortunately that doesn’t happen in the real world.”