Rivington House Deed Scandal Inspires New Legislation

The scandal over the lifting of a deed restriction at Rivington House on the Lower East Side has inspired new legislation designed to increase transparency around properties with deed restrictions, DNAinfo reports.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and councilwoman Margaret Chin introduced a bill on Wednesday that would create a publicly searchable database of properties with deed restrictions and require public notification whenever the city considers lifting such a restriction.

The legislation was inspired by the sale of the Rivington House, a former AIDS hospice that was supposed to remain a nonprofit health care facility in perpetuity. But after the building’s owner, the Allure Group, paid the city $16 million to lift a deed restriction, the company flipped the building to a developer of luxury condos for a tidy $72 million profit. The sale has inspired three separate investigations and now, possibly, a new law.

Brewer called a searchable database and public notification requirements “common-sense reforms,” adding, “If they had been in place last year, the only discussion we’d be having about Rivington House today is what kind of nonprofit health care facility should be there.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, continues to insist that he knew nothing about the lifting of the deed restriction until the sale of Rivington House was reported in the news media.