Queens Housing Court in need of HPD attys, judge says
/
Queens Housing Court is in the process of trying to calendar more HPD-related cases but its top judge says more HPD attorneys are needed. Eagle file photo by David Brand
By Rachel Vick
Queens Housing Court needs help only the Department of Housing Preservation and Development can provide — lawyers to represent the agency during proceedings.
Proceedings in the borough have been stalled by the insufficient ratio, Supervising Judge John Lansden said earlier this week. He had asked HPD to assign an additional lawyer to the court to help work through the amassed caseload, a request met for courts in other counties in the city.
“There hasn’t been any progress,” Lansden told the Eagle.
HPD attorneys are needed for HP proceedings — cases where tenants sue their landlords for services and repairs — where HPD is made a party to the case. The agency is automatically named as a third-party in cases where a tenant initiates legal action against a private landlord.
According to NYC Open Data, there are 477 pending HPD cases in Queens.
In Manhattan, there are 981 pending cases, 1,173 in the Bronx, 2,211 in Brooklyn and 41 in Staten Island.
An HPD spokesperson told the Eagle that attorneys are distributed across the boroughs based on the caseloads within each borough’s Housing Court.
HPD was unable to confirm the exact number of attorneys currently assigned to Queens cases.
Throughout the pandemic, tenants citywide filed just over 16,450 cases citing disruption of services, lack of repairs and illegal lockouts, THE CITY reported.
Though the city’s courts were largely closed during the peak of the pandemic, emergency cases, like those where tenants were in need of emergency repairs and critical services like heat or hot water continued.
In cases where HPD is named as a party in the case, limiting the availability of a lawyer slows down the process, the judge said. With additional HPD representation, Lansden said a second judge could be assigned the cases in question.
In a recent conversation with attorneys from the Queens County Bar Association, Lansden urged lawyers to try and maximize mediation and settle without going to trial whenever possible to ease the overall caseload for the overburdened court.
“We ask that you be patient,” Lansden said in February. “As you can imagine, resources are stretched this thin [and we try to] do our best.”
The borough has only calendared HPD cases two days a week for a number of years and Lansden is looking to add another day, according to OCA Spokesperson Lucian Chalfen.
“I’m not so sure we need [HPD’s] agreement but it is certainly easier if we have it,” Chalfen said.
Lansden said an insufficient number of HPD attorneys isn’t the only thing slowing down the borough’s Housing Court. A number of personnel changes have left the court short staffed.
“As you may be aware there were a number of retirements, of promotions of transfers during COVID and OCA is still in the process of trying to catch up and hire staff to replace those who fit in those proper categories,” he said. “Any unforeseen absences... will leave Housing Court scrambling to provide coverage, and certainly leave at least one judge without a court attorney.”
