The following e-filed documents, listed by NYSCEF document number (Motion 001) 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42 were read on this motion to/for ARTICLE 78. for Judgment under Article 78 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules, DECISION + ORDER ON MOTION In this Article 78 proceeding, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association and its president, Susan Steinberg (“petitioners”), seek a judgment to overturn 19 separate orders of respondent New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) as arbitrary and capricious. For the following reasons, their petition is denied. Co-respondents BPP ST Owners, LLC, and BPP PCV Owners, LLC (“landlord”) are the corporate owners of the residential rent-stabilized apartment complex known as Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village that is located between East 14th and 20th Streets on the lower east side of New York County. (NYSCEF Doc. No. 1, verified petition, 3). Petitioners are the complex’s tenants’ association and its president. (Id., 1). The DHCR is the New York State agency charged with overseeing rent-stabilized housing accommodations located within New York City. (Id., 2). Each of the nineteen (19) orders under review herein is a final order issued by the DHCR’s Deputy Commissioner upon a petition for administrative review (“PAR”) of a prior ruling by a DHCR rent administrator (“RA”). Each PAR order upheld an earlier RA’s decision to authorize increases to the legal regulated rents of some of the complex’s rent stabilized apartment units to compensate for the cost of major capital improvement (“MCI”) work that landlord had performed. Those MCI improvements were evidently part of an ongoing, complex-wide renovation project. Landlord submitted its MCI applications separately after it completed the work in each of the complex’s buildings. Of the instant PAR orders, ten (10) concerned MCI applications that landlord filed in 2018 for the installation of hot water heaters in several buildings;1 eight (8) more concerned MCI applications that landlord filed in 2016 for the installation of hot water heaters in other buildings;2 and one(1) concerned an MCI application that landlord filed in 2018 for installing a gas re-piping system in one building.3 (NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 2, 30, PAR orders). Since the MCI work in the complex’s buildings was largely identical, the Deputy Commissioner’s PAR orders contained certain identical determinations regarding legal challenges that petitioners had raised in proceedings before RAs. This proceeding concerns two such determinations that the Deputy Commissioner repeated in several of the PAR orders and that petitioners assert were arbitrary and capricious. Petitioners commenced this Article 78 proceeding to vacate the nineteen (19) subject PAR orders on May 6, 2021. (NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 1-14). The DHCR and landlord filed their respective answers on October 7 and 21, 2021. (NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 28, 33). The court’s role in an Article 78 proceeding is to determine, upon the facts before the administrative agency, whether the determination had a rational basis in the record or was arbitrary and capricious. (See Matter of Pell v. Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 34 NY2d 222, 231 [1974]; Matter of E.G.A. Assoc. v. New York State Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal, 232 AD2d 302, 302 [1st Dept 1996]). A determination will only be found arbitrary and capricious if it is “without sound basis in reason, and in disregard of…the facts” (see Matter of Century Operating Corp. v. Popolizio, 60 NY2d 483, 488 [1983], citing Matter of Pell v. Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 34 NY2d at 231). However, if there is a rational basis for the administrative determination, there can be no judicial interference (see Matter of Pell v. Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 34 NY2d at 231-232). As noted, petitioners challenge two of the findings that the DHCR Commissioner consistently made and repeated in various PAR orders. The petition identifies these as: “(1) the Owner’s failure to include the public garages within the Apartment Complex in its MCI applications as part of the commercial offset; and (2) DHCR’s method of calculating the commercial offset pursuant to RSC §2522.4 (a) (16).” (NYSCEF Doc. No. 1, verified petition, 6). The Commissioner’s determination regarding public garages is contained in twelve (12) of the PAR orders,4 and states (with some variation in wording between those orders) as follows: “After reviewing the record of the proceeding below, the Commissioner finds the claim that an undisclosed commercial parking garage benefited from the subject MCI to be without merit. In support of their claim, the tenants point to a March 25, 2019, statement made by the owner below which notes that the complex’s garages have bathrooms and sinks that are ‘in the process of being equipped with their own separate hot water systems.’ According to the tenants, the owner’s statement demonstrates the parking garages did, at some point, benefit from the hot water heater MCIs and should therefore be included in the commercial deduction from the rent increase calculation. However, the Commissioner notes that the complete owner’s statement referenced in the tenants’ appeal in fact specifies that any hot water connection to the sinks and bathrooms of parking garages in the complex were disconnected ‘as part of the [MCI] upgrade’ and therefore, did not benefit from the installation. In full, the owner’s March 25, 2019, statement describes that: “‘Prior to the hot water/heat exchanger improvement program, the hot water in the sinks and bathrooms located in the garages were supplied from the buildings’ hot water systems. As part of the upgrade program, however, these connections were disconnected, and these sinks are in the process of being equipped with their own separate hot water systems. These sinks either have no hot water or they have hot water from their own separate hot water system. None of the garages receive [a] benefit from the hot water/heat exchangers, including either in the garage itself, the bathrooms, or the slop sinks.’ “As the owner’s full March 25, 2019 statement shows that the sinks and bathrooms within the complex’s public parking garages were disconnected from the hot water system connections as part of the hot water heater upgrade and not sometime after the MCI installation occurred, the Commissioner finds no evidence in the record to support the tenants’ contention that public parking garage space within Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village benefited from the subject hot water heater MCI.” (Id., NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 2, 30). Petitioners argue that this finding was arbitrary and capricious because the DHCR Commissioner ignored statements submitted by landlord that it was still “in the process” of installing separate hot water heaters in the buildings’ garages in 2019, and therefore improperly concluded that the heaters serving the buildings’ residential units had been disconnected earlier during the renovation process. (NYSCEF Doc. No. 1, verified petition,
10-11, 27, 54). The DHCR responds that the Deputy Commissioner reviewed the entire administrative record and reasonably rejected petitioner’s inference because other statements, documents and photographs submitted by landlord plainly demonstrated that the building’s residential hot water heaters had been disconnected from the garages ‘as part of the [MCI] upgrade,” and that, while the garages’ separate hot water heaters were “in the process” of being installed, the garages were simply without hot water.5 (NYSCEF Doc. No. 29,
