IN RE: Georgia MALONE (2019)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (John J. Kelley, J.), entered May 20, 2019, denying the petition to vacate a determination of respondent New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), dated January 5, 2018, which found that petitioner's apartments are not subject to rent stabilization, and dismissing the proceeding brought pursuant to CPLR article 78, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

DHCR's determination that petitioner's apartments are not subject to rent stabilization has a rational basis in the record (see Matter of Peckham v. Calogero, 12 N.Y.3d 424, 431, 883 N.Y.S.2d 751, 911 N.E.2d 813 [2009]), from which DHCR concluded that the apartments were deregulated in 1995 due to high-rent vacancy, pursuant to former Administrative Code of City of N.Y. § 26–504.2, and that the base date rents were not unreliable (see Administrative Code § 26–516[h][i];  see also Matter of Grimm v. State of N.Y. Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal Off. of Rent Admin., 15 N.Y.3d 358, 366–367, 912 N.Y.S.2d 491, 938 N.E.2d 924 [2010]).  DHCR considered all the available evidence of the units' history back to the early 1990s, including an asserted unexplained rent increase for one apartment that the landlord claimed to have substantially changed, and an alleged fraudulent scheme to deregulate both units that purportedly began years before high-vacancy rent deregulation was authorized by law, and its interpretation of the data and the inferences to be drawn therefrom is not irrational or unreasonable (see Matter of Wembly Mgt. Co. v. New York State Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal, Off. of Rent Admin., 205 A.D.2d 319, 613 N.Y.S.2d 7 [1st Dept. 1994], lv denied 85 N.Y.2d 808, 628 N.Y.S.2d 50, 651 N.E.2d 918 [1995]).

We have considered petitioner's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.