INN FOR A POUND: FlipKey is targeting residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village with this mailer.
INN FOR A POUND: FlipKey is targeting residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village with this mailer. (
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Greetings from Hotel Stuy Town!
A trendy travel outfit is trying to lure tenants at Manhattan’s sprawling Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village with a deal that would convert their apartments into temporary hotel space for tourists.
In mailings sent out by Internet travel site FlipKey, tenants are being promised the chance to pick up an extra $1,000 by letting tourists use their East Side homes while they’re out of town.
“Rent your place while you’re away,” reads the promotion. “NYC averages $1,000 per booking!”
But a chance for tourists to hobnob with the city’s middle class is getting panned by city lawmakers and by managers at the complex who say the offer is against the law.
“You don’t want to wake up in your apartment building and realize that you are living in a hotel,” said City Councilman Dan Garodnick, who represents the East Side.
Garodnick fired off a letter to Boston-based FlipKey, which is owned by the travel firm TripAdvisor, demanding that the company stop peddling its quick-cash plan to city tenants.
Under city law, tenants can’t sublease or rent apartments for less than a month.
“The law is so written because residences and hotels have different and distinct needs to ensure the safety of the people staying in them,” he wrote.
FlipKey did not respond to a request for comment.
While Garodnick was sending off his letter, building managers at the housing complex warned tenants that they could be evicted if they’re caught hosting tourists.
“Use of this service is a violation of your lease and tenancy,” the management company wrote in a letter it sent to its 11,232 units after learning FlipKey had mailed postcards asking tenants to consider leasing their units for as little as a week.
“Furthermore, short-term rentals such as these are harmful to the Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town community and negatively impact your neighbors,” the management company wrote.
In the mailings sent to tenants, FlipKey tells anyone interested to sign up online so travelers can make arrangements, which would be overseen by the company.
Residents would receive payments from guests directly online, according to the advertisement.
FlipKey isn’t the first travel outfit trying to parlay vacant apartments into tourist cash in the city.
“We have seen a growing problem in New York City with illegal hotels cropping up in residential buildings,” Garodnick said.