* LOW RENT FOR GOV, DAD AT RANGEL TOWER
* A-LISTER BARGAINS AMID EVICTION BIDS
Rep. Charles Rangel isn’t the only Harlem big shot with a sweetheart deal at the famed Lenox Terrace.
The dean of the New York congressional delegation may have snagged four rent-stabilized apartments in the luxury complex, but some of his peers – a Who’s Who of powerbrokers from the governor to a millionaire broadcasting executive – have also scored below-market rents.
Big names with subsidized digs include Gov. Paterson, his father, Basil, former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and his millionaire son, Pierre, former NAACP leader Hazel Dukes and one-time state Democratic Party head Rodney Capel, who is the son of Rangel aide James Capel.
Rangel, who pays about $3,900 a month total for his four pads, has said he would give up only one apartment since revelations about his living arrangements emerged more than a week ago.
Lenox Terrace, a six-tower development with about 1,700 apartments, celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.
For the past half-century, the complex, which spans 132nd and 135th streets and Fifth and Lenox avenues and features private parks and parking, has had a reputation as a new Sugar Hill, the longstanding home of Harlem elites.
Writer and jazz critic Albert Murray has called Lenox Terrace home, as once did legendary Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, whose story was partially told in the Denzel Washington film “American Gangster.”
These days, it is a hot address in rapidly gentrifying Harlem.
Its residents have accused the owner, the Olnick Organization, which constructed the complex for $14 million with the support of master builder Robert Moses in the late ’50s, of orchestrating evictions to remove rent-stabilized tenants.
But some politically connected tenants have no reason to fear losing their cut-rate apartments.
Take Pierre “Pepe” Sutton, the multimillionaire CEO of Inner City Broadcasting, which runs WBLS and other urban-themed radio stations around the country.
Sutton, the son of political lion Percy Sutton, has a five-room, rent-stabilized apartment at 10 W. 135 St., according to the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal.
He pays about $1,000 a month in rent, according to a source who reviewed his records.
Sutton also has a pad on the Upper East Side and a seven-bedroom, four-bathroom mansion in Bronxville, Westchester County.
He did not return calls for comment.
The Olnick Organization declined to comment.
Owners of rent-stabilized apartments are permitted – but not required – to deregulate apartments if they can prove that tenants whose rents top $2,000 earn more than $175,000 a year or that the unit is not their primary residence.
Any rent increases on stabilized apartments must follow the guidelines passed by a regulatory board. But the guidelines don’t apply to deregulated apartments, so deregulation can be tantamount to eviction if tenants can’t afford the new rents.
About five years ago, the Olnick Organization began an aggressive campaign to remove rent-stabilized tenants whom they could prove had violated the rules or who otherwise met the requirements for deregulation, according to LaMarr Sellars, former president of the Lenox Terrace Tenants Association.
“The community still thinks we got a raw deal. There was no sympathy or compassion,” he said. “None of our politicians or the media came forward to say anything. Now that process is over, and people are homeless or moved out.”
Market-rate apartments at Lenox Terrace range from $1,865 to $2,005 a month for a one-bedroom and up to $2,750 for a two-bedroom. No three-bedroom apartments are currently available, according to the Olnick Organization Web site.
Percy Sutton, like Rangel, has one of the complex’s coveted double apartments. Sutton, 87, pays approximately $1,200 a month for the eight-room combination apartment, according to the source.
And, like his son, he lives lavishly upstate – on a 36-acre spread in Goshen, Orange County.
Also enjoying a rent-stabilized apartment in the complex is Cheryl Sutton, Pierre’s ex-wife and a former executive at Inner City Broadcasting.
Gov. Paterson pays $1,250 for his rent-stabilized two-bedroom in the complex, while also maintaining a home in suburban Albany and the Executive Mansion in the capital.
Paterson’s father, Basil, a former state secretary of state, has an $868-a-month apartment in Lenox Terrace as well as a home in Sarasota, Fla., according to housing records and published reports.
Dukes, the former president of the city branch of the NAACP whose accomplishments were marred by her 1997 confession that she stole $13,000 checks from a disabled city worker, is a stabilized tenant, records show.
James Capel, Rangel’s chief of staff, also rents a market-rate apartment in the complex, and his son, Rodney, the deputy chief of staff to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, moved into a rent-stabilized unit in 2003.
“I grew up in the building,” Rodney Capel said, noting he was put on a waiting list like everyone else.