The buildings — 573 Metropolitan Avenue, a 3rd Ward design center where its members work; and 151 Kent Avenue, a loft where artists have resided for over a decade — were visited at noon by city inspectors responding to anonymous complaints to the city over illegal residential conversions.
At the same time, buildings inspectors raided a two-story industrial loft building in nearby Clinton Hill following complaints of an “illegal club” operating on the premises.
Taken together, all three actions by the city were viewed with skepticism by some of the buildings’ tenants.
“It feels like a sweep,” one resident of the Metropolitan Avenue building said.
But it may merely be a coincidence.
According to a 3rd Ward employee, city inspectors were acting on a complaint about the building’s fire escape, which had a problem with a step. Tenants would have been forced to move if the building did not have proper fire safety certificate, and could still be vacated if work on the fire stairway does not commence.
The raids are the first significant loft inspections in Williamsburg since January, 2008, when a Kent Avenue building was cleared out after buildings inspectors discovered an illegal matzo factory in the basement.
A new loft law, signed by Gov. Paterson four weeks ago, is designed to protect tenants in illegally occupied manufacturing buildings from landlord harassment and rental hikes, but would not prevent evictions if the building itself has significant safety violations.