Incentra Village House, a mid-19th-century boutique hotel in Greenwich Village, advertises itself as a cozy place to sleep in one of New York City’s most famous neighborhoods. A stay in one of its dozen rooms, decorated with antique furnishings and artwork, can cost upward of $400 a night.
But in a lawsuit filed on Monday, city officials said that Incentra is actually an illegally converted apartment building that was not approved to be a hotel. The building also lacks the right fire alarms and sprinklers, among other fire safety violations, the city asserted.
The lawsuit was the first to be filed by the city in connection with Local Law 18, which went into effect in 2023 and essentially banned short-term rentals of less than 30 days unless the host is present. Companies like Airbnb vigorously fought the law; the number of listings posted on their platforms plummeted after it went into effect.
Incentra has been fighting the city to stay open for the past few years, according to the lawsuit. One room, named the Stonewall Room in a nod to the Stonewall Inn, was an “illegally created unsafe cellar room,” the lawsuit says. It was accessible only by a rickety staircase, and one guest said it had “no means of escape, should anything happen.” The city aims to shut the hotel down and force the owner to fix the violations.
As of Monday afternoon, Incentra’s website was still up and rooms appeared to be available. The hotel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, is one of the latest examples of the city’s continuing fight against illegal short-term rentals. City officials said Incentra’s rooms had been accessible to guests on platforms like Airbnb and TripAdvisor.
City officials and housing advocates have long complained that units in such hotels are unsafe, and that they remove apartments from the housing stock at a time when the city is facing its worst housing shortage in more than 50 years.
Local Law 18 requires property owners to register with the city in order to rent out homes on a short-term basis to one or two guests. Such rentals are legal only if the host is present during the stay and the guests can access the entire place.
To collect fees associated with the short-term stays, booking companies like Airbnb must check that the host’s registration application has been approved by the city. Platforms could be fined up to $1,500 for transactions involving illegal rentals.
Before the law went into effect, the city estimated there were roughly 10,800 Airbnb listings that were illegal short-term rentals. City officials said on Monday that since the law took effect, it had approved more than 3,000 registrations for legal short-term rentals.
Some homeowners say the city is being too heavy-handed by prohibiting them from doing what they want with their homes. Hotel prices are high, and many housing advocates have pointed out that the law has not made the city more affordable.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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