A new law that goes into effect in the new year will not permit single-resident-occupancy buildings (SROs) to rent rooms for less than 30 days unless they get a new certificate of occupancy and, in many cases, a zoning exemption, according to an article in yesterday's edition of The New York Daily News by James Panero, the managing editor of The New Criterion.

"If you want to stay at the Alexander, a boutique hotel on 94th St. on the upper West Side," the article said, "you better book your room soon. With plush bedding, sparkling renovated bathrooms and a welcoming staff, this hotel has received great reviews online. Problem is, the only guests who may stay here in the new year could be the homeless."

"In comes Samaritan Village. On Dec. 10, this Queens-based substance abuse and mental-health center gave notice to the local community board that it intends to run a 200-bed homeless facility out of the Alexander, according to community sources and confirmed by a spokesman for Samaritan," the article continued, adding that "so out goes this legitimate hotel, its hardworking employees, the happy tourists and a revenue engine for the city."

State Sen. Liz Krueger has largely kept supportive housing out of the wealthiest portion of her district, the upper East Side, but she has championed legislation in Albany amending the multiple-dwelling law that could result in more than a dozen new supportive-house facilities opening in the old SROs on the upper West Side.

Krueger and her political allies - including Councilwoman Gail Brewer and State Assembly members Richard Gottfried and Linda Rosenthal - may believe they are protecting tenants' rights by preventing the proliferation of small hotels into SRO buildings. Instead, their beneficence has only managed to clear these buildings of useful small businesses, while protecting the special interests of the hotel workers' union, since the targeted SRO hotels generally employ nonunion labor.

By Krueger's own tally, once the new legislation goes into effect in 2011, it will impact 280 buildings citywide.

"The conversion of a welcome local institution into a shelter for the city's indigent population may sound like deja vu all over again to longtime residents of the upper West Side like me," the article maintained, adding that "it may be the beginning of a broader attack on urban sanity and gentrification throughout the city."

The article said that neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, Harlem, Chelsea and the East Village have "borne an unfair burden of New York's supportive housing industry" despite the "fair share" law in the city Charter "that requires social service facilities to be evenly distributed through all neighborhoods."

West 94th and 95th Streets alone "have seen half-a-dozen such institutions proposed in recent years, from homeless shelters to drug treatment centers to halfway houses," according to the article, and "the residents of these two tree-lined streets - with their public schools, nursery schools and family residences - must wonder what they did to deserve such generosity."