Remember those pesky Artist-in-Resident laws down in Soho? You know, the ones that say only "artists," as defined by the Department of Cultural Affairs, can live in the 200 or so buildings that were converted from commercial to residential use? The laws have been hampering real estate deals for some time, and now a group of concerned neighbors wants to abolish the AiR laws forever.
Non-artists had been quietly ignoring the laws for years, moving in and out of gorgeous, expensive Soho lofts without being officially certified as artists (because, really, how many artists are living around the corner from Kelly Ripa and Jon Bon Jovi?). Everything was going just fine until last year, when the city suddenly began to care, and now sellers, like Bon Jovi, who put his penthouse on the market to the tune of $30 million, are feeling the burn.
So the Soho/Noho Action Committee, a group of concerned neighborhood residents, is meeting tonight at St. Anthony's Church to push for the "archaic" laws to be overturned. As one broker told The Post, "Ninety percent of the people here are living illegally."
