It is apparent that the protections afforded nonpurchasing tenants were necessitated by the change in the owner’s economic incentives as a result of the conversion. In the case of a rental building, it is to the owner’s economic benefit to retain a nonobjectionable tenant who is paying a market rent. In that situation, the owner’s interest coincides with the tenant’s interest in not being dislocated and with the public interest in stable and undisrupted tenancies. However, after a conversion, the apartment may be more valuable to the owner empty than occupied by a tenant, even one paying a market rent. In that case, it is in the owner’s economic interest to evict the tenant, and the interest of the owner diverges from those of the tenant and the public. It is, in our view, against this financial incentive to displace the nonpurchasing tenant that the Legislature sought to protect. As the Legislative Finding (L 1982, ch 555, § 1) makes clear, there is a “public interest” in avoiding such dislocations, and statutes promoting a public interest are to be liberally construed (McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 341).