Landlord Illegally Subdividing Units at Prospect Heights Building: Tenants

By Rachel Holliday Smith

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — The landlord of a 1920s-era Eastern Parkway building has been illegally subdividing a number of units, then turning around and listing them as rental properties, tenants say, prompting the city to slap the building with a series of stop work orders.

The Department of Buildings ordered construction to cease at 85 Eastern Parkway last month, after tenants — many of them rent-stabilized — complained that work had been underway for more than a year to split some of the building’s larger apartments into a pair of smaller units.

Full article, published in DNAinfo.com on December, 23 2015

NYU Furman Center Brief Examines Tenant Characteristics in NYC's Stabilized & Market-Rate Housing

According to the brief, rent-stabilized housing serves many low-income New Yorkers. In 2011, roughly 66% of tenants living in rent-stabilized units had ‘low incomes’ (less than $58,950 in 2011) compared to roughly 54% of tenants of market-rate units.

In Manhattan, the difference in income levels of households living in rent-stabilized units and those living in market rate rental units was striking. The typical household living in a market-rate rental unit in 2011 had an income more than double that of the typical household living in a stabilized unit.

Rent-stabilized units also house a greater share of households led by seniors. Citywide, over 23% of rent-stabilized households are led by a senior, compared to just 7% of market-rate households. In addition, citywide, stabilized units house a greater share of minority households, though the shares range significantly by borough. In Manhattan, for example, 52% of rent-stabilized households were non-white, compared to just 27% of market-rate rental households.

The brief also finds that contract rents for stabilized units were significantly less than contract rents for market-rate units in 2011. In 2011, stabilized units rented for about $1,235 per month less than market-rate units in core Manhattan (which includes community districts MN 01-08) , but only $228 less than market-rate units outside of core Manhattan.

Full introduction to the Brief and the Document here

Brooklyn landlords illegally harassed, targeted rent-stabilized tenants: suit

A group of Brooklyn tenants have filed a federal lawsuit against two landlords, accusing the defendants of illegally trying to force them out of their rent-stabilized apartments to make room for new renters who pay market rates.

The Flatbush Development Corporation and the Flatbush Tenants Coalition, along with 11 named tenants, filed the housing discrimination case Monday in Brooklyn federal court.

They’re seeking unspecified damages, according to the suit.

Most of the plaintiffs — who live in three buildings on Hawthorne Ave. and Brooklyn Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens — have resided in the complex for decades, according to court documents.

The suit alleges that landlords Yeahaya “Shay” Wasserman and Yitzchock Rambod, Homewood Gardens Estates LLC and Eastern Hawthorne Realty 651 LLC have violated the Fair Housing Act as well as city and state human rights laws.

The landlords targeted longstanding black tenants who lived in rent-stabilized apartments, the suit contends.

The plaintiffs pay anywhere from $600 to $1,400 a month for 52 three-bedroom units in the three buildings, according to the lawsuit.

Calls to the offices of Wasserman and Rambod were not returned Tuesday. Their office at Eastern Hawthorne Realty was closed for Passover, a sign said.

The tenants, represented by lawyers from Legal Services NYC, say they were the victims of a systematic pattern of harassment, neglect and frivolous housing lawsuits designed to force them out to make room for new tenants paying double the rent.

The group claims the landlords, who bought the buildings in 2009, have neglected to do repairs in black-occupied units.

The defendants have also taken tenants to housing court with falsified claims and left rent checks uncashed in an attempt to evict rent-stabilized residents, the lawsuit asserts.

Black tenants were also forced to get rid of pets and washing machines, the suit says.

Full article in The Daily News, Brooklyn Section (15 April 2014)

Huge Addition to Prospect Heights Building Worries Tenants

Residents of the six-story building at 85 Eastern Parkway were shocked when they learned that their landlord wanted to construct an addition atop the building that would double the size of the structure. The plans were first filed in January and called for a seven-story addition that would up the number of units from 42 to 88. DNAinfo reports that the Department of Buildings has since rejected that application, but the project is by no means dead. In March, the building owner, Mordechai Nagel, sent a letter to tenants regarding the addition, noting that plans are still "at an early feasibility and planning stage," but they should "expect a degree of inconvenience as there always is during construction activity."

The apartments are currently a mix of market-rate and rent-stabilized-units, and many tenants have lived in the building for decades. Tenants are, obviously, very worried about the project, and they've started tracking the development on a tenants association website. Chief among the tenants' concerns are the credentials of the hired architect, Sandor Weiss. In 2002, Weiss was fined $5,000 for not properly reviewing plans before signing off, and DOB records show that he has been disciplined twice for improperly wielding his self-certification powers, which he had to surrender in the past.

The plan for the addition still hasn't been approved by the Department of Buildings, but an alteration permit for the "removal of interior partition and plumbing fixtures" was approved in March. Additionally, permits were approved for the renovation of a first floor apartment in January, but the project was hit with a Stop Work Order in March. Shortly after that, the DOB issued another violation after finding workers doing plumbing in violation of the original SWO. The SWO still stands.

The building sits between Washington and Underhill Avenues across the parkway from the Brooklyn Museum. It was constructed in 1922, but it's not located in a historic district. All of the buildings on the block have a similar aesthetic and the immediate neighbors are roughly the same height as no. 85. But the block (which is oddly long due to the street grid in this area) is bookended by 15-story and 12-story buildings, so a 13-story building wouldn't be too out of place—unless, of course, the addition is some garish glass monstrosity.

Article by Jessica Dailey on Curbed.com (New York) on 10 April 2014

Eastern Parkway Residents Fear 7-Story Apartment Building Addition

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Plans for a six-story building near Grand Army Plaza to more than double in height have residents worried their home will be disrupted by years of construction.

The owner of 85 Eastern Parkway, a 42-unit complex near Underhill Avenue, has filed an application to build a seven-story addition on top of the building, records show. Tenants of the building called The Martha Washington said they fear being bombarded by noise and dust, and even being moved out of their apartments.

“The whole block is in an uproar,” said 23-year resident Alison Kelley, who walks with a service dog and worries about elevator access to her fourth-floor apartment during construction.

Residents of the mixed market-rate and rent-stabilized building near the Brooklyn Museum first heard about the planned 30,000-square-foot addition when a real estate website wrote about an application building owner Mordechai Nagel and architect Sandor Weiss filed with the Department of Buildings on Jan. 10.

The DOB rejected the application, saying drawings provided were incomplete, DOB records show.

Full article by Rachel Holliday Smith on DNAinfo.com, 10 April 2014