From the NY Times:Tenants at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the sprawling middle-class apartment complexes on the East Side of Manhattan, won a major victory over their landlord on Thursday when an appeals court ruled that the company had wrongfully raised rents and deregulated thousands of apartments after receiving special tax breaks.
The decision, issued by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, could ultimately cost the landlord, Tishman Speyer Properties, $200 million if it is required to repay residents of more than 3,000 apartments for improper rent increases over the past four years, said a lawyer for the tenants.
Landlords say the decision could also affect hundreds of other apartment house owners who, like Tishman Speyer, obtained tax breaks under the city’s J-51 tax program for property renovations and then raised rents beyond certain set levels. The Appellate Division ruled that apartments must remain rent-regulated as long as the building owners enjoy J-51 tax benefits.
19 comments:
No help from ACORN.
oh no, they only want to BUILD thousands of new apartments in someone else's neighborhood.
When it comes to people of modest means being pushed out of Manhattan they have no comment.
That is because they are stooges for the developers (who live in communities where working people are being pushed out)
Missing Foundation, you are very silly. I will even venture to say you strike me as being of slightly below-average intelligence.
You may as well yell and scream that Stuy Town got no help from NYCHA, and this proves that public housing is a totally ineffective measure. What do you really know about ACORN? Before you respond, try and separate opinion from fact.
I am glad that this finding was reached. Why should ordinary taxpayers receive no quid pro quo when the tax breaks are passed out?
A major reason that we cough up this money is to create housing for the working classes who provide others with necessary services such as clerical, customer service, janitorial, restaurant, and other forgotten, low-paid jobs that keep the city going.
What do you really know about ACORN?
You wanna take me on?
Suggest not kiddies.
Just spend your time as a front for developers bringing thousands unbidden into people's neighborhoods and settling them in brownfields.
Assholes
A major reason that we cough up this money is to create housing for the working classes who provide others with necessary services such as clerical, customer service, janitorial, restaurant, and other forgotten, low-paid jobs that keep the city going.
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What are you a temp agency? This is a city where people should be welcome in any community.
Why are you keeping your mouth shut about people of modest means being pushed out of Manhattan and Brooklyn's Gold Coast.
What have you done to fight for rent stabilization?
Shit. All you guys do is plump for more development using the 'affordable; canard to sucker in the very people you claim to help.
Then only a faction of units are built.
Then the 'affordable' figure is something stupid like $75,000
Then the housing is built well away from the rich people and dumped into a poor community further concentrating poverty.
They are a front for the developers AND the machine.
When yuppies show up they may not want to vote for the clubhouse.
ACORN makes sure the 'right' people FLOOD into a district.
If you want affordable housing, how many can you build? A few thousand?
Cut taxes.
Overnight 100,000s of apartments will become more affordable.
But that would mean no developer makes money.
But that would cut into the clubhouse's revenues, eh?
We all know money is the mother's milk of politics.
Dear Snake, When I say affordable I am speaking primarily of maintaining the existing rent-stabilization stock including the one where I presently reside. I am sorry that you misunderstood my meaning.
As far as fighting to preserve stabilization, my own story includes 7:00am meetings with the Queens DA's office and Internal Affairs from the Buildings Department as well as complaints to DOB, HPD, Vallone's office and Gianaris's office.
This from a completely apolitical clerk fighting for her home. As far as Acorn goes, I am no expert, but I will say that they seem to be helpful. When I was looking to escape from a very dangerous landlord, they got me on lists for affordable housing and tried to arrange a tax-advantaged mortgage for me. They may have their own agendas but they are not all bad.
Was Vallone and Gianaris helpful?
Gianaris actually was. His assistant kept tormenting DOB and HPD until they sent inspectors out and got my landlord to rebuild my apartment. He kept me from homelessness.
What do you really know about ACORN?
You wanna take me on?
Suggest not kiddies.
Oh, I see.
So, your answer is you KNOW absolutely nothing. You just like to IMPLY stuff.
Good work. Just what made America great.
Gianaris actually was. His assistant kept tormenting DOB and HPD until they sent inspectors out and got my landlord to rebuild my apartment. He kept me from homelessness.
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This is the second posting in recent days that Gianaris was helpful.
I am starting to think that he has a staff person to post nice things because, outside of insulting the Con Ed workers that live in our community, he has done precious little and is has his spot solely as a clubhouse hack.
Oh, I see.
So, your answer is you KNOW absolutely nothing. You just like to IMPLY stuff.
Good work. Just what made America great.
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Democratic Dictionary
Ignorance = Archie Bunker, Lightening Rod, Loose Cannon
Tolerant, intelligent, speaking your mind = mouthing the party line.
For the person who suspects a Gianaris shill is on this blog. Please paste the following link into your browser and see what turns up:http://167.153.4.71/Hpdonline/select_application.aspx
You need to access the complaint history and see "collapsing ceilings." The record at HPD for this building has been largely wiped clean with help from crooks. The no hot water and damaged floors (actually holes) still exist. I don't use actual names and addresses because my landlord can google too.
Please also see the Board of Elections financial disclosures for the our favorite Jackson Heights politico for 2008. This man has given the monster several thousand dollars and in return this has received expert instruction in tormenting rent-stabilized and controlled tenants including getting lessons on how to misuse police and mental health agencies. These matters have been brought to the attention of the Queens DA's office and state officials.
Please note apartments in this hellhole rent for over a thousand a month and the entire building is for sale for 2.6 million. The new tenants haven't a clue who did their wiring.
Oh by the way, I forgot to mention. After you access the HPD record, access the records for several other sites on the same street owned by the same people. You will note a record of the destruction of property of adjacent homeowners, trespass onto other people's land and stopped construction.
my my my for an astoria resident you are really up on things.
better join some local civics.
that community is about to need all the grey matter they can marhsal.
your typical astorian never gets that service from their reps, so count yourself a very very very lucky person.
Oh by the way, I forgot to mention. After you access the HPD record, access the records for several other sites on the same street owned by the same people. You will note a record of the destruction of property of adjacent homeowners, trespass onto other people's land and stopped construction
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so what are you doing about it? ready to join some local civic to fight the destruction of your community by developers?
Or now your new buddy has taken care of things everything is ok.
I am doing better than that. Arrests will be coming wait and see. Its much more personal than political. Revenge is best served cold.
I like the person who tells me to join the civics. Have you ever been afraid you might be murdered? My brother's best friend had his mother murdered in a busy schoolyard with children at play over a landlord tenant dispute.
Fortunately, this was when the men of Astoria still had a set of balls and the hitman was run down by a mob, beaten and arrested. When he talked, the landlord joined him in jail.
I cannot tell you what it means to be unsure whether someone will break into your house at night, come home to find your house looking with the fire-bombing of Dresden or know that police and mental health professionals have been called on you and your neighbors for the crime of being rent-stabilized or rent controlled.
I am still in my apartment because I fight like a bag of cats. I have involved officials on the city, state and federal levels and will continue to do so. When you read about the arrests on the front page of the Post, News and Times, tell me to join the civics.
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