[Image via Streeteasy]
Via the EVG inbox...
Tenants of 118 East 4th Street in the East Village appear back in Manhattan Housing Court on Thursday March 3rd at 9:30 AM as part of ongoing litigation against their landlord, Jared Kushner. Tenants are calling for the immediate restoration of essential services and for living conditions to be rectified.
The tenants have recently endured bouts of no heat, mounding trash, and have been without cooking gas since October 2015. Con Ed shut down all gas for the building and Jared Kushner has yet to take the necessary procedures with the city to restore it. This comes on top of the landlord’s failure to repair a multitude of potentially dangerous conditions in the building, including:
• No cooking gas
• Collapsed ceilings
• Questionably safe electrical systems
• Mounding trash
• Deprivation of heat
• Apartments entered without notice
• Blocked mail delivery
• Vermin
The tenants filed an HP Action for repairs and services in January to seek a remedy for these unsafe conditions. The landlord received a default judgement at the first court appearance on February 4th as Kushner failed to appear in court to address matters – a sign the tenants interpret as further disregard for the issues they face. At the time of a previous court appearance, the building had a total of 17 open violations with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, including 4 considered “immediately hazardous.” The current violation count is now 35 in total with 8 class “C” immediately hazardous violations. A motion was recently filed in court to hold Kushner in contempt of court due to the lack of restoration of services.
You can read the whole notice at the Cooper Square Committee website. The news advisory includes quotes from Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, State Sen. Brad Hoylman and Councilwoman Rosie Mendez.
It hasn't been easy at 118-120 E. Fourth St. through the years. Ben Shaoul's Magnum Management, in partnership with Meadow Partners, bought the buildings in late 2010. Fortune East LLC reportedly managed the buildings. The blog Occupy East Fourth Street had been documenting renovation horror stories. (Like this one.)
Kushner bought the buildings during his East Village land grab in February 2013.
Occupy East Fourth Street continues documenting the situation inside No. 118. Here's a post from Feb. 14:
Woke up this morning to 7 degrees, its now 14 degrees outside, and no heat at 118 East St. Through some communications with the other tenants, it seems the heat is on in one line of the building. That line contains the market rate tenants. There are 2 other heat lines that are off and those lines contain the majority of rent stabilized tenants, including some senior citizens in fragile health. I think one or two market rate folks are getting the frozen treatment if they are unfortunate enough to reside above or below a rent stabilized tenant. Calls to the Westminster office provide no results as usual. There seems to be a Westminster person living in 118 at the moment. A call put into him goes unanswered and he has no voice mail set up on his phone. The same goes for the "Super". No answer. No voice mail set up on phone.
27 comments:
"...quotes from Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, State Sen. Brad Hoylman and Councilwoman Rosie Mendez" - and as usual, that will be the extent of their involvement in this dangerous and illegal situation. I wish I knew why no one in a position of power to do something to change situations like this doesn't step up and begin the process to change the laws, so as to allow the city to remove buildings from the predatory grasp of these bloodsucking vermin that are the new overlords in NYC. We really have been abandoned on all sides.
#drumpf
This type of injustice is a violation these people's human rights.
More EVIL in the East Vill. #DrumpfThis
The problem is Con Ed and Dob with getting gas restored. Politicians should know this and try to encourage Con Ed and DOB to speed up the process.
what happened to that mayor's anti harassment unit that was unveiled with all that fanfare and press. diblasio what press event are you at today?
are they waiting till every non-market rate apartment is gone?
CB#3 should immediately call for an emergency meeting with ALL representatives (city, state, fed) and tenant reps and the DA, HPD, DOB etc.
this is not rocket science, it is bureaucratic do nothings.
or perhaps a massive rent strike in the east village
Jared Kushner is too busy traveling the country and standing on stage with the short fingered vulgarian and is therefore too busy to deal with this insignificant issue. Tenant Rights? How gauche of an idea for a dilettante to deal with.
Westminster Management = Oxymoron.
What Management?
My friend at 426 E14th St (Not a Kushner building) has had no cooking gas since October 2015 as well, due to a fire in the ground floor storefront. Not sure if building management is neglecting it, but it does seem that the process is extremely inefficient and slow - the city needs to approve a permit so a private plumber can do an inspection, before Con Ed can even do anything. Either way it seems management has taken the hands off approach.
All I can say is nonviolence is the answer. Whatever the tenants do, they must obey the law. If the tenants have to endure these acts of violence in order to obey the law, then they must.
He did this to my building a few years ago trying to drive people out. We went a full week in January with 20F temps: no heat or hot water. He's a scumbag.
Kushner & his Westminster lackeys know full well how to take advantage of the ineptitude of the DOB, HPD & Con Ed, and the local politicians are absolutely powerless. Westminster will fix things if & when they have done everything they can to drive out the stabilized tenants.
Is this what we can expect from a Trump presidency?!
Kusher bought the Puck building and is selling condos there. Not a long walk from our neighborhood; if the EV tenants invited us to join them in a protest there, I'm sure they would get many takers (including me).
Kushner, ICON all of these slumlords need to be put on some sort of "do not rent" database. These are basic human rights and it is immoral what they are doing. Greed is a powerful drug!
Kushner's corporate website boasts of "economies of scale". That means they neglect their tenants and maintenance of buildings in order to rake in profits for their investors. They do this not just where they are trying to evict the rent-stabilized tenants but also where everyone is already paying market-rate (or higher--their units are over-priced).
No one in the media is even asking Trump about his support of eminent domain for corporate interests. It's about the only policy about which he has any kind of knowledge and has his unequivocal approval. He would even have a hard time explaining it away to his "big gub'mint" hating crowd. Instead, they spend their time asking him about all of his childish name-calling. Kushner is probably hoping to be appointed Secretary of HUD, then he & dad in law can divvy up the country.
DiBlasio needs to do something about all of the open violations on all of the Kushner properties.
The open dob/ecb violations are just sitting there with no enforcement.
Anonymous 12:02 PM
not true that 'DOB, HPD & Con Ed, and the local politicians are absolutely powerless". councilmember mendez's office has a con edison liaison, certainly other politicians do too. DOB, HPD, Con all have the power to speed up the process.
trouble is nobody wants to. there is no financial inducement to do so.
again where the f--- is the mayor's anti harassment unit?
Incredible it can get this far, bad, in the first place. ridiculous.
People have to die in an explosion for the city to pay attention- because that's bad press, and may affect the return for real estate investors.
Is this still the law? (This article is about 30 years old)
"The law says that if one-third of the tenants in a building petition the court out of health and safety concerns, the court can appoint an administrator, who becomes, in a sense, the acting landlord. The administrator collects the rent, maintains the building, sees to repairs -does, in short, what the landlord should have been doing."
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/31/nyregion/about-new-york-acting-landlord-has-to-act-well-like-a-landlord.html
If Kushner/Westminster really wants people out, isn't it easier to jut pay tenants to leave rather than wage these harassment and quality of living campaigns that drag on and on, and that could wind up really hurting someone, leaving a much bigger problem on their hands? If they'd just cough up real money and not piddly little 30K buyouts I'm sure lots of people would go. They can afford it. It's just stupid.
This is extremely typical of Westminster apartments. DO NOT RENT FROM THESE SLUMLORDS
Oh wow, this sounds like..... EVERY single apartment building around me. The sad thing is that after 15 years I seem to have become apathetic. Agreed there is no incentive and while I believe DeBlasio wants to help... 3 terms of Bloomberg and years of allowing New York State to oversee housing has us all perpetually living in squalor with little hope of incentive. Maybe we just need more luxury condos?
Many years ago a slumlord would get thrown in jail or have to live in the building they let fall apart until repairs were made. Seems the new money makes that a thing of the past, rent control is a dirty phrase when it comes to the "modern" real estate business.
I'm not a housing attorney, but it seems like you would immediately stop paying rent and put it into escrow. Then buy some space heaters (somewhat dangerous, but necessary) and save the receipts. Keep track of the increase in utility costs. Present it all to the court when Kushner tries to gain access to the escrow funds. Depending on the judge, you may end up with a few months of free rent.
there is court remedy - you can file a tenant initiated HP action, or you can withhold your rent and wait till the landlord takes you to court,
however, you can spend a year in court while the landlord has delays, adjournments, inspections of court ordered work, etc.
the tenant application for a "7A" administrator is a legal nightmare and i'm not sure if you can do so in a building that is NOT city-owned.
di blasio's anti-harassment mandates deal only with tenant buyouts and encourage aggressive harassment of a more aggressive nature (withholding services, etc.)
the best thing is for press and elected officials to move things along or to be a rich super-star.
Nic Fit! Thanks for the suggestion.
If DiBlasio wanted to do something he could.
If anyone watched the City Council meeting yesterday which was broadcast on tv, the Plumbers rep called for more inspectors to be hired by DOB. The DOB comish is appointed by DiBlasio and Bloomberg admin shows how much the Mayor can influence what goes on in the DOB. City money has not been even spent on ads advising people to call Con Ed in case of gas leak although there has been two major disasters and multiple deaths involved. The Dept of Buildings MAKES money for the City so the funds are there for more hirees and Con Ed also has the reserves to hire more. Parts of the city are aged and decrepit. Neighborhood preservation has its down side. And talking about down sides, who is tacking the issue of New York City's sewer systems?
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