The rally took place outside 256 E. 10th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, a building owned by Mark Scharfman.
Scharfman, who owns nearly 150 properties, has been on the Public Advocate's Worst Landlord List, coming in at number 44 in 2021 and number 28 in 2020. At No. 256, he has reportedly been taking tenants to court for eviction for withholding rent during a sewage leak.
Residents argued that the harassment and neglect they face today would get worse if landlords regained incentives to push tenants out so that they could raise rent-stabilized rents.
"We are already facing harassment from greedy landlords who refuse to make repairs and then try to evict us when we stand up for ourselves," said 256 tenant Irene Metaxatos. "Albany leaders should reject out of hand any changes to the rent stabilization law that would recreate the system rife with harassment and fraud that drove so many of my neighbors out of the building in the past."
Here's more background via the Cooper Square Committee:
Lawmakers are reportedly considering proposed increases to the cap on how much Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs) can be passed on to tenants in the form of rent hikes. A chart of how changes to the cap would impact rents is available here.Prior to 2019, IAIs were a driver of skyrocketing rents in rent-stabilized apartments and gave landlords a financial incentive to harass tenants to vacate apartments. Together with other measures like eviction bonuses and Major Capital Improvements, thousands of rent-stabilized units were deregulated.After decades of organizing, the tenant movement dramatically strengthened New York State’s rent stabilization law in 2019, limiting IAIs to a cap of $15,000, which translates to a monthly rent increase of approximately $89 a month.
On Friday, City & State reported that 21 elected officials in NYC wrote a letter "demanding that state leaders not rollback any part of the 2019 rent stabilization laws in any housing deal included as part of the budget."
Signees included city Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and 19 Council members — including nearly every member of the Council's Progressive Caucus.
Instead of going after innocent tenants,
ReplyDeleteAlbany should be going after the
slumlords and confiscating their
properties. We should have laws in
place that if you do not properly
maintain your property, and you
harass your tenants, you lose the
property.
thanks to all of you people standing strong and to the awesome cooper sq commitee!
ReplyDeleteCooper Square Committee is the best! The Real Estate Board of New York, the largest lobby in NY state who donates the most money to politicians, constantly lobbies, and undoubtedly writes bills like this to squeeze even more money out ofr tenants. The predatory capitalist real estate industry constantly lobbies for bills and introduces court cases (all the way to the Supreme Court) in order to further fleece tenants. Vive la revolution!
ReplyDeleteI suppose all you clueless activists would prefer that landlords lose money, dont make necessary repairs, abandon their properties, and we can go back to the way it was in the late 70s and early 80s in the South Bronx? News flash: we don't live in the Soviet Union and the profit incentive is the tool that has led to so many treasured new features of New York such as Brooklyn Bridge Park Improved quality and quantity of housing stock is key to new York's continued prosperity and that depends on INVESTMENT.
ReplyDeleteA Democratic governor and any mayor besides the one we got might help.
ReplyDelete"I suppose all you clueless activists would prefer that landlords lose money, dont make necessary repairs, abandon their properties, and we can go back to the way it was in the late 70s and early 80s in the South Bronx? News flash: we don't live in the Soviet Union and the profit incentive is the tool that has led to so many treasured new features of New York such as Brooklyn Bridge Park Improved quality and quantity of housing stock is key to new York's continued prosperity and that depends on INVESTMENT."
ReplyDeleteWell, well, lookie here, RENBY has chimed in with their usual bogus/zero empathy POV. BTW, your really need to brush up your current events, have you not heard, the Soviet Union does NOT exist anymore but Russia does. Soon to come is that tenant rights activists are Commie Pinkos which is rich since the MAGA REBNY crowd loves Putin, Xi Jinping & Kim Jong Un. Have a nice day comrade.
I think it's outrageous that there's an assumption that being a landlord guarantees turning a profit. As a long-term resident in the East Village, I've seen many hopeful shops open, fail and close. Restaurants come and go. Not every business adventure is successful and all businesses assume a risk. Landlords should be no different. They should also assume a risk that if they can't turn a profit well enough to properly maintain a building without harassing or illegally evicting tenants then they should lose their buildings to the city to run and manage and suffer the loss.
ReplyDelete