No End In Sight to Battle Between Crown Heights Tenants and Renaissance Realty
A crowd of protestors clad in winter jackets and hoodies crowd the sidewalk. They chant “Shame on you” and “Tenants are united” to the tune of nineties pop hits. Occasionally they belt out “We shall overcome.” Perhaps to ward off the cold, they trudge up and down the pavement, singing in unison. Television journalists and police cars surround the scene, halting traffic on the roads.
Diana Richardson, a New York state legislator, looks upwards to the second-floor office of Renaissance Realty and shouts, “We know you’re there. Come out and face us.” She knows how to play to the gallery, and her voice rouses the thickset workers and elderly ladies composing the brunt of the protestors.
The rally is the latest flare-up in a tenant-landlord dispute which has gone on for more than one and a half years. Headed by Michael Schultz, Renaissance Realty owns tens of properties all across Brooklyn in areas primed for gentrification such as Brownsville and Bushwick. They boast a real estate portfolio of 8,000,000 square feet.
But it is their recent purchase of two apartment buildings in Crown Heights that has attracted the unwelcome attention of the media, politicians and advocacy groups. According to tenants in 285 Schenectady Avenue and 1640 Union Street, soon after acquiring the properties, the real estate company doubled and tripled their rents to throw out long-time residents in favor of “gentrifiers” who can afford to pay more.
Tim Thomas, a community board member, who has closely observed their clash, says the dispute has shown that the neighborhood is the epicenter of New York’s City struggle to keep housing affordable for the thousands who are being priced out of their homes.
In a bid to evict low-paying tenants from the apartments, Renaissance has sued twelve tenants for refusing to pay their new rents. Now what was a simple landlord-tenant dispute has been dragged through several courts, leaving the fates of occupants in both buildings up in the air.
But both sides insist they are in the right, and it is unclear who will come out on top. According to Sarah Telson, an attorney working with the tenants, “it’s a simple matter of deciding, when multiple clauses contradict each other, which clause is the more important.” Nonetheless, she is hopeful of winning the case, she said.
The tenants have insisted that it is illegal for landlords to double their rents under New York’s housing guidelines. In fact, if property owners raise rents beyond the permitted level, the city can punish them by pushing the level of rent back to rent-regulated levels for two or three years, said Telson.
Renaissance Realty’s refusal to repair their apartments could also warrant a similar penalty. Residents in 285 Schenectady Avenue have reported 231 outstanding Housing Maintenance Code Violations alone, according to the city’s data. Such infringements could range from not repairing a leaky faucet to failing to deal with a rat infestation in the ceiling.
Even though landlords are legally obligated to issue repairs, it can take sometimes up to several years for the Housing Department to answer and deal with complaints.
Besides pointing out legal violations, some of the tenants make more emotional arguments. After staying for years and cleaning up Crown Heights, they feel they deserve to live in the neighborhood. “I’ve been here for thirty years, we’ve cleaned it up. Now it’s worth something. Now they want to kick us out,” said Arthur King, a 76-year old resident of 1640 Union Street. According to him, when Crown Heights was a haven for drug-peddlers and crooks, him and many of the residents co-operated with the police to push crime out of the area.
Another resident, Julian West, said Renaissance pushed his rent up from $1385 to $1885, about a fifty percent increase. Even with his social security pay check and money earned from working part-time at the weekends, he can barely afford his new lease.
Though Renaissance’s rent-gouging may suggest skullduggery, many of these tenants signed “preferential rent-leases”. These contracts allow landlords to charge less than the market rate, keeping their properties occupied in tough economic times. But when the neighborhood begins to pick up, they can boost rents beyond the legal amount when the lease is up.
“Preferential rent leases are the number one threat to the housing stock in the city,” says Richardson. As a former community board member, she has watched the problems surrounding affordable housing in Crown Heights grow. For her, the right to stay in the neighborhood is an issue close to her heart. She went to high school and college in the area, and her own office is only a few blocks away from 280 Schenectady Avenue.
Such hyperbole, however, does not square with the fact that housing with preferential rents tends to be affordable, at least while they’re in effect. But the way rents can jump up can give a nasty surprise to residents, who may have enjoyed the stability of living in a neighborhood for many years.
West said, “For 20 years, we were a happy family.” Now he fears his stay in Crown Heights will come to an end.
Celia Weaver, a housing activist at the Urban Homesteading board, said without a deal or a victory in the courts, the tenants are in real risk of being thrown out on the streets. According to Coalition for the Homeless, a non-profit that tracks homelessness in New York City, evictions are one of the main reasons for the increasing numbers of homeless people in shelters and streets today.
Local politicians are only too aware of the urgency of the issue. Since Renaissance Realty took the tenants to court, Laurie Cumbo, a member of New York’s City Council, has made multiple offers to cut a deal. In the past, the city has made similar agreements with large landlords to stave off rent increases. Back in early February, Alma Realty received a tax break in return for keeping rents of 700 apartments at rent-regulated levels.
Richardson believes both parties can benefit from a compromise. There are ways to bolster Renaissance’s profits without evicting deep-rooted residents from their homes, she said. But so far, Schultz has been unwilling to budge.
At the moment, the case sits on the New York Supreme Court docket, and both camps are lawyering up in preparation for the trial. For now, though, tenants will get to sit on the stoop, chat with their neighbors and cart their groceries. That is, until the circus starts again.
Corrections: When the article was first published, Arthur King’s age was listed as 56 years old. In fact, he is 76 years old.
