I’m excited to feature another one of our contestants for the Dispatches from Rental Hell Video Contest. An article about the struggle appears after the video.
Article about the Janel Towers struggle:
The building I live at is Janel Towers in the Bronx. Our building is a former Mitchell Lama building. The Mitchell Lama program is New York’s premier affordable housing program. Unfortunately many landlords are permitted to buy out of the program to the detriment of the tenants.
Our building was bought by Larry Gluck of Stellar Management several years ago. Although we entered rent stabilization upon buyout, we received notice from the Division of Housing and Community Renewal that our landlord was requesting a rent increase to market rate for our tenants using a loophole in the rent stabilization law citing “unique or peculiar circumstances.” Our tenant association has been forced to retain legal counsel at a great financial sacrifice to the individual tenants. We are currently fighting this battle in court. If our landlord succeeds in court many of our tenants would be forced to leave the homes that they have enjoyed for so many years. So our tenants live in constant fear of being displaced.
In addition the tenants who have moved into our building after the buyout are paying significantly higher rents, a number of them in deregulated apartments. Unregulated tenants do not enjoy the protections that rent stabilized tenants have. On lease renewal, for example, the landlord can charge whatever rent he wants and in fact is not even obligated to offer a lease renewal. Many of the newer tenants do not last long in our building.
Unfortunately our situation is not unique. Our landlord has bought over 15 other Mitchell Lamas where he has either deregulated the building entirely or is attempting to raise rents to market rate using the “unique or peculiar” loophole. In fact several years ago an organization of Stellar Management tenant associations (Stellar Tenants for Affordable Housing) held a rally about our landlord in Times Square while he was receiving a special Developer of the Year award from a real estate group. While real estate moguls celebrated in opulence upstairs, tenants downstairs rallied in the streets presenting a special award to our landlord Larry Gluck, “Affordable Housing Destroyer of the Year”.
In order to protect our tenants we need the state legislature to pass 2 bills this session. The first bill is S3326/A4359 which protects all Mitchell Lama tenants in buildings that have already bought out of the program and will do so in the future. It also eliminates the unique or peculiar loophole. The other bill is the Vacancy Decontrol bill S2237/A2005 that will eliminate vacancy decontrol so that we do not loose anymore rent stabilized units. It will also reregulate apartments that have been lost by vacancy decontrol. It is imperative that these bills are passed this session, not only for our tenants at Janel Towers but for all tenants throughout the city.
History will judge this legislature. When tenants were at risk of losing their homes, did they act quickly and decisively? Our future is depending upon it!
Barry Soltz
Legal Coordinator and Organizer
Janel Towers Tenants Association
