Talk Bronx New York

A supposedly tenant-friendly bill touted by Bronx state Sen. Pedro Espada got an unfriendly reception Wednesday at City Hall.

Standing on the steps of City Hall with several dozen sign-carrying supporters, Espada (D-Bronx) told assembled reporters that his recently introduced bill would help some 700,000 low- and moderate-income New Yorkers by freezing their rents in stabilized apartments.

As he spoke, he didn’t notice that some opponents of the bill had infiltrated his supporters and were holding up signs reading, “Evict Espada, Protect Tenant Rights” and “Beware Of This Bill.”

Some Espada supporters tried to cover up the anti-bill signs with pro-bill ones, and vice versa. The scuffling prompted Espada to cut his press conference short.

He grumbled that “many of the people who have taken their positions against this proposal haven’t read the proposal at all.” Read more..

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A group of Bronx tenants were crowing Tuesday after scoring a court victory that rolls back recent rent hikes and could bolster rent regulation protections across the city.

Tenants at 1600 Sedgwick Ave. sued their landlord, Riverview Redevelopment, for hiking rents on 80 apartments after removing them from a federal rent regulation program, which the tenants’ lawyers argue was done illegally.

In late December, a Bronx state Supreme Court judge issued a preliminary injunction, ruling that the landlord must charge regulated rents.

“We are thrilled that this judge agrees that our landlord - whether they like it or not - must charge rent-stabilized rates,” said tenant leader Cora Bennett, who was targeted for eviction for refusing to pay the added rent.

The court cited a March appeals court ruling that Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village landlord Tishman Speyer could not deregulate apartments while receiving J-51 tax abatements and exemptions from the city.

Riverview Redevelopment has collected over $150,000 in the same tax breaks since 2000, according to the Urban Justice Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of tenants.

“By extending the victory of the tenants in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the state Supreme Court’s preliminary injunction has put all predatory landlords on notice,” said UJC attorney Garrett Wright.

Riverview Redevelopment took the 80 apartments out of the federal Below Market Interest Rate program early last year and then hiked rents by hundreds of dollars. The landlord had already begun eviction proceedings against a half a dozen tenants for nonpayement of rent by the time UJC filed suit. Read more..

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At 2254 Crotona Avenue in the Bronx, one apartment was abandoned last year after parts of the ceiling collapsed

  As property owners run into trouble paying their mortgages, neighborhoods around New York City have been witnessing a disturbing consequence: Small and large apartment buildings are being abandoned in a state of disrepair, leaving tenants in limbo without basic services or even landlords.

In the Bronx, anybody can walk into a four-story building on East 178th Street near the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Someone took the front door off the hinges and sold it for scrap metal. Drugs have been sold out of vacant apartments.

“A nightmare,” said Cesar Guzman, 29, who lives in the building. “I can’t describe it as anything else.” Read more..

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The Maldonado family had been living without gas, electricity or hot water, but did not move out until the school year ended.

 As the school year sailed to a close last month, Arielle Figueras crossed the stage in her cap and gown and proudly accepted her fifth-grade diploma.

The next day, she was homeless.

Arielle, a petite 11-year-old, and her parents, brother and sister packed their belongings and arrived at the intake center for homeless families in the South Bronx. Though they had been fighting with their landlord for months and their gas and electricity had long been shut off, they refused to leave their apartment while school was in session.

“She was graduating, so we had to wait,” Arielle’s mother, Marilyn Maldonado, said. “We just didn’t want to disrupt their routines. We couldn’t do that to them.”

Many New Yorkers view summer as a time for vacations, camp and lazy days at the beach. But city officials have been preparing for quite a different summer ritual: the swelling of the population of homeless families.

They call it the summer surge, and say that this year could be the worst yet.

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 Rent-regulated Bronx tenants have a chance to be heard Monday by the body that decides the annual increase that landlords are allowed.

The Rent Guidelines Board will hold the first public hearing in the borough from 4 p.m. to 10p.m. in the Main Theatre of Hostos Community College at 450 Grand Concourse near 149th St.

People who want to speak can register at the site from 3:45 p.m. until 8 p.m., but speakers who pre-registered by phone last week will go first.

“I don’t think they deserve any increase unless they’re keeping up the buildings like they’re supposed to,” said Annie Owens, 68, a rent-regulated tenant in Mount Eden.

Owens echoes a familiar complaint from tenants in rent-regulated buildings, who see rents creep up even as conditions in their buildings deteriorate.

Tenant advocates charge that real estate companies and absentee landlords often buy up rent-regulated buildings and then let them decay - or worse, harass the tenants - in order to drive out longtime residents so their apartments can be rented at market rates.

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